GeForce GTS 250 1GB vs GeForce GTX 470

Intro

Compare those specifications to the GeForce GTX 470, which comes with clock speeds of 607 MHz on the GPU, and 837 MHz on the 1280 MB of GDDR5 memory. It features 448 SPUs along with 56 Texture Address Units and 40 Rasterization Operator Units.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GTS 250 1GB		145 Watts
GeForce GTX 470		215 Watts
	Difference: 70 Watts (48%)

Memory Bandwidth

The GeForce GTX 470, in theory, should be a lot faster than the GeForce GTS 250 1GB overall. (explain)

GeForce GTX 470		133920 MB/sec
GeForce GTS 250 1GB		70400 MB/sec
	Difference: 63520 (90%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTS 250 1GB will be quite a bit (approximately 39%) faster with regards to AF than the GeForce GTX 470. (explain)

GeForce GTS 250 1GB		47232 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GTX 470		33992 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 13240 (39%)

Pixel Rate

If running with high levels of AA is important to you, then the GeForce GTX 470 is a better choice, and very much so. (explain)

GeForce GTX 470		24280 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GTS 250 1GB		11808 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 12472 (106%)

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 (in units of MB per second) that can be transferred across the external memory interface within a second. It's calculated by multiplying the bus width by its memory speed. In the case of DDR memory, it should be multiplied by 2 again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The higher the memory bandwidth, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, HDR and higher screen resolutions.

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

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum amount of pixels the graphics 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 core clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - aka Render Output Units) are responsible for drawing the pixels (image) on the screen. The actual pixel fill rate is also dependant on quite a few other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the potential to get to the max fill rate.