GeForce GTS 250 512MB vs GeForce GTX 960

Intro

Compare all that to the GeForce GTX 960, which has a clock frequency of 1127 MHz and a GDDR5 memory speed of 1750 MHz. It also features a 128-bit memory bus, and makes use of a 28 nm design. It features 1024 SPUs, 64 TAUs, and 32 Raster Operation Units.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GTX 960		120 Watts
GeForce GTS 250 512MB		145 Watts
	Difference: 25 Watts (21%)

Memory Bandwidth

In theory, the GeForce GTX 960 will be 59% quicker than the GeForce GTS 250 512MB in general, because of its higher data rate. (explain)

GeForce GTX 960		112000 MB/sec
GeForce GTS 250 512MB		70400 MB/sec
	Difference: 41600 (59%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 960 should be quite a bit (about 53%) faster with regards to anisotropic filtering than the GeForce GTS 250 512MB. (explain)

GeForce GTX 960		72128 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GTS 250 512MB		47232 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 24896 (53%)

Pixel Rate

If running with high levels of AA is important to you, then the GeForce GTX 960 is the winner, by a large margin. (explain)

GeForce GTX 960		36064 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GTS 250 512MB		11808 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 24256 (205%)

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 maximum amount of information (counted in MB per second) that can be moved over the external memory interface within a second. The number is worked out by multiplying the card's bus width by the speed of its memory. If the card has DDR RAM, it must be multiplied by 2 again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The higher the card's memory bandwidth, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, HDR and higher screen resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum number of texture map elements (texels) that can be applied per second. This number is worked out by multiplying the total amount of texture units 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 that the graphics card can possibly record to its local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is worked out by multiplying the number of Raster Operations Pipelines by the the core clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also called Render Output Units) are responsible for drawing the pixels (image) on the screen. The actual pixel fill rate also depends on many other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the potential to reach the max fill rate.