GeForce GTS 250 1GB vs GeForce GTX 460 (OEM)

Intro

Compare that to the GeForce GTX 460 (OEM), which has clock speeds of 650 MHz on the GPU, and 850 MHz on the 1024 MB of GDDR5 RAM. It features 336 SPUs as well as 56 Texture Address Units and 32 Rasterization Operator Units.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GTS 250 1GB		145 Watts
GeForce GTX 460 (OEM)		150 Watts
	Difference: 5 Watts (3%)

Memory Bandwidth

In theory, the GeForce GTX 460 (OEM) will be 55% faster than the GeForce GTS 250 1GB overall, due to its higher data rate. (explain)

GeForce GTX 460 (OEM)		108800 MB/sec
GeForce GTS 250 1GB		70400 MB/sec
	Difference: 38400 (55%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTS 250 1GB is much (about 30%) faster with regards to AF than the GeForce GTX 460 (OEM). (explain)

GeForce GTS 250 1GB		47232 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GTX 460 (OEM)		36400 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 10832 (30%)

Pixel Rate

If using lots of anti-aliasing is important to you, then the GeForce GTX 460 (OEM) is a better choice, and very much so. (explain)

GeForce GTX 460 (OEM)		20800 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GTS 250 1GB		11808 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 8992 (76%)

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 (counted in MB per second) that can be transported over the external memory interface in one second. It's calculated by multiplying the bus width by its memory clock speed. If the card has DDR type RAM, it should be multiplied by 2 again. If DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The higher the 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 amount of texture map elements (texels) that can be applied in one second. This number is worked out by multiplying the total number of texture units by the core clock speed of the chip. The better this number, the better the video 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 amount of pixels that the graphics chip could possibly record to the local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is worked out by multiplying the number of Render Output Units by the the core speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also called Render Output Units) are responsible for drawing the pixels (image) on the screen. The actual pixel output rate is also dependant on quite a few other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the potential to reach the max fill rate.