GeForce GTS 250 512MB vs GeForce GTX 470

Intro

Compare those specifications to the GeForce GTX 470, which has clock speeds of 607 MHz on the GPU, and 837 MHz on the 1280 MB of GDDR5 RAM. It features 448 SPUs as well as 56 Texture Address Units and 40 Rasterization Operator Units.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GTS 250 512MB		145 Watts
GeForce GTX 470		215 Watts
	Difference: 70 Watts (48%)

Memory Bandwidth

The GeForce GTX 470, in theory, should perform quite a bit faster than the GeForce GTS 250 512MB overall. (explain)

GeForce GTX 470		133920 MB/sec
GeForce GTS 250 512MB		70400 MB/sec
	Difference: 63520 (90%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTS 250 512MB is quite a bit (more or less 39%) better at AF than the GeForce GTX 470. (explain)

GeForce GTS 250 512MB		47232 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GTX 470		33992 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 13240 (39%)

Pixel Rate

The GeForce GTX 470 is a lot (more or less 106%) more effective at FSAA than the GeForce GTS 250 512MB, and able to handle higher resolutions more effectively. (explain)

GeForce GTX 470		24280 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GTS 250 512MB		11808 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 12472 (106%)

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 maximum amount of information (measured in MB per second) that can be moved across the external memory interface in one second. It is worked out by multiplying the card's bus width by its memory clock speed. If the card has DDR RAM, it must be multiplied by 2 once again. If DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The better the card's memory bandwidth, the better 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 are applied in one second. This is worked out by multiplying the total amount of texture units by the core speed of the chip. The better the texel rate, the better the graphics card will be at texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels applied in one second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum amount of pixels that the graphics card could possibly record to its local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is calculated by multiplying the amount of Render Output Units by the the core clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also sometimes called Render Output Units) are responsible for outputting the pixels (image) to the screen. The actual pixel output rate is also dependant on quite a few other factors, especially the memory bandwidth - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the potential to reach the max fill rate.