GeForce 9600 GSO 512MB vs GeForce GTX 580

Intro

Compare those specifications to the GeForce GTX 580, which makes use of a 40 nm design. nVidia has clocked the core speed at 772 MHz. The GDDR5 memory runs at a speed of 1002 MHz on this specific card. It features 512 SPUs along with 64 Texture Address Units and 48 Rasterization Operator Units.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce 9600 GSO 512MB		90 Watts
GeForce GTX 580		244 Watts
	Difference: 154 Watts (171%)

Memory Bandwidth

As far as performance goes, the GeForce GTX 580 should in theory be a lot better than the GeForce 9600 GSO 512MB overall. (explain)

GeForce GTX 580		192384 MB/sec
GeForce 9600 GSO 512MB		57600 MB/sec
	Difference: 134784 (234%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 580 is quite a bit (approximately 58%) more effective at texture filtering than the GeForce 9600 GSO 512MB. (explain)

GeForce GTX 580		49408 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 9600 GSO 512MB		31200 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 18208 (58%)

Pixel Rate

If using high levels of AA is important to you, then the GeForce GTX 580 is a better choice, by far. (explain)

GeForce GTX 580		37056 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 9600 GSO 512MB		10400 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 26656 (256%)

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 max amount of information (counted in megabytes per second) that can be moved over the external memory interface in one second. It is calculated by multiplying the card's bus width by the speed of its memory. If the card has DDR memory, it should be multiplied by 2 again. If DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The better 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 amount of texture map elements (texels) that are applied per second. This figure is calculated by multiplying the total texture units of the card by the core speed of the chip. The better 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 number of pixels the video card can possibly record to the local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is calculated by multiplying the amount of Raster Operations Pipelines by the the core speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also called Render Output Units) are responsible for filling the screen with pixels (the image). The actual pixel output rate also depends on quite a few other factors, especially the memory bandwidth - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the potential to get to the max fill rate.