GeForce GTS 250 1GB vs GeForce GTX 950

Intro

Compare those specs to the GeForce GTX 950, which features core speeds of 1024 MHz on the GPU, and 1652 MHz on the 2048 MB of GDDR5 memory. It features 768 SPUs along with 48 Texture Address Units and 32 ROPs.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GTX 950		90 Watts
GeForce GTS 250 1GB		145 Watts
	Difference: 55 Watts (61%)

Memory Bandwidth

The GeForce GTX 950 should theoretically perform quite a bit faster than the GeForce GTS 250 1GB in general. (explain)

GeForce GTX 950		105728 MB/sec
GeForce GTS 250 1GB		70400 MB/sec
	Difference: 35328 (50%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 950 is just a bit (more or less 4%) more effective at AF than the GeForce GTS 250 1GB. (explain)

GeForce GTX 950		49152 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GTS 250 1GB		47232 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 1920 (4%)

Pixel Rate

The GeForce GTX 950 should be a lot (approximately 178%) better at anti-aliasing than the GeForce GTS 250 1GB, and should be capable of handling higher screen resolutions more effectively. (explain)

GeForce GTX 950		32768 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GTS 250 1GB		11808 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 20960 (178%)

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 max amount of data (measured in MB per second) that can be transferred across the external memory interface within a second. It is worked out by multiplying the card's bus width by the speed of its memory. If it uses DDR RAM, it must be multiplied by 2 again. If DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The higher the card's memory bandwidth, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, HDR and higher screen resolutions.

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

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the most pixels the graphics card could possibly record to the local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is calculated by multiplying the number of ROPs by the the card's clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - aka Render Output Units) are responsible for outputting the pixels (image) to the screen. The actual pixel output rate also depends on lots of other factors, especially the memory bandwidth - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the potential to get to the max fill rate.