GeForce GTS 250 512MB vs GeForce GTX 1050 3GB

Intro

Compare those specs to the GeForce GTX 1050 3GB, which comes with a clock frequency of 1392 MHz and a GDDR5 memory speed of 1750 MHz. It also uses a 96-bit memory bus, and makes use of a 14 nm design. It is comprised of 768 SPUs, 48 Texture Address Units, and 24 ROPs.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GTX 1050 3GB		75 Watts
GeForce GTS 250 512MB		145 Watts
	Difference: 70 Watts (93%)

Memory Bandwidth

As far as performance goes, the GeForce GTX 1050 3GB should theoretically be a lot superior to the GeForce GTS 250 512MB in general. (explain)

GeForce GTX 1050 3GB		86016 MB/sec
GeForce GTS 250 512MB		70400 MB/sec
	Difference: 15616 (22%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 1050 3GB will be quite a bit (approximately 41%) better at texture filtering than the GeForce GTS 250 512MB. (explain)

GeForce GTX 1050 3GB		66816 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GTS 250 512MB		47232 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 19584 (41%)

Pixel Rate

If running with a high screen resolution is important to you, then the GeForce GTX 1050 3GB is a better choice, by far. (explain)

GeForce GTX 1050 3GB		33408 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GTS 250 512MB		11808 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 21600 (183%)

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 maximum amount of data (counted in MB per second) that can be transported across the external memory interface in one second. It's calculated by multiplying the card's bus width by its memory clock speed. In the case of DDR memory, it should be multiplied by 2 again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The higher the memory bandwidth, the better 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 figure is calculated by multiplying the total texture units by the core clock speed of the chip. The higher the texel rate, the better the graphics card will be at handling texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels applied in one second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the most pixels the graphics card can possibly write to the local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is worked out by multiplying the amount of colour ROPs by the the core speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also called Render Output Units) are responsible for filling the screen with pixels (the image). The actual pixel rate also depends on quite a few other factors, especially the memory bandwidth - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the potential to get to the max fill rate.