GeForce GTS 250 1GB vs GeForce GTX 480

Intro

Compare all of that to the GeForce GTX 480, which has core clock speeds of 700 MHz on the GPU, and 924 MHz on the 1536 MB of GDDR5 memory. It features 480 SPUs along with 60 Texture Address Units and 48 ROPs.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GTS 250 1GB		145 Watts
GeForce GTX 480		250 Watts
	Difference: 105 Watts (72%)

Memory Bandwidth

Theoretically speaking, the GeForce GTX 480 should be much faster than the GeForce GTS 250 1GB in general. (explain)

GeForce GTX 480		177408 MB/sec
GeForce GTS 250 1GB		70400 MB/sec
	Difference: 107008 (152%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTS 250 1GB will be just a bit (more or less 12%) better at texture filtering than the GeForce GTX 480. (explain)

GeForce GTS 250 1GB		47232 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GTX 480		42000 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 5232 (12%)

Pixel Rate

If running with a high screen resolution is important to you, then the GeForce GTX 480 is superior to the GeForce GTS 250 1GB, by far. (explain)

GeForce GTX 480		33600 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GTS 250 1GB		11808 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 21792 (185%)

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 max amount of data (measured in megabytes per second) that can be transferred across the external memory interface in a second. It is worked out by multiplying the bus width by the speed of its memory. In the case of DDR memory, it should be multiplied by 2 once again. If DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The higher the memory bandwidth, the faster 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 texture map elements (texels) that are processed per second. This figure is calculated by multiplying the total texture units 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 applied per second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum number of pixels the video card can possibly write to its local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is calculated by multiplying the number of colour ROPs by the the core clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also sometimes called Render Output Units) are responsible for filling the screen with pixels (the image). The actual pixel output rate also depends on lots of 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.