GeForce 8800 GTX vs GeForce GTS 250 1GB

Intro

Compare that to the GeForce GTS 250 1GB, which comes with a GPU core clock speed of 738 MHz, and 1024 MB of GDDR3 RAM set to run at 1100 MHz through a 256-bit bus. It also is made up of 128 SPUs, 64 Texture Address Units, and 16 ROPs.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GTS 250 1GB		145 Watts
GeForce 8800 GTX		155 Watts
	Difference: 10 Watts (7%)

Memory Bandwidth

As far as performance goes, the GeForce 8800 GTX should in theory be much better than the GeForce GTS 250 1GB in general. (explain)

GeForce 8800 GTX		86400 MB/sec
GeForce GTS 250 1GB		70400 MB/sec
	Difference: 16000 (23%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTS 250 1GB should be a lot (more or less 28%) faster with regards to texture filtering than the GeForce 8800 GTX. (explain)

GeForce GTS 250 1GB		47232 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 8800 GTX		36800 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 10432 (28%)

Pixel Rate

The GeForce 8800 GTX will be a little bit (more or less 17%) more effective at FSAA than the GeForce GTS 250 1GB, and will be able to handle higher resolutions without losing too much performance. (explain)

GeForce 8800 GTX		13800 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GTS 250 1GB		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: Bandwidth is the maximum amount of data (counted in megabytes per second) that can be moved over the external memory interface within a second. The number is worked out by multiplying the card's bus width by its memory clock speed. In the case of DDR memory, it should be multiplied by 2 once again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The higher the bandwidth is, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, High Dynamic Range and higher screen resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum number of texture map elements (texels) that can be applied per second. This figure is worked out by multiplying the total texture units by the core 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 applied in one second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the most pixels the video card could possibly record to its local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is calculated by multiplying the number of Render Output Units by the the core clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also called Render Output Units) are responsible for filling the screen with pixels (the image). The actual pixel fill rate is also dependant on lots of other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the potential to reach the maximum fill rate.