GeForce 9800 GTX+ vs GeForce GTX 580

Intro

Compare all of that to the GeForce GTX 580, which comes with a GPU core clock speed of 772 MHz, and 1536 MB of GDDR5 memory set to run at 1002 MHz through a 384-bit bus. It also is made up of 512 SPUs, 64 TAUs, and 48 Raster Operation Units.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

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

As far as performance goes, the GeForce GTX 580 should theoretically be a lot superior to the GeForce 9800 GTX+ in general. (explain)

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

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 580 should be a little bit (approximately 5%) more effective at anisotropic filtering 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 quite a bit (about 214%) better at FSAA than the GeForce 9800 GTX+, and also should be capable of handling higher resolutions without slowing down too much. (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 maximum amount of data (measured in megabytes per second) that can be moved across the external memory interface in one second. It is calculated by multiplying the card's interface width by the speed of its memory. In the case of DDR type RAM, it must be multiplied by 2 again. If DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The higher the memory bandwidth, 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 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 clock speed of the chip. The higher this number, 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 the graphics card can possibly record to the local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is worked out by multiplying the number of ROPs by the the core clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also called 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 - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the potential to reach the max fill rate.