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

Intro

Compare all that to the GeForce GTX 460 (OEM), which comes with a core clock speed of 650 MHz and a GDDR5 memory speed of 850 MHz. It also features a 256-bit memory bus, and uses a 40 nm design. It features 336 SPUs, 56 Texture Address Units, and 32 Raster Operation Units.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

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

Theoretically speaking, the GeForce GTX 460 (OEM) will be 55% quicker than the GeForce GTS 250 1GB in general, because of its greater 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 should be quite a bit (approximately 30%) more effective at anisotropic filtering 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

The GeForce GTX 460 (OEM) will be quite a bit (about 76%) more effective at FSAA than the GeForce GTS 250 1GB, and will be able to handle higher screen resolutions while still performing well. (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: Bandwidth is the maximum amount of information (in units of megabytes per second) that can be moved past the external memory interface within a second. It's calculated by multiplying the card's interface width by its memory clock speed. In the case of DDR RAM, the result should be multiplied by 2 again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The better the bandwidth is, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, High Dynamic Range and high resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum texture map elements (texels) that can be applied in one second. This figure is worked out by multiplying the total texture units of the card by the core speed of the chip. The better the texel rate, the better the graphics 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 most pixels that the graphics chip could 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 Render Output Units by the the card's clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - aka Render Output Units) are responsible for outputting the pixels (image) to the screen. The actual pixel output rate is also dependant on many other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the ability to reach the maximum fill rate.