GeForce GTS 250 1GB vs GeForce GTX 460 1GB

Intro

Compare those specifications to the GeForce GTX 460 1GB, which has core speeds of 675 MHz on the GPU, and 900 MHz on the 1024 MB of GDDR5 RAM. It features 336 SPUs along with 56 TAUs and 32 ROPs.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GTS 250 1GB		145 Watts
GeForce GTX 460 1GB		160 Watts
	Difference: 15 Watts (10%)

Memory Bandwidth

Theoretically speaking, the GeForce GTX 460 1GB should be a lot faster than the GeForce GTS 250 1GB in general. (explain)

GeForce GTX 460 1GB		115200 MB/sec
GeForce GTS 250 1GB		70400 MB/sec
	Difference: 44800 (64%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTS 250 1GB is a lot (approximately 25%) more effective at anisotropic filtering than the GeForce GTX 460 1GB. (explain)

GeForce GTS 250 1GB		47232 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GTX 460 1GB		37800 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 9432 (25%)

Pixel Rate

The GeForce GTX 460 1GB is quite a bit (more or less 83%) better at full screen anti-aliasing than the GeForce GTS 250 1GB, and also should be able to handle higher screen resolutions better. (explain)

GeForce GTX 460 1GB		21600 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GTS 250 1GB		11808 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 9792 (83%)

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 max amount of data (measured in megabytes per second) that can be transported past the external memory interface within a second. It is worked out by multiplying the interface width by its memory clock speed. If it uses DDR type memory, it must be multiplied by 2 once again. If DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The better the memory bandwidth, 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 texture map elements (texels) that can be processed per second. This figure is worked out by multiplying the total amount of texture units of the card by the core 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 per second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum amount of pixels that the graphics card could possibly record to the local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is calculated by multiplying the amount of ROPs by the the core speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - sometimes also referred to as 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 potential to get to the maximum fill rate.