GeForce GT 420 vs GeForce GTS 250 1GB

Intro

Compare all that to the GeForce GTS 250 1GB, which has GPU core speed of 738 MHz, and 1024 MB of GDDR3 memory set to run at 1100 MHz through a 256-bit bus. It also features 128 Stream Processors, 64 Texture Address Units, and 16 ROPs.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GT 420		50 Watts
GeForce GTS 250 1GB		145 Watts
	Difference: 95 Watts (190%)

Memory Bandwidth

The GeForce GTS 250 1GB should in theory perform much faster than the GeForce GT 420 in general. (explain)

GeForce GTS 250 1GB		70400 MB/sec
GeForce GT 420		28800 MB/sec
	Difference: 41600 (144%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTS 250 1GB will be quite a bit (approximately 743%) faster with regards to anisotropic filtering than the GeForce GT 420. (explain)

GeForce GTS 250 1GB		47232 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GT 420		5600 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 41632 (743%)

Pixel Rate

If running with lots of anti-aliasing is important to you, then the GeForce GTS 250 1GB is superior to the GeForce GT 420, by a large margin. (explain)

GeForce GTS 250 1GB		11808 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GT 420		2800 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 9008 (322%)

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 (measured in megabytes per second) that can be transferred past the external memory interface in a second. It is worked out by multiplying the interface width by its memory speed. If it uses DDR type RAM, it should be multiplied by 2 again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The higher the memory bandwidth, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, High Dynamic Range and high resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum amount of texture map elements (texels) that can be processed per second. This is calculated by multiplying the total texture units by the core 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 applied per second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the most pixels the graphics card can possibly write to its local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is calculated by multiplying the number of colour ROPs by the the card's clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also sometimes called Render Output Units) are responsible for filling the screen with pixels (the image). 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 potential to get to the max fill rate.