GeForce GTS 150 vs Geforce GTX 680

Intro

Compare all of that to the Geforce GTX 680, which has a core clock frequency of 1006 MHz and a GDDR5 memory frequency of 1502 MHz. It also uses a 256-bit bus, and makes use of a 28 nm design. It is made up of 1536 SPUs, 128 Texture Address Units, and 32 Raster Operation 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

The Geforce GTX 680, in theory, should perform a lot faster than the GeForce GTS 150 in general. (explain)

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

Texel Rate

The Geforce GTX 680 will be a lot (about 172%) more effective at texture filtering than the GeForce GTS 150. (explain)

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

Pixel Rate

The Geforce GTX 680 should be a lot (approximately 172%) more effective at anti-aliasing than the GeForce GTS 150, and also capable of handling higher screen resolutions better. (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: Memory bandwidth is the max amount of data (in units of MB per second) that can be transported past the external memory interface in a second. It is worked out by multiplying the card's bus width by its memory speed. If the card has DDR type memory, the result should be multiplied by 2 once again. If DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The better the memory bandwidth, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, HDR and high resolutions.

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

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