GeForce GT 230 vs GeForce GTX 580

Intro

Compare those specifications to the GeForce GTX 580, which comes with a clock speed of 772 MHz and a GDDR5 memory frequency of 1002 MHz. It also makes use of a 384-bit memory bus, and uses a 40 nm design. It features 512 SPUs, 64 TAUs, and 48 Raster Operation Units.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GT 230		65 Watts
GeForce GTX 580		244 Watts
	Difference: 179 Watts (275%)

Memory Bandwidth

In theory, the GeForce GTX 580 should perform quite a bit faster than the GeForce GT 230 overall. (explain)

GeForce GTX 580		192384 MB/sec
GeForce GT 230		38400 MB/sec
	Difference: 153984 (401%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 580 will be a lot (more or less 461%) more effective at anisotropic filtering than the GeForce GT 230. (explain)

GeForce GTX 580		49408 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GT 230		8800 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 40608 (461%)

Pixel Rate

The GeForce GTX 580 will be quite a bit (about 742%) more effective at FSAA than the GeForce GT 230, and also will be capable of handling higher screen resolutions without slowing down too much. (explain)

GeForce GTX 580		37056 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GT 230		4400 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 32656 (742%)

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: Memory bandwidth is the largest amount of data (counted in MB per second) that can be transferred across the external memory interface within a second. It is calculated by multiplying the bus width by the speed of its memory. If the card has DDR memory, the result should be multiplied by 2 again. If DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The higher the bandwidth is, 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 texture map elements (texels) that are processed in one second. This number is calculated by multiplying the total texture units of the card by the core clock speed of the chip. The better the texel rate, 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 maximum amount of pixels that the graphics chip could possibly record to its local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is calculated by multiplying the amount of Raster Operations Pipelines by the the card's clock speed. 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 rate is also dependant on lots of other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the potential to reach the max fill rate.