GeForce 8500 GT vs GeForce GTS 250 1GB

Intro

Compare those specifications to the GeForce GTS 250 1GB, which uses a 65/55 nm design. nVidia has set the core frequency at 738 MHz. The GDDR3 RAM is set to run at a speed of 1100 MHz on this particular model. It features 128 SPUs as well as 64 TAUs and 16 Rasterization Operator Units.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce 8500 GT		45 Watts
GeForce GTS 250 1GB		145 Watts
	Difference: 100 Watts (222%)

Memory Bandwidth

The GeForce GTS 250 1GB should in theory be much faster than the GeForce 8500 GT overall. (explain)

GeForce GTS 250 1GB		70400 MB/sec
GeForce 8500 GT		12800 MB/sec
	Difference: 57600 (450%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTS 250 1GB will be a lot (about 1212%) better at anisotropic filtering than the GeForce 8500 GT. (explain)

GeForce GTS 250 1GB		47232 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 8500 GT		3600 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 43632 (1212%)

Pixel Rate

If using a high screen resolution is important to you, then the GeForce GTS 250 1GB is a better choice, and very much so. (explain)

GeForce GTS 250 1GB		11808 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 8500 GT		1800 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 10008 (556%)

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 largest amount of information (counted in megabytes per second) that can be moved across the external memory interface within a second. It's worked out by multiplying the bus width by the speed of its memory. If it uses DDR type RAM, the result should be multiplied by 2 once again. If DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The higher the bandwidth is, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, High Dynamic Range and higher screen resolutions.

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

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum amount of pixels that the graphics chip could possibly record to the local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is worked out by multiplying the number of Raster Operations Pipelines by the clock speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also called Render Output Units) are responsible for drawing the pixels (image) on the screen. The actual pixel fill rate is also dependant on lots of other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the ability to reach the max fill rate.