GeForce 9800 GTX vs GeForce GTS 250 512MB

Intro

Compare all of that to the GeForce GTS 250 512MB, which has GPU clock speed of 738 MHz, and 512 MB of GDDR3 RAM set to run at 1100 MHz through a 256-bit bus. It also features 128 Stream Processors, 64 TAUs, and 16 ROPs.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce 9800 GTX		140 Watts
GeForce GTS 250 512MB		145 Watts
	Difference: 5 Watts (4%)

Memory Bandwidth

Both cards have exactly the same bandwidth, so in theory they should have the same performance. (explain)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTS 250 512MB should be just a bit (about 9%) better at anisotropic filtering than the GeForce 9800 GTX. (explain)

GeForce GTS 250 512MB		47232 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 9800 GTX		43200 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 4032 (9%)

Pixel Rate

If running with high levels of AA is important to you, then the GeForce GTS 250 512MB is superior to the GeForce 9800 GTX, but it probably won't make a huge difference. (explain)

GeForce GTS 250 512MB		11808 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 9800 GTX		10800 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 1008 (9%)

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 information (counted in MB per second) that can be transferred over the external memory interface within a second. It's calculated by multiplying the bus width by its memory speed. If the card has DDR RAM, it must be multiplied by 2 once again. If it uses 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 high resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum amount of texture map elements (texels) that can be processed per second. This figure is calculated by multiplying the total texture units by the core speed of the chip. The better this number, the better the video card will be at texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels processed per second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the most pixels that the graphics card can possibly record to the local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is worked out by multiplying the amount of Raster Operations Pipelines by the the core clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also called Render Output Units) are responsible for drawing the pixels (image) on the screen. The actual pixel output rate also depends on lots of other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the ability to reach the max fill rate.