GeForce 9800 GT 1GB vs GeForce GTS 250 512MB

Intro

Compare those specs to the GeForce GTS 250 512MB, which has a clock speed of 738 MHz and a GDDR3 memory frequency of 1100 MHz. It also uses a 256-bit memory bus, and uses a 65/55 nm design. It features 128 SPUs, 64 TAUs, and 16 ROPs.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce 9800 GT 1GB		105 Watts
GeForce GTS 250 512MB		145 Watts
	Difference: 40 Watts (38%)

Memory Bandwidth

Theoretically speaking, the GeForce GTS 250 512MB should be 22% faster than the GeForce 9800 GT 1GB in general, because of its higher bandwidth. (explain)

GeForce GTS 250 512MB		70400 MB/sec
GeForce 9800 GT 1GB		57600 MB/sec
	Difference: 12800 (22%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTS 250 512MB should be quite a bit (about 41%) more effective at AF than the GeForce 9800 GT 1GB. (explain)

GeForce GTS 250 512MB		47232 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 9800 GT 1GB		33600 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 13632 (41%)

Pixel Rate

If using a high resolution is important to you, then the GeForce GTS 250 512MB is superior to the GeForce 9800 GT 1GB, by far. (explain)

GeForce GTS 250 512MB		11808 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 9800 GT 1GB		9600 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 2208 (23%)

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 (measured in megabytes per second) that can be transferred over the external memory interface within a second. It is worked out by multiplying the bus width by its memory clock 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 faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, HDR and higher screen resolutions.

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

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