GeForce GTS 250 512MB vs GeForce GTX 660 Ti

Intro

Compare all of that to the GeForce GTX 660 Ti, which comes with core clock speeds of 915 MHz on the GPU, and 1500 MHz on the 2048 MB of GDDR5 memory. It features 1344 SPUs as well as 112 Texture Address Units and 24 ROPs.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GTS 250 512MB		145 Watts
GeForce GTX 660 Ti		150 Watts
	Difference: 5 Watts (3%)

Memory Bandwidth

In theory, the GeForce GTX 660 Ti will be 105% quicker than the GeForce GTS 250 512MB in general, due to its higher data rate. (explain)

GeForce GTX 660 Ti		144000 MB/sec
GeForce GTS 250 512MB		70400 MB/sec
	Difference: 73600 (105%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 660 Ti will be a lot (more or less 117%) more effective at texture filtering than the GeForce GTS 250 512MB. (explain)

GeForce GTX 660 Ti		102480 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GTS 250 512MB		47232 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 55248 (117%)

Pixel Rate

The GeForce GTX 660 Ti will be much (approximately 86%) faster with regards to FSAA than the GeForce GTS 250 512MB, and capable of handling higher resolutions without losing too much performance. (explain)

GeForce GTX 660 Ti		21960 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GTS 250 512MB		11808 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 10152 (86%)

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 data (in units of MB per second) that can be moved across the external memory interface in one second. It's calculated by multiplying the card's interface width by the speed of its memory. In the case of DDR type RAM, the result should be multiplied by 2 once again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The higher 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 texture map elements (texels) that can be processed in one second. This is calculated by multiplying the total amount of texture units by the core 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 applied in a second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum amount of pixels that the graphics card can possibly write to the local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is worked out by multiplying the number of ROPs by the clock speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - aka Render Output Units) are responsible for outputting the pixels (image) to the screen. The actual pixel output rate is also dependant on quite a few other factors, especially the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the potential to reach the max fill rate.