GeForce GTS 250 512MB vs GeForce GTX 580

Intro

Compare that to the GeForce GTX 580, which features GPU clock speed of 772 MHz, and 1536 MB of GDDR5 memory running at 1002 MHz through a 384-bit bus. It also features 512 Stream Processors, 64 Texture Address Units, and 48 ROPs.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GTS 250 512MB		145 Watts
GeForce GTX 580		244 Watts
	Difference: 99 Watts (68%)

Memory Bandwidth

Theoretically speaking, the GeForce GTX 580 will be 173% quicker than the GeForce GTS 250 512MB in general, due to its higher data rate. (explain)

GeForce GTX 580		192384 MB/sec
GeForce GTS 250 512MB		70400 MB/sec
	Difference: 121984 (173%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 580 is a little bit (more or less 5%) faster with regards to anisotropic filtering than the GeForce GTS 250 512MB. (explain)

GeForce GTX 580		49408 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GTS 250 512MB		47232 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 2176 (5%)

Pixel Rate

The GeForce GTX 580 is much (approximately 214%) faster with regards to full screen anti-aliasing than the GeForce GTS 250 512MB, and also should be able to handle higher screen resolutions while still performing well. (explain)

GeForce GTX 580		37056 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GTS 250 512MB		11808 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 25248 (214%)

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 megabytes per second) that can be transferred past the external memory interface in one second. It is calculated by multiplying the card's interface width by the speed of its memory. If it uses DDR memory, it must be multiplied by 2 once again. If DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The better the bandwidth is, the faster 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 are processed per second. This figure is worked out by multiplying the total amount of texture units of the card by the core clock speed of the chip. The higher this number, the better the card will be at handling texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels applied in a second.

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