GeForce GTS 250 512MB vs GeForce GTX 965M

Intro

Compare that to the GeForce GTX 965M, which comes with a core clock frequency of 944 MHz and a GDDR5 memory speed of 1000 MHz. It also makes use of a 128-bit bus, and uses a 28 nm design. It features 1024 SPUs, 64 Texture Address Units, and 32 ROPs.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GTX 965M		60 Watts
GeForce GTS 250 512MB		145 Watts
	Difference: 85 Watts (142%)

Memory Bandwidth

In theory, the GeForce GTS 250 512MB should be a bit faster than the GeForce GTX 965M overall. (explain)

GeForce GTS 250 512MB		70400 MB/sec
GeForce GTX 965M		64000 MB/sec
	Difference: 6400 (10%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 965M is quite a bit (more or less 28%) better at texture filtering than the GeForce GTS 250 512MB. (explain)

GeForce GTX 965M		60416 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GTS 250 512MB		47232 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 13184 (28%)

Pixel Rate

If running with lots of anti-aliasing is important to you, then the GeForce GTX 965M is a better choice, by a large margin. (explain)

GeForce GTX 965M		30208 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GTS 250 512MB		11808 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 18400 (156%)

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 information (counted in megabytes per second) that can be moved past the external memory interface within a second. The number is calculated by multiplying the card's interface width by the speed of its memory. If it uses DDR RAM, it should be multiplied by 2 once again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The better the bandwidth is, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, HDR and high resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum texture map elements (texels) that can be applied in one second. This number is worked out by multiplying the total amount of texture units by the core 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 processed in a second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum number of pixels the graphics card can possibly write to its local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is calculated by multiplying the number of colour ROPs by the the card's clock speed. 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 rate is also dependant on quite a few other factors, especially the memory bandwidth - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the ability to get to the maximum fill rate.