GeForce GTS 150 vs Geforce GTX 680

Intro

Compare that to the Geforce GTX 680, which makes use of a 28 nm design. nVidia has clocked the core frequency at 1006 MHz. The GDDR5 memory is set to run at a speed of 1502 MHz on this card. It features 1536 SPUs along with 128 TAUs and 32 Rasterization Operator Units.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GTS 150		141 Watts
Geforce GTX 680		195 Watts
	Difference: 54 Watts (38%)

Memory Bandwidth

In theory, the Geforce GTX 680 will be 501% quicker than the GeForce GTS 150 overall, because of its greater bandwidth. (explain)

Geforce GTX 680		192256 MB/sec
GeForce GTS 150		32000 MB/sec
	Difference: 160256 (501%)

Texel Rate

The Geforce GTX 680 will be quite a bit (about 172%) faster with regards to AF than the GeForce GTS 150. (explain)

Geforce GTX 680		128768 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GTS 150		47360 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 81408 (172%)

Pixel Rate

If using a high screen resolution is important to you, then the Geforce GTX 680 is superior to the GeForce GTS 150, and very much so. (explain)

Geforce GTX 680		32192 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GTS 150		11840 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 20352 (172%)

Please note that the above 'benchmarks' are all just theoretical - the results were calculated based on the card's specifications, and real-world performance may (and probably will) vary at least a bit.

Price Comparison

Specifications

Memory Bandwidth: Bandwidth is the largest amount of information (counted in megabytes per second) that can be moved over the external memory interface in a second. It's calculated by multiplying the interface width by its memory speed. In the case of DDR memory, the result should be multiplied by 2 again. If DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The better the card's memory bandwidth, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, HDR and higher screen resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum texture map elements (texels) that can be applied per second. This number is calculated by multiplying the total amount of texture units by the core clock speed of the chip. The better the texel rate, the better the video card will be at texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels processed in one second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the most pixels that the graphics card can possibly record to its local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is calculated by multiplying the amount of colour ROPs by the the core speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also called Render Output Units) are responsible for filling the screen with pixels (the image). The actual pixel fill rate also depends on lots of other factors, especially the memory bandwidth - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the ability to reach the max fill rate.