GeForce 9800 GX2 vs GeForce GTX 580 3GB

Intro

Compare those specs to the GeForce GTX 580 3GB, which has GPU core speed of 772 MHz, and 3072 MB of GDDR5 RAM set to run at 1002 MHz through a 384-bit bus. It also is made up of 512 SPUs, 64 TAUs, and 48 Raster Operation Units.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

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, in theory, should perform a lot 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 is a lot (more or less 55%) faster with regards to texture filtering 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 will be a lot (about 93%) more effective at AA than the GeForce 9800 GX2, and also will be able to handle 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 maximum amount of data (measured in megabytes per second) that can be transported across the external memory interface within a second. It's worked out by multiplying the bus width by its memory clock speed. If the card has DDR memory, it should be multiplied by 2 again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The better 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 are applied per second. This figure is calculated by multiplying the total amount of texture units of the card by the core 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 a second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum amount of pixels that the graphics chip could possibly write to its local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is worked out by multiplying the amount of Raster Operations Pipelines by the the core clock speed. 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 many 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.