GeForce GTS 250 1GB vs GeForce GTX 460 (OEM)

Intro

Compare all that to the GeForce GTX 460 (OEM), which has a GPU core clock speed of 650 MHz, and 1024 MB of GDDR5 RAM running at 850 MHz through a 256-bit bus. It also is made up of 336 Stream Processors, 56 Texture Address Units, and 32 Raster Operation Units.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GTS 250 1GB		145 Watts
GeForce GTX 460 (OEM)		150 Watts
	Difference: 5 Watts (3%)

Memory Bandwidth

In theory, the GeForce GTX 460 (OEM) will be 55% quicker than the GeForce GTS 250 1GB in general, because of its greater bandwidth. (explain)

GeForce GTX 460 (OEM)		108800 MB/sec
GeForce GTS 250 1GB		70400 MB/sec
	Difference: 38400 (55%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTS 250 1GB will be much (approximately 30%) faster with regards to AF than the GeForce GTX 460 (OEM). (explain)

GeForce GTS 250 1GB		47232 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GTX 460 (OEM)		36400 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 10832 (30%)

Pixel Rate

If running with high levels of AA is important to you, then the GeForce GTX 460 (OEM) is superior to the GeForce GTS 250 1GB, by far. (explain)

GeForce GTX 460 (OEM)		20800 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GTS 250 1GB		11808 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 8992 (76%)

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 max amount of information (measured in MB per second) that can be transported across the external memory interface in one second. The number is calculated by multiplying the bus width by its memory speed. If the card has DDR type RAM, it must be multiplied by 2 again. If DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The higher the bandwidth is, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, HDR and higher screen resolutions.

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

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum amount of pixels the video card could possibly write to the local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is worked out by multiplying the amount of Raster Operations Pipelines by the the card's clock speed. 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, especially the memory bandwidth - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the potential to reach the maximum fill rate.