GeForce GT 230 vs GeForce GTS 150

Intro

Compare those specs to the GeForce GTS 150, which has core speeds of 740 MHz on the GPU, and 500 MHz on the 1024 MB of GDDR3 RAM. It features 128 SPUs as well as 64 Texture Address Units and 16 ROPs.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GT 230		65 Watts
GeForce GTS 150		141 Watts
	Difference: 76 Watts (117%)

Memory Bandwidth

In theory, the GeForce GT 230 should be 20% quicker than the GeForce GTS 150 in general, because of its greater data rate. (explain)

GeForce GT 230		38400 MB/sec
GeForce GTS 150		32000 MB/sec
	Difference: 6400 (20%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTS 150 should be a lot (about 438%) better at AF than the GeForce GT 230. (explain)

GeForce GTS 150		47360 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GT 230		8800 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 38560 (438%)

Pixel Rate

If using lots of anti-aliasing is important to you, then the GeForce GTS 150 is a better choice, by far. (explain)

GeForce GTS 150		11840 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GT 230		4400 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 7440 (169%)

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 largest amount of data (counted in megabytes per second) that can be transported across the external memory interface in a second. It's worked out by multiplying the interface width by its memory speed. In the case of DDR RAM, it must be multiplied by 2 once 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 AA, HDR and higher screen resolutions.

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

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum amount of pixels that the graphics card can possibly write to the local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is worked out by multiplying the amount of colour ROPs by the the core speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - aka Render Output Units) are responsible for drawing the pixels (image) on the screen. The actual pixel output rate is also dependant on lots of other factors, especially the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the ability to get to the max fill rate.