GeForce 9800 GX2 vs GeForce GTX 580 3GB

Intro

Compare those specifications to the GeForce GTX 580 3GB, which comes with core speeds of 772 MHz on the GPU, and 1002 MHz on the 3072 MB of GDDR5 memory. It features 512 SPUs along with 64 Texture Address Units and 48 Rasterization Operator Units.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce 9800 GX2		197 Watts
GeForce GTX 580 3GB		244 Watts
	Difference: 47 Watts (24%)

Memory Bandwidth

The GeForce GTX 580 3GB should theoretically perform much faster than the GeForce 9800 GX2 overall. (explain)

GeForce GTX 580 3GB		192384 MB/sec
GeForce 9800 GX2		128000 MB/sec
	Difference: 64384 (50%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce 9800 GX2 will be a lot (more or less 55%) faster with regards to AF than the GeForce GTX 580 3GB. (explain)

GeForce 9800 GX2		76800 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GTX 580 3GB		49408 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 27392 (55%)

Pixel Rate

The GeForce GTX 580 3GB is quite a bit (about 93%) more effective at full screen anti-aliasing than the GeForce 9800 GX2, and should be capable of handling higher screen resolutions better. (explain)

GeForce GTX 580 3GB		37056 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 9800 GX2		19200 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 17856 (93%)

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.

One or more cards in this comparison are multi-core. This means that their bandwidth, texel and pixel rates are theoretically doubled - this does not mean the card will actually perform twice as fast, but only that it should in theory be able to. Actual game benchmarks will give a more accurate idea of what it's capable of.

Price Comparison

Specifications

Memory Bandwidth: Bandwidth is the max amount of data (in units of megabytes per second) that can be moved across the external memory interface in a second. The number is calculated by multiplying the bus width by its memory speed. If it uses DDR RAM, it should be multiplied by 2 once again. If DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The better the card's memory bandwidth, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, High Dynamic Range and high resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum number of texture map elements (texels) that are applied in one second. This number is calculated by multiplying the total amount of texture units by the core speed of the chip. The better the texel rate, the better the graphics 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 that the graphics chip could possibly write to the local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is calculated by multiplying the number of ROPs 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 fill rate also depends on quite a few other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the ability to get to the max fill rate.