GeForce GTS 250 512MB vs GeForce GTX 860M

Intro

Compare all of that to the GeForce GTX 860M, which comes with a core clock speed of 797 MHz and a GDDR5 memory speed of 1000 MHz. It also uses a 128-bit memory bus, and uses a 28 nm design. It features 1152 SPUs, 96 TAUs, and 16 Raster Operation Units.

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 is 10% quicker than the GeForce GTX 860M overall, because of 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 will be a lot (more or less 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 will be just a bit (approximately 8%) more effective at anti-aliasing than the GeForce GTS 250 512MB, and also will be able to handle higher screen resolutions more effectively. (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: Bandwidth is the largest amount of information (measured in MB per second) that can be transported across the external memory interface within a second. It's worked out by multiplying the interface width by the speed of its memory. If the card has DDR type RAM, it must be multiplied by 2 again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The better the card's 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 amount of texture map elements (texels) that are processed in one second. This is calculated by multiplying the total number of texture units of the card by the core speed of the chip. The better the texel rate, the better the 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 video card can possibly write to its local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is worked out by multiplying the number of ROPs by the clock speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - sometimes also referred to as Render Output Units) are responsible for drawing the pixels (image) on the screen. The actual pixel fill rate also depends on lots of other factors, especially the memory bandwidth - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the ability to get to the maximum fill rate.