GeForce 9600 GSO 768MB vs GeForce GTX 580

Intro

Compare those specifications to the GeForce GTX 580, which has GPU clock speed of 772 MHz, and 1536 MB of GDDR5 RAM 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

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce 9600 GSO 768MB		84 Watts
GeForce GTX 580		244 Watts
	Difference: 160 Watts (190%)

Memory Bandwidth

The GeForce GTX 580 should theoretically perform a lot faster than the GeForce 9600 GSO 768MB overall. (explain)

GeForce GTX 580		192384 MB/sec
GeForce 9600 GSO 768MB		38400 MB/sec
	Difference: 153984 (401%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 580 should be a lot (more or less 87%) more effective at texture filtering than the GeForce 9600 GSO 768MB. (explain)

GeForce GTX 580		49408 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 9600 GSO 768MB		26400 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 23008 (87%)

Pixel Rate

If using high levels of AA is important to you, then the GeForce GTX 580 is a better choice, and very much so. (explain)

GeForce GTX 580		37056 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 9600 GSO 768MB		6600 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 30456 (461%)

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 data (in units of megabytes per second) that can be transferred across the external memory interface in one second. It is calculated by multiplying the card's bus width by its memory clock speed. If the card has DDR RAM, the result should be multiplied by 2 again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The better the card's memory bandwidth, the faster 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 are processed per second. This number is calculated by multiplying the total amount of texture units by the core speed of the chip. The higher this number, the better the graphics 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 most pixels that the graphics card can possibly record to its local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is calculated by multiplying the number of Render Output Units by the clock speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also sometimes called Render Output Units) are responsible for outputting the pixels (image) to the screen. The actual pixel fill rate is also dependant on quite a few other factors, especially the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the ability to get to the maximum fill rate.