GeForce 9600 GT 1GB vs GeForce GTX 580

Intro

Compare that to the GeForce GTX 580, which features 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 comprised of 512 Stream Processors, 64 TAUs, and 48 ROPs.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce 9600 GT 1GB		95 Watts
GeForce GTX 580		244 Watts
	Difference: 149 Watts (157%)

Memory Bandwidth

The GeForce GTX 580 should theoretically perform quite a bit faster than the GeForce 9600 GT 1GB overall. (explain)

GeForce GTX 580		192384 MB/sec
GeForce 9600 GT 1GB		57600 MB/sec
	Difference: 134784 (234%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 580 will be much (more or less 138%) more effective at AF than the GeForce 9600 GT 1GB. (explain)

GeForce GTX 580		49408 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 9600 GT 1GB		20800 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 28608 (138%)

Pixel Rate

The GeForce GTX 580 will be quite a bit (approximately 256%) more effective at AA than the GeForce 9600 GT 1GB, and also will be able to handle higher screen resolutions without losing too much performance. (explain)

GeForce GTX 580		37056 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 9600 GT 1GB		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 data (measured in megabytes per second) that can be transferred across the external memory interface in one second. It's worked out by multiplying the interface width by the speed of its memory. If the card has DDR RAM, the result should be multiplied by 2 again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The higher the card's memory bandwidth, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, HDR and higher screen resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum amount of texture map elements (texels) that can be processed per second. This is calculated by multiplying the total texture units of the card by the core clock speed of the chip. The higher the texel rate, the better the graphics card will be at handling texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels applied in one second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the most pixels that the graphics card can possibly write to the local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is worked out by multiplying the number of Raster Operations Pipelines by the the core speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - sometimes also referred to as Render Output Units) are responsible for drawing the pixels (image) on the screen. The actual pixel output rate also depends on quite a few other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the potential to reach the maximum fill rate.