GeForce 8800 GTS (G80) 320MB vs GeForce GTS 250 1GB

Intro

Compare that to the GeForce GTS 250 1GB, which has GPU core speed of 738 MHz, and 1024 MB of GDDR3 RAM running at 1100 MHz through a 256-bit bus. It also is made up of 128 Stream Processors, 64 Texture Address Units, and 16 Raster Operation Units.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce 8800 GTS (G80) 320MB		143 Watts
GeForce GTS 250 1GB		145 Watts
	Difference: 2 Watts (1%)

Memory Bandwidth

In theory, the GeForce GTS 250 1GB should be 11% faster than the GeForce 8800 GTS (G80) 320MB overall, due to its greater bandwidth. (explain)

GeForce GTS 250 1GB		70400 MB/sec
GeForce 8800 GTS (G80) 320MB		63360 MB/sec
	Difference: 7040 (11%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTS 250 1GB will be quite a bit (about 92%) more effective at texture filtering than the GeForce 8800 GTS (G80) 320MB. (explain)

GeForce GTS 250 1GB		47232 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 8800 GTS (G80) 320MB		24624 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 22608 (92%)

Pixel Rate

The GeForce GTS 250 1GB should be a little bit (more or less 15%) better at full screen anti-aliasing than the GeForce 8800 GTS (G80) 320MB, and should be capable of handling higher screen resolutions without losing too much performance. (explain)

GeForce GTS 250 1GB		11808 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 8800 GTS (G80) 320MB		10260 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 1548 (15%)

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 maximum amount of information (in units of MB per second) that can be moved across the external memory interface within a second. It is calculated by multiplying the card's interface width by the speed of its memory. If the card has DDR type RAM, the result should be multiplied by 2 again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The better the card's memory bandwidth, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, HDR and high resolutions.

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

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum number of pixels the video card could possibly record to its local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is calculated by multiplying the number of Raster Operations Pipelines by the clock speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also sometimes called Render Output Units) are responsible for drawing the pixels (image) on 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 maximum fill rate.