GeForce GTS 250 512MB vs GeForce GTX 860M

Intro

Compare those specs to the GeForce GTX 860M, which features GPU core speed of 797 MHz, and 4096 MB of GDDR5 memory set to run at 1000 MHz through a 128-bit bus. It also is comprised of 1152 SPUs, 96 Texture Address Units, 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

Theoretically speaking, the GeForce GTS 250 512MB should be 10% faster than the GeForce GTX 860M overall, due to its higher 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 quite a bit (approximately 62%) faster with regards to 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

The GeForce GTX 860M should be just a bit (about 8%) more effective at FSAA than the GeForce GTS 250 512MB, and also will be capable of handling higher screen resolutions without losing too much performance. (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: Memory bandwidth is the max amount of data (measured in MB per second) that can be transferred across the external memory interface in a second. The number is calculated by multiplying the bus width by the speed of its memory. If the card has DDR type RAM, it should be multiplied by 2 again. If DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The better the bandwidth is, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, HDR and high resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum amount 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 higher the texel rate, the better the card will be at handling texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels processed in one second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the most pixels that the graphics chip can possibly write to its local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is calculated by multiplying the number of colour ROPs by the the card's clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also called Render Output Units) are responsible for outputting the pixels (image) to the screen. The actual pixel fill rate also depends on many other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the potential to reach the maximum fill rate.