Polaris 21 vs GeForce GTS 250M

Primary details

GPU architecture, market segment, value for money and other general parameters compared.

Place in performance ranking	953	not rated
Place by popularity	not in top-100	not in top-100
Cost-effectiveness evaluation	0.09	no data
Architecture	GT2xx (2009−2012)	GCN 4.0 (2016−2020)
GPU code name	N10E-GE	Polaris 21
Market segment	Laptop	Desktop
Release date	15 June 2009 (15 years ago)	no data
Current price	$230	$90

Cost-effectiveness evaluation

Performance to price ratio. The higher, the better.

Detailed specifications

General performance parameters such as number of shaders, GPU core base clock and boost clock speeds, manufacturing process, texturing and calculation speed. These parameters indirectly speak of performance, but for precise assessment you have to consider their benchmark and gaming test results. Note that power consumption of some graphics cards can well exceed their nominal TDP, especially when overclocked.

Pipelines / CUDA cores	96	1024
CUDA cores	96	no data
Core clock speed	500 MHz	no data
Number of transistors	727 million	3,000 million
Manufacturing process technology	40 nm	14 nm
Power consumption (TDP)	28 Watt	no data
Texture fill rate	16.00	no data
Floating-point performance	240 gflops	no data
Gigaflops	360	no data

Form factor & compatibility

Information on GeForce GTS 250M and Polaris 21 compatibility with other computer components. Useful when choosing a future computer configuration or upgrading an existing one. For desktop video cards it's interface and bus (motherboard compatibility), additional power connectors (power supply compatibility). For notebook video cards it's notebook size, connection slot and bus, if the video card is inserted into a slot instead of being soldered to the notebook motherboard.

Laptop size	large	no data
Bus support	PCI-E 2.0	no data
Interface	PCIe 2.0 x16	no data
SLI options	+	no data
MXM Type	MXM 3.0 Type-B	no data

VRAM capacity and type

Parameters of VRAM installed: its type, size, bus, clock and resulting bandwidth. Integrated GPUs have no dedicated video RAM and use a shared part of system RAM.

Memory type	DDR3, GDDR3, GDDR5	no data
Maximum RAM amount	1 GB	no data
Memory bus width	128 Bit	no data
Memory clock speed	Up to 2000 MHz	no data
Memory bandwidth	51.2 GB/s	no data
Shared memory	-	no data

Connectivity and outputs

Types and number of video connectors present on the reviewed GPUs. As a rule, data in this section is precise only for desktop reference ones (so-called Founders Edition for NVIDIA chips). OEM manufacturers may change the number and type of output ports, while for notebook cards availability of certain video outputs ports depends on the laptop model rather than on the card itself.

Display Connectors	HDMIVGALVDSSingle Link DVIDisplayPortDual Link DVI	no data
HDMI	+	no data
Maximum VGA resolution	2048x1536	no data

Supported technologies

Supported technological solutions. This information will prove useful if you need some particular technology for your purposes.

Power management

8.0

no data

API compatibility

List of supported graphics and general-purpose computing APIs, including their specific versions.

DirectX	11.1 (10_1)	12 (12_0)
Shader Model	4.1	6.7
OpenGL	2.1	4.6
OpenCL	1.1	2.1
Vulkan	N/A	1.3
CUDA	+	no data

Pros & cons summary

---

Chip lithography

40 nm

14 nm

---

Should you still have questions concerning choice between the reviewed GPUs, ask them in Comments section, and we shall answer.

Vote for your favorite

Do you think we are right or mistaken in our choice? Vote by clicking "Like" button near your favorite graphics card.

---