GeForce GTS 150 vs GeForce GTX 480

Intro

Compare all of that to the GeForce GTX 480, which features GPU core speed of 700 MHz, and 1536 MB of GDDR5 memory running at 924 MHz through a 384-bit bus. It also features 480 SPUs, 60 Texture Address Units, and 48 ROPs.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GTS 150		141 Watts
GeForce GTX 480		250 Watts
	Difference: 109 Watts (77%)

Memory Bandwidth

The GeForce GTX 480 should in theory perform quite a bit faster than the GeForce GTS 150 overall. (explain)

GeForce GTX 480		177408 MB/sec
GeForce GTS 150		32000 MB/sec
	Difference: 145408 (454%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTS 150 should be a small bit (about 13%) better at AF than the GeForce GTX 480. (explain)

GeForce GTS 150		47360 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GTX 480		42000 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 5360 (13%)

Pixel Rate

The GeForce GTX 480 should be a lot (about 184%) better at AA than the GeForce GTS 150, and should be capable of handling higher screen resolutions more effectively. (explain)

GeForce GTX 480		33600 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GTS 150		11840 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 21760 (184%)

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 data (counted in megabytes per second) that can be transported over the external memory interface within a second. It's worked out by multiplying the interface width by the speed of its memory. If the card has DDR memory, it should be multiplied by 2 again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The higher the memory bandwidth, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, High Dynamic Range and higher screen resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum amount of texture map elements (texels) that can be applied in one second. This number is worked out by multiplying the total texture units by the core speed of the chip. The higher this number, the better the video card will be at handling 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 the video card could possibly record to its local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is worked out by multiplying the amount of Raster Operations Pipelines by the the card's clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - sometimes also referred to as Render Output Units) are responsible for drawing the pixels (image) on the screen. The actual pixel fill rate also depends on quite a few other factors, especially the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the ability to get to the max fill rate.