GeForce GTS 250 512MB vs GeForce GTX 860M

Intro

Compare all that to the GeForce GTX 860M, which uses a 28 nm design. nVidia has clocked the core frequency at 797 MHz. The GDDR5 RAM runs at a speed of 1000 MHz on this card. It features 1152 SPUs as well as 96 TAUs and 16 ROPs.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GTX 860M		45 Watts
GeForce GTS 250 512MB		145 Watts
	Difference: 100 Watts (222%)

Memory Bandwidth

In theory, the GeForce GTS 250 512MB is 10% faster than the GeForce GTX 860M in general, due to its greater data rate. (explain)

GeForce GTS 250 512MB		70400 MB/sec
GeForce GTX 860M		64000 MB/sec
	Difference: 6400 (10%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 860M should be a lot (more or less 62%) better at AF than the GeForce GTS 250 512MB. (explain)

GeForce GTX 860M		76512 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GTS 250 512MB		47232 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 29280 (62%)

Pixel Rate

If using a high screen resolution is important to you, then the GeForce GTX 860M is a better choice, but it probably won't make a huge difference. (explain)

GeForce GTX 860M		12752 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GTS 250 512MB		11808 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 944 (8%)

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 max amount of information (measured in MB per second) that can be moved past the external memory interface within a second. It's worked out by multiplying the interface width by its memory clock speed. If it uses DDR type memory, the result should be multiplied by 2 again. If DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. 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 texture map elements (texels) that can be processed in one second. This number is worked out by multiplying the total amount of texture units 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 per 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 worked out by multiplying the number of Raster Operations Pipelines by the the core clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - sometimes also referred to as Render Output Units) are responsible for filling the screen with pixels (the image). The actual pixel fill rate is also dependant 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 get to the maximum fill rate.