GeForce GTS 250 1GB vs Geforce GTX 680

Intro

Compare all of that to the Geforce GTX 680, which features core speeds of 1006 MHz on the GPU, and 1502 MHz on the 2048 MB of GDDR5 RAM. It features 1536 SPUs as well as 128 TAUs and 32 ROPs.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GTS 250 1GB		145 Watts
Geforce GTX 680		195 Watts
	Difference: 50 Watts (34%)

Memory Bandwidth

In theory, the Geforce GTX 680 should perform much faster than the GeForce GTS 250 1GB overall. (explain)

Geforce GTX 680		192256 MB/sec
GeForce GTS 250 1GB		70400 MB/sec
	Difference: 121856 (173%)

Texel Rate

The Geforce GTX 680 is quite a bit (approximately 173%) faster with regards to texture filtering than the GeForce GTS 250 1GB. (explain)

Geforce GTX 680		128768 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GTS 250 1GB		47232 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 81536 (173%)

Pixel Rate

The Geforce GTX 680 will be a lot (about 173%) faster with regards to FSAA than the GeForce GTS 250 1GB, and also able to handle higher resolutions without losing too much performance. (explain)

Geforce GTX 680		32192 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GTS 250 1GB		11808 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 20384 (173%)

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 information (counted in MB per second) that can be transferred across the external memory interface in a second. It is calculated by multiplying the interface width by the speed of its memory. If the card has DDR type RAM, the result should be multiplied by 2 once again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The better the card's memory bandwidth, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, High Dynamic Range and higher screen resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum number of texture map elements (texels) that can be applied per second. This figure is calculated by multiplying the total number of texture units of the card by the core speed of the chip. The higher the texel rate, 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 the graphics card can possibly write to its local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is calculated by multiplying the number of colour ROPs by the the core speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - sometimes also referred to as Render Output Units) are responsible for outputting the pixels (image) to the screen. The actual pixel fill rate also depends on quite a few other factors, especially the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the potential to get to the max fill rate.