GeForce GTS 250 1GB vs GeForce GTX 860M

Intro

Compare that to the GeForce GTX 860M, which uses a 28 nm design. nVidia has clocked the core frequency at 797 MHz. The GDDR5 memory runs at a speed of 1000 MHz on this card. It features 1152 SPUs along with 96 TAUs and 16 Rasterization Operator Units.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GTX 860M		45 Watts
GeForce GTS 250 1GB		145 Watts
	Difference: 100 Watts (222%)

Memory Bandwidth

The GeForce GTS 250 1GB should in theory perform a small bit faster than the GeForce GTX 860M overall. (explain)

GeForce GTS 250 1GB		70400 MB/sec
GeForce GTX 860M		64000 MB/sec
	Difference: 6400 (10%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 860M is a lot (approximately 62%) more effective at anisotropic filtering than the GeForce GTS 250 1GB. (explain)

GeForce GTX 860M		76512 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GTS 250 1GB		47232 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 29280 (62%)

Pixel Rate

If running with lots of anti-aliasing is important to you, then the GeForce GTX 860M is the winner, but it probably won't make a huge difference. (explain)

GeForce GTX 860M		12752 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GTS 250 1GB		11808 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 944 (8%)

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 max amount of data (counted in megabytes per second) that can be transported across the external memory interface within a second. It is worked out by multiplying the card's interface width by its memory speed. If the card has DDR type memory, it must be multiplied by 2 again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. 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 number of texture map elements (texels) that can be applied in one second. This number is calculated by multiplying the total number of texture units of the card by the core clock speed of the chip. The better the texel rate, the better the graphics card will be at texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels applied in a second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum number of pixels that the graphics chip can possibly write to its local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is calculated by multiplying the number of ROPs by the clock speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - sometimes also referred to as Render Output Units) are responsible for outputting the pixels (image) to the screen. The actual pixel output 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 get to the max fill rate.