GeForce 9800 GTX vs GeForce GTX 580

Intro

Compare those specs to the GeForce GTX 580, which features a GPU core clock speed of 772 MHz, and 1536 MB of GDDR5 RAM set to run at 1002 MHz through a 384-bit bus. It also is made up of 512 Stream Processors, 64 Texture Address Units, and 48 Raster Operation Units.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce 9800 GTX		140 Watts
GeForce GTX 580		244 Watts
	Difference: 104 Watts (74%)

Memory Bandwidth

In theory, the GeForce GTX 580 will be 173% faster than the GeForce 9800 GTX overall, due to its higher data rate. (explain)

GeForce GTX 580		192384 MB/sec
GeForce 9800 GTX		70400 MB/sec
	Difference: 121984 (173%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 580 will be just a bit (more or less 14%) better at AF than the GeForce 9800 GTX. (explain)

GeForce GTX 580		49408 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 9800 GTX		43200 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 6208 (14%)

Pixel Rate

The GeForce GTX 580 will be quite a bit (more or less 243%) more effective at anti-aliasing than the GeForce 9800 GTX, and will be capable of handling higher screen resolutions more effectively. (explain)

GeForce GTX 580		37056 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 9800 GTX		10800 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 26256 (243%)

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 maximum amount of data (counted in MB per second) that can be transferred over the external memory interface within a second. It's calculated by multiplying the card's interface width by its memory speed. If it uses DDR RAM, it should be multiplied by 2 again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The better the memory bandwidth, the faster 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 can be processed per second. This is worked out by multiplying the total amount of texture units by the core speed of the chip. The higher this number, the better the graphics card will be at texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels processed in one second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the most pixels that the graphics chip could possibly write to its local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is worked out by multiplying the amount of Render Output Units by the the card's clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also called Render Output Units) are responsible for outputting the pixels (image) to the screen. The actual pixel output rate also depends on lots of other factors, especially the memory bandwidth - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the ability to get to the max fill rate.