GeForce GT 1030 vs GeForce GTS 250 1GB

Intro

Compare those specifications to the GeForce GTS 250 1GB, which features core clock speeds of 738 MHz on the GPU, and 1100 MHz on the 1024 MB of GDDR3 memory. It features 128 SPUs along with 64 Texture Address Units and 16 Rasterization Operator Units.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GT 1030		30 Watts
GeForce GTS 250 1GB		145 Watts
	Difference: 115 Watts (383%)

Memory Bandwidth

The GeForce GTS 250 1GB, in theory, should perform a lot faster than the GeForce GT 1030 in general. (explain)

GeForce GTS 250 1GB		70400 MB/sec
GeForce GT 1030		49152 MB/sec
	Difference: 21248 (43%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTS 250 1GB is a small bit (about 17%) more effective at AF than the GeForce GT 1030. (explain)

GeForce GTS 250 1GB		47232 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GT 1030		40480 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 6752 (17%)

Pixel Rate

If running with a high screen resolution is important to you, then the GeForce GT 1030 is superior to the GeForce GTS 250 1GB, by a large margin. (explain)

GeForce GT 1030		20240 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GTS 250 1GB		11808 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 8432 (71%)

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 data (counted in megabytes per second) that can be transferred past the external memory interface in one second. The number is calculated by multiplying the bus width by its memory clock speed. If the card has DDR memory, it must be multiplied by 2 once again. If DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The higher the bandwidth is, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, HDR and high resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum texture map elements (texels) that are processed in one second. This figure is calculated by multiplying the total texture units by the core 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 the graphics card could possibly write to its local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is worked out by multiplying the amount of Raster Operations Pipelines by the clock speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - sometimes also referred to as Render Output Units) are responsible for filling the screen with pixels (the image). The actual pixel rate is also dependant on quite a few other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the potential to get to the maximum fill rate.