GeForce 9800 GTX+ vs GeForce GTX 580

Intro

Compare those specifications to the GeForce GTX 580, which comes with core speeds of 772 MHz on the GPU, and 1002 MHz on the 1536 MB of GDDR5 memory. It features 512 SPUs as well as 64 TAUs and 48 ROPs.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce 9800 GTX+		145 Watts
GeForce GTX 580		244 Watts
	Difference: 99 Watts (68%)

Memory Bandwidth

The GeForce GTX 580, in theory, should be quite a bit faster than the GeForce 9800 GTX+ overall. (explain)

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

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 580 will be a little bit (more or less 5%) more effective at AF than the GeForce 9800 GTX+. (explain)

GeForce GTX 580		49408 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 9800 GTX+		47232 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 2176 (5%)

Pixel Rate

The GeForce GTX 580 will be a lot (approximately 214%) better at anti-aliasing than the GeForce 9800 GTX+, and also capable of handling higher screen resolutions while still performing well. (explain)

GeForce GTX 580		37056 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 9800 GTX+		11808 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 25248 (214%)

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 information (counted in megabytes per second) that can be transported past the external memory interface in one second. The number is calculated by multiplying the bus width by its memory clock speed. If it uses DDR memory, it must be multiplied by 2 once again. If DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The higher the bandwidth is, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, HDR and high resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum amount of texture map elements (texels) that are processed in one second. This figure is calculated by multiplying the total amount of texture units by the core 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 number of pixels that the graphics card could possibly record to the local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is calculated by multiplying the amount of colour ROPs by the the card's clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also sometimes called Render Output Units) are responsible for outputting the pixels (image) to the screen. The actual pixel fill rate also depends on many other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the potential to reach the maximum fill rate.