GeForce GTS 250 1GB vs GeForce GTS 450 1GB

Intro

Compare all of that to the GeForce GTS 450 1GB, which has clock speeds of 783 MHz on the GPU, and 902 MHz on the 1024 MB of GDDR5 memory. It features 192 SPUs as well as 32 TAUs and 16 ROPs.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

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

Memory Bandwidth

Theoretically speaking, the GeForce GTS 250 1GB should be quite a bit faster than the GeForce GTS 450 1GB in general. (explain)

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

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTS 250 1GB should be much (approximately 89%) faster with regards to anisotropic filtering than the GeForce GTS 450 1GB. (explain)

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

Pixel Rate

If using a high screen resolution is important to you, then the GeForce GTS 450 1GB is a better choice, though not by far. (explain)

GeForce GTS 450 1GB		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: Memory bandwidth is the max amount of information (counted in megabytes per second) that can be transported past the external memory interface in a second. The number is calculated by multiplying the card's bus width by its memory speed. If it uses DDR memory, it should be multiplied by 2 once again. If it uses 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 can be processed per second. This is calculated by multiplying the total texture units of the card by the core speed of the chip. The higher this number, the better the card will be at texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels processed 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. The number is worked out by multiplying the number of Raster Operations Pipelines by the the card's clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also sometimes called 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, most notably the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the ability to reach the maximum fill rate.