GeForce 9800 GT 1GB vs GeForce GTX 580

Intro

Compare all of that to the GeForce GTX 580, which has core clock speeds of 772 MHz on the GPU, and 1002 MHz on the 1536 MB of GDDR5 RAM. It features 512 SPUs as well as 64 TAUs and 48 Rasterization Operator Units.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce 9800 GT 1GB		105 Watts
GeForce GTX 580		244 Watts
	Difference: 139 Watts (132%)

Memory Bandwidth

As far as performance goes, the GeForce GTX 580 should theoretically be much better than the GeForce 9800 GT 1GB in general. (explain)

GeForce GTX 580		192384 MB/sec
GeForce 9800 GT 1GB		57600 MB/sec
	Difference: 134784 (234%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 580 should be a lot (approximately 47%) better at anisotropic filtering than the GeForce 9800 GT 1GB. (explain)

GeForce GTX 580		49408 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 9800 GT 1GB		33600 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 15808 (47%)

Pixel Rate

The GeForce GTX 580 will be quite a bit (more or less 286%) faster with regards to anti-aliasing than the GeForce 9800 GT 1GB, and should be able to handle higher resolutions without losing too much performance. (explain)

GeForce GTX 580		37056 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 9800 GT 1GB		9600 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 27456 (286%)

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 (measured in megabytes per second) that can be transported past the external memory interface in one second. It's worked out by multiplying the card's interface width by its memory clock speed. If the card has DDR type RAM, it should be multiplied by 2 once again. If DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The better the card's memory bandwidth, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, High Dynamic Range and higher screen resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum number of texture map elements (texels) that can be applied in one second. This is calculated by multiplying the total texture units by the core 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 in a second.

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