GeForce GTS 250 1GB vs GeForce GTX 470

Intro

Compare those specs to the GeForce GTX 470, which has GPU core speed of 607 MHz, and 1280 MB of GDDR5 memory set to run at 837 MHz through a 320-bit bus. It also is made up of 448 Stream Processors, 56 TAUs, and 40 Raster Operation Units.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GTS 250 1GB		145 Watts
GeForce GTX 470		215 Watts
	Difference: 70 Watts (48%)

Memory Bandwidth

The GeForce GTX 470 should in theory be much faster than the GeForce GTS 250 1GB overall. (explain)

GeForce GTX 470		133920 MB/sec
GeForce GTS 250 1GB		70400 MB/sec
	Difference: 63520 (90%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTS 250 1GB is quite a bit (more or less 39%) faster with regards to anisotropic filtering than the GeForce GTX 470. (explain)

GeForce GTS 250 1GB		47232 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GTX 470		33992 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 13240 (39%)

Pixel Rate

The GeForce GTX 470 will be much (about 106%) better at full screen anti-aliasing than the GeForce GTS 250 1GB, and also capable of handling higher screen resolutions without slowing down too much. (explain)

GeForce GTX 470		24280 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GTS 250 1GB		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 largest amount of information (in units of megabytes per second) that can be transferred over the external memory interface in one second. The number is worked out by multiplying the card's interface width by the speed of its memory. If it uses DDR RAM, it must be multiplied by 2 once again. If DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The higher the bandwidth is, 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 number of texture map elements (texels) that can be processed per second. This number is worked out by multiplying the total number of texture units of the card by the core speed of the chip. The higher this number, the better the 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 number of pixels the graphics card could possibly write to the local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is calculated by multiplying the number of Render Output Units by the clock 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 fill rate also depends on many other factors, especially the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the potential to get to the max fill rate.