GeForce GTS 250 1GB vs GeForce GTX 580

Intro

Compare those specs to the GeForce GTX 580, which comes with a GPU core clock speed of 772 MHz, and 1536 MB of GDDR5 RAM running at 1002 MHz through a 384-bit bus. It also features 512 SPUs, 64 Texture Address Units, and 48 ROPs.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GTS 250 1GB		145 Watts
GeForce GTX 580		244 Watts
	Difference: 99 Watts (68%)

Memory Bandwidth

Theoretically, the GeForce GTX 580 should perform much faster than the GeForce GTS 250 1GB overall. (explain)

GeForce GTX 580		192384 MB/sec
GeForce GTS 250 1GB		70400 MB/sec
	Difference: 121984 (173%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 580 should be a little bit (more or less 5%) better at anisotropic filtering than the GeForce GTS 250 1GB. (explain)

GeForce GTX 580		49408 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GTS 250 1GB		47232 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 2176 (5%)

Pixel Rate

The GeForce GTX 580 is quite a bit (more or less 214%) more effective at anti-aliasing than the GeForce GTS 250 1GB, and also will be capable of handling higher resolutions more effectively. (explain)

GeForce GTX 580		37056 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GTS 250 1GB		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: Bandwidth is the largest amount of information (in units of MB per second) that can be moved over the external memory interface in a second. It is calculated by multiplying the bus width by its memory clock speed. In the case of DDR RAM, it must be multiplied by 2 again. If DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The better the memory bandwidth, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, High Dynamic Range and higher screen resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum number of texture map elements (texels) that are processed per second. This number is calculated by multiplying the total number of texture units of the card by the core clock speed of the chip. The higher the texel rate, the better the graphics 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 most pixels that the graphics card can possibly record to the local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is calculated by multiplying the amount of ROPs by the the core speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - aka Render Output Units) are responsible for drawing the pixels (image) on the screen. The actual pixel 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.