GeForce GTS 250 512MB vs GeForce GTX 580

Intro

Compare all of that to the GeForce GTX 580, which uses a 40 nm design. nVidia has set the core speed at 772 MHz. The GDDR5 RAM is set to run at a speed of 1002 MHz on this card. It features 512 SPUs as well as 64 Texture Address Units and 48 ROPs.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GTS 250 512MB		145 Watts
GeForce GTX 580		244 Watts
	Difference: 99 Watts (68%)

Memory Bandwidth

Theoretically speaking, the GeForce GTX 580 is 173% quicker than the GeForce GTS 250 512MB overall, due to its higher bandwidth. (explain)

GeForce GTX 580		192384 MB/sec
GeForce GTS 250 512MB		70400 MB/sec
	Difference: 121984 (173%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 580 should be just a bit (about 5%) faster with regards to AF than the GeForce GTS 250 512MB. (explain)

GeForce GTX 580		49408 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GTS 250 512MB		47232 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 2176 (5%)

Pixel Rate

The GeForce GTX 580 is a lot (more or less 214%) faster with regards to full screen anti-aliasing than the GeForce GTS 250 512MB, and able to handle higher screen resolutions without slowing down too much. (explain)

GeForce GTX 580		37056 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GTS 250 512MB		11808 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 25248 (214%)

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: Bandwidth is the maximum amount of information (in units of megabytes per second) that can be transferred over the external memory interface in one second. It's worked out by multiplying the bus width by its memory clock speed. In the case of DDR type RAM, it should be multiplied by 2 again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The better the memory bandwidth, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, 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 is worked out by multiplying the total number of texture units of the card by the core clock speed of the chip. The better this number, the better the card will be at handling texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels applied in a second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum number of pixels the video card could possibly record to the local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is worked out by multiplying the number of colour ROPs by the the card's clock speed. 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 quite a few other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the potential to reach the max fill rate.