GeForce GTS 250 1GB vs GeForce GTS 450

Intro

Compare those specifications to the GeForce GTS 450, which has core speeds of 783 MHz on the GPU, and 902 MHz on the 512 MB of GDDR5 RAM. It features 192 SPUs along with 32 Texture Address Units and 16 Rasterization Operator Units.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GTS 450		106 Watts
GeForce GTS 250 1GB		145 Watts
	Difference: 39 Watts (37%)

Memory Bandwidth

Theoretically speaking, the GeForce GTS 250 1GB should perform a lot faster than the GeForce GTS 450 in general. (explain)

GeForce GTS 250 1GB		70400 MB/sec
GeForce GTS 450		57728 MB/sec
	Difference: 12672 (22%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTS 250 1GB is much (more or less 89%) faster with regards to texture filtering than the GeForce GTS 450. (explain)

GeForce GTS 250 1GB		47232 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GTS 450		25056 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 22176 (89%)

Pixel Rate

If running with high levels of AA is important to you, then the GeForce GTS 450 is superior to the GeForce GTS 250 1GB, not by a very large margin though. (explain)

GeForce GTS 450		12528 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GTS 250 1GB		11808 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 720 (6%)

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 max amount of information (in units of MB per second) that can be transported across the external memory interface within a second. It's worked out by multiplying the bus width by the speed of its memory. In the case of DDR memory, it should be multiplied by 2 again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The better the card's memory bandwidth, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, High Dynamic Range and higher screen resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum amount of texture map elements (texels) that are applied per second. This figure is calculated by multiplying the total amount of texture units by the core speed of the chip. The higher this number, the better the card will be at texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels processed per second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the most pixels that the graphics chip could possibly write to its local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is calculated by multiplying the amount of ROPs by the clock speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - aka Render Output Units) are responsible for filling the screen with pixels (the image). The actual pixel output rate also depends on quite a few other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the ability to get to the maximum fill rate.