GeForce 9500 GT 512MB GDDR3 vs GeForce GTX 580

Intro

Compare all of that to the GeForce GTX 580, which has a clock frequency of 772 MHz and a GDDR5 memory speed of 1002 MHz. It also features a 384-bit memory bus, and uses a 40 nm design. It features 512 SPUs, 64 Texture Address Units, and 48 ROPs.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce 9500 GT 512MB GDDR3		50 Watts
GeForce GTX 580		244 Watts
	Difference: 194 Watts (388%)

Memory Bandwidth

In theory, the GeForce GTX 580 should be quite a bit faster than the GeForce 9500 GT 512MB GDDR3 overall. (explain)

GeForce GTX 580		192384 MB/sec
GeForce 9500 GT 512MB GDDR3		25600 MB/sec
	Difference: 166784 (652%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 580 will be quite a bit (approximately 461%) faster with regards to texture filtering than the GeForce 9500 GT 512MB GDDR3. (explain)

GeForce GTX 580		49408 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 9500 GT 512MB GDDR3		8800 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 40608 (461%)

Pixel Rate

The GeForce GTX 580 should be quite a bit (approximately 742%) better at full screen anti-aliasing than the GeForce 9500 GT 512MB GDDR3, and also should be capable of handling higher screen resolutions more effectively. (explain)

GeForce GTX 580		37056 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 9500 GT 512MB GDDR3		4400 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 32656 (742%)

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 largest amount of information (measured in megabytes per second) that can be transferred across the external memory interface in one second. It is worked out by multiplying the card's bus width by its memory clock speed. If the card has DDR RAM, it must be multiplied by 2 once again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The higher the 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 texture map elements (texels) that are applied per second. This is worked out by multiplying the total number of texture units of the card by the core clock speed of the chip. The higher the texel rate, the better the card will be at 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 the graphics card can possibly record to the local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is calculated by multiplying the number of ROPs by the the core speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - sometimes also referred to as Render Output Units) are responsible for outputting the pixels (image) to the screen. 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 ability to reach the max fill rate.