GeForce GTS 250 512MB vs GeForce GTX 580

Intro

Compare those specs to the GeForce GTX 580, which comes with a clock speed of 772 MHz and a GDDR5 memory speed of 1002 MHz. It also uses a 384-bit memory bus, and makes use of a 40 nm design. It is comprised of 512 SPUs, 64 Texture Address Units, and 48 ROPs.

Display Graphs

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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

In theory, the GeForce GTX 580 should be quite a bit faster than the GeForce GTS 250 512MB overall. (explain)

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

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 580 will be a little bit (approximately 5%) faster with regards to anisotropic filtering 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 quite a bit (more or less 214%) faster with regards to AA than the GeForce GTS 250 512MB, and should be able to handle higher resolutions without losing too much performance. (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: Memory bandwidth is the maximum amount of data (counted in MB per second) that can be moved past the external memory interface in one second. It's calculated by multiplying the card's bus width by its memory speed. If it uses DDR RAM, it must be multiplied by 2 again. If DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The better the bandwidth is, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, HDR and higher screen resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum amount of texture map elements (texels) that can be processed per second. This number is calculated by multiplying the total texture units of the card by the core speed of the chip. The higher the texel rate, the better the graphics 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 amount of pixels that the graphics chip 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 Render Output Units by the the core speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - sometimes also referred to as Render Output Units) are responsible for outputting the pixels (image) to the screen. The actual pixel output rate is also dependant on many other factors, especially the memory bandwidth - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the potential to reach the maximum fill rate.