GeForce GT 320 vs GeForce GTX 580

Intro

Compare that to the GeForce GTX 580, which makes use of a 40 nm design. nVidia has set the core speed at 772 MHz. The GDDR5 memory is set to run at a speed of 1002 MHz on this card. It features 512 SPUs along with 64 TAUs and 48 ROPs.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GT 320		43 Watts
GeForce GTX 580		244 Watts
	Difference: 201 Watts (467%)

Memory Bandwidth

The GeForce GTX 580 should in theory perform much faster than the GeForce GT 320 overall. (explain)

GeForce GTX 580		192384 MB/sec
GeForce GT 320		25280 MB/sec
	Difference: 167104 (661%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 580 is much (approximately 281%) better at texture filtering than the GeForce GT 320. (explain)

GeForce GTX 580		49408 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GT 320		12960 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 36448 (281%)

Pixel Rate

The GeForce GTX 580 should be a lot (more or less 758%) better at anti-aliasing than the GeForce GT 320, and able to handle higher screen resolutions better. (explain)

GeForce GTX 580		37056 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GT 320		4320 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 32736 (758%)

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 data (measured in megabytes per second) that can be moved over the external memory interface in one second. It's worked out by multiplying the card's bus width by its memory speed. If it uses DDR RAM, it must be multiplied by 2 again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The better the bandwidth is, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, HDR and high resolutions.

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

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum amount of pixels the graphics card could possibly write to the local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is calculated by multiplying the number of Render Output Units 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 rate is also dependant on quite a few other factors, especially the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the potential to reach the max fill rate.