GeForce 8800 GTX vs GeForce GTS 250 512MB

Intro

Compare those specs to the GeForce GTS 250 512MB, which has a core clock speed of 738 MHz and a GDDR3 memory speed of 1100 MHz. It also features a 256-bit bus, and uses a 65/55 nm design. It is comprised of 128 SPUs, 64 Texture Address Units, and 16 Raster Operation Units.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GTS 250 512MB		145 Watts
GeForce 8800 GTX		155 Watts
	Difference: 10 Watts (7%)

Memory Bandwidth

Theoretically, the GeForce 8800 GTX should be much faster than the GeForce GTS 250 512MB in general. (explain)

GeForce 8800 GTX		86400 MB/sec
GeForce GTS 250 512MB		70400 MB/sec
	Difference: 16000 (23%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTS 250 512MB is quite a bit (about 28%) better at anisotropic filtering than the GeForce 8800 GTX. (explain)

GeForce GTS 250 512MB		47232 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 8800 GTX		36800 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 10432 (28%)

Pixel Rate

The GeForce 8800 GTX will be a bit (more or less 17%) faster with regards to anti-aliasing than the GeForce GTS 250 512MB, and will be able to handle higher resolutions without losing too much performance. (explain)

GeForce 8800 GTX		13800 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GTS 250 512MB		11808 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 1992 (17%)

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 largest amount of data (measured in megabytes per second) that can be moved over the external memory interface within a second. The number is calculated by multiplying the card's interface width by its memory clock speed. In the case of DDR RAM, it should be multiplied by 2 once again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The better the card's memory bandwidth, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, HDR and high resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum texture map elements (texels) that can be processed per second. This figure is worked out 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 per second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum amount of pixels that the graphics card can possibly record to its local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is calculated by multiplying the number 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 is also dependant on quite a few other factors, especially the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the ability to reach the maximum fill rate.