GeForce GTS 250 512MB vs GeForce GTX 550 Ti

Intro

Compare all that to the GeForce GTX 550 Ti, which comes with GPU clock speed of 900 MHz, and 1024 MB of GDDR5 memory set to run at 1026 MHz through a 192-bit bus. It also is comprised of 192 SPUs, 32 TAUs, and 24 ROPs.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GTX 550 Ti		116 Watts
GeForce GTS 250 512MB		145 Watts
	Difference: 29 Watts (25%)

Memory Bandwidth

Theoretically speaking, the GeForce GTX 550 Ti should perform quite a bit faster than the GeForce GTS 250 512MB overall. (explain)

GeForce GTX 550 Ti		98496 MB/sec
GeForce GTS 250 512MB		70400 MB/sec
	Difference: 28096 (40%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTS 250 512MB will be a lot (about 64%) better at texture filtering than the GeForce GTX 550 Ti. (explain)

GeForce GTS 250 512MB		47232 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GTX 550 Ti		28800 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 18432 (64%)

Pixel Rate

If running with high levels of AA is important to you, then the GeForce GTX 550 Ti is the winner, and very much so. (explain)

GeForce GTX 550 Ti		21600 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GTS 250 512MB		11808 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 9792 (83%)

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 data (measured in megabytes per second) that can be transported over the external memory interface in a second. It is worked out by multiplying the card's bus width by its memory clock speed. In the case of DDR type memory, it must be multiplied by 2 again. If DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The better the card's memory bandwidth, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, High Dynamic Range and higher screen resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum texture map elements (texels) that are applied per second. This number is worked out by multiplying the total amount of texture units of the card by the core clock 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 applied in one second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum amount of pixels that the graphics card can possibly write to the local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is worked out by multiplying the number of Raster Operations Pipelines by the clock speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also sometimes called Render Output Units) are responsible for outputting the pixels (image) to the screen. The actual pixel fill rate is also dependant on many other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the ability to get to the max fill rate.