GeForce GTS 250 1GB vs GeForce GTS 450

Intro

Compare those specifications to the GeForce GTS 450, which comes with a clock frequency of 783 MHz and a GDDR5 memory speed of 902 MHz. It also features a 128-bit memory bus, and uses a 40 nm design. It is made up of 192 SPUs, 32 Texture Address Units, and 16 Raster Operation Units.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GTS 450		106 Watts
GeForce GTS 250 1GB		145 Watts
	Difference: 39 Watts (37%)

Memory Bandwidth

In theory, the GeForce GTS 250 1GB will be 22% faster than the GeForce GTS 450 overall, due to its greater bandwidth. (explain)

GeForce GTS 250 1GB		70400 MB/sec
GeForce GTS 450		57728 MB/sec
	Difference: 12672 (22%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTS 250 1GB should be quite a bit (approximately 89%) more effective at anisotropic filtering than the GeForce GTS 450. (explain)

GeForce GTS 250 1GB		47232 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GTS 450		25056 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 22176 (89%)

Pixel Rate

If running with a high resolution is important to you, then the GeForce GTS 450 is a better choice, not by a very large margin though. (explain)

GeForce GTS 450		12528 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GTS 250 1GB		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: Bandwidth is the maximum amount of data (counted in megabytes per second) that can be transported over the external memory interface within a second. It's calculated by multiplying the bus width by the speed of its memory. If the card has DDR type memory, the result should be multiplied by 2 again. If DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The better the bandwidth is, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, HDR and higher screen resolutions.

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

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum number of pixels the video card can possibly write to its local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is worked out by multiplying the amount of colour ROPs by the the card's clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also 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, especially the memory bandwidth - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the potential to reach the maximum fill rate.