GeForce 9500 GT 1GB GDDR3 vs GeForce GTX 580

Intro

Compare those specs to the GeForce GTX 580, which uses a 40 nm design. nVidia has clocked the core frequency at 772 MHz. The GDDR5 RAM is set to run at a frequency of 1002 MHz on this specific model. It features 512 SPUs as well as 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 1GB GDDR3		50 Watts
GeForce GTX 580		244 Watts
	Difference: 194 Watts (388%)

Memory Bandwidth

In theory, the GeForce GTX 580 should perform quite a bit faster than the GeForce 9500 GT 1GB GDDR3 overall. (explain)

GeForce GTX 580		192384 MB/sec
GeForce 9500 GT 1GB GDDR3		25600 MB/sec
	Difference: 166784 (652%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 580 is much (about 461%) more effective at texture filtering than the GeForce 9500 GT 1GB GDDR3. (explain)

GeForce GTX 580		49408 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 9500 GT 1GB GDDR3		8800 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 40608 (461%)

Pixel Rate

If running with high levels of AA is important to you, then the GeForce GTX 580 is a better choice, by a large margin. (explain)

GeForce GTX 580		37056 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 9500 GT 1GB 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 max amount of information (counted in megabytes per second) that can be transferred over the external memory interface in one second. It is worked out by multiplying the card's bus width by the speed of its memory. If the card has DDR type RAM, it must be multiplied by 2 once again. If DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The higher the bandwidth is, 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 number of texture map elements (texels) that are applied per second. This figure is calculated by multiplying the total amount of texture units of the card by the core clock speed of the chip. The higher this number, the better the video card will be at texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels applied in one second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum number of pixels the graphics card could possibly write to the local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is worked out by multiplying the number of Render Output Units by the the core speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - aka 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 of the card - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the ability to reach the maximum fill rate.