GeForce GTS 250 1GB vs GeForce GTX 460 2GB

Intro

Compare those specs to the GeForce GTX 460 2GB, which comes with clock speeds of 675 MHz on the GPU, and 900 MHz on the 2048 MB of GDDR5 memory. It features 336 SPUs as well as 56 Texture Address Units and 32 ROPs.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GTS 250 1GB		145 Watts
GeForce GTX 460 2GB		160 Watts
	Difference: 15 Watts (10%)

Memory Bandwidth

The GeForce GTX 460 2GB, in theory, should be quite a bit faster than the GeForce GTS 250 1GB in general. (explain)

GeForce GTX 460 2GB		115200 MB/sec
GeForce GTS 250 1GB		70400 MB/sec
	Difference: 44800 (64%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTS 250 1GB should be quite a bit (more or less 25%) better at texture filtering than the GeForce GTX 460 2GB. (explain)

GeForce GTS 250 1GB		47232 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GTX 460 2GB		37800 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 9432 (25%)

Pixel Rate

The GeForce GTX 460 2GB will be quite a bit (approximately 83%) more effective at anti-aliasing than the GeForce GTS 250 1GB, and should be able to handle higher screen resolutions better. (explain)

GeForce GTX 460 2GB		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: Memory bandwidth is the largest amount of information (in units of MB per second) that can be moved past the external memory interface in a second. It's calculated by multiplying the card's interface width by the speed of its memory. If it uses DDR RAM, the result should be multiplied by 2 once again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The better the card's memory bandwidth, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, High Dynamic Range and high resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum number of texture map elements (texels) that are processed in one second. This number is worked out by multiplying the total number of texture units of the card by the core clock speed of the chip. The higher 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 number of pixels the graphics card can possibly write to its local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is calculated by multiplying the amount of colour ROPs by the the core clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - aka 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 bandwidth is, the lower the potential to get to the max fill rate.