GeForce GTS 250 512MB vs GeForce GTS 450

Intro

Compare that to the GeForce GTS 450, which makes use of a 40 nm design. nVidia has clocked the core speed at 783 MHz. The GDDR5 RAM works at a speed of 902 MHz on this specific model. It features 192 SPUs as well as 32 Texture Address Units and 16 ROPs.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GTS 450		106 Watts
GeForce GTS 250 512MB		145 Watts
	Difference: 39 Watts (37%)

Memory Bandwidth

The GeForce GTS 250 512MB should in theory be quite a bit faster than the GeForce GTS 450 in general. (explain)

GeForce GTS 250 512MB		70400 MB/sec
GeForce GTS 450		57728 MB/sec
	Difference: 12672 (22%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTS 250 512MB should be quite a bit (more or less 89%) more effective at AF than the GeForce GTS 450. (explain)

GeForce GTS 250 512MB		47232 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GTS 450		25056 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 22176 (89%)

Pixel Rate

The GeForce GTS 450 is a small bit (more or less 6%) better at anti-aliasing than the GeForce GTS 250 512MB, and will be able to handle higher screen resolutions while still performing well. (explain)

GeForce GTS 450		12528 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GTS 250 512MB		11808 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 720 (6%)

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

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum amount of texture map elements (texels) that are applied in one second. This is worked out by multiplying the total texture units by the core clock speed of the chip. The higher the texel rate, the better the card will be at handling 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 card could possibly write to its local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is calculated by multiplying the number of colour ROPs by the clock 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 rate also depends on quite a few other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the ability to reach the max fill rate.