GeForce 9800 GTX+ vs GeForce GTX 580 3GB

Intro

Compare all that to the GeForce GTX 580 3GB, which comes with a GPU core clock speed of 772 MHz, and 3072 MB of GDDR5 memory set to run at 1002 MHz through a 384-bit bus. It also 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 9800 GTX+		145 Watts
GeForce GTX 580 3GB		244 Watts
	Difference: 99 Watts (68%)

Memory Bandwidth

Theoretically speaking, the GeForce GTX 580 3GB should be 173% faster than the GeForce 9800 GTX+ in general, due to its higher data rate. (explain)

GeForce GTX 580 3GB		192384 MB/sec
GeForce 9800 GTX+		70400 MB/sec
	Difference: 121984 (173%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 580 3GB should be a little bit (about 5%) more effective at texture filtering than the GeForce 9800 GTX+. (explain)

GeForce GTX 580 3GB		49408 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 9800 GTX+		47232 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 2176 (5%)

Pixel Rate

If running with lots of anti-aliasing is important to you, then the GeForce GTX 580 3GB is the winner, by far. (explain)

GeForce GTX 580 3GB		37056 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 9800 GTX+		11808 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 25248 (214%)

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: Memory bandwidth is the maximum amount of data (counted in megabytes per second) that can be moved over the external memory interface in one second. It's calculated by multiplying the bus width by its memory speed. In the case of DDR type RAM, the result should be multiplied by 2 once again. If DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The higher 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 amount of texture map elements (texels) that are processed per second. This number is calculated by multiplying the total texture units of the card by the core speed of the chip. The better the texel rate, the better the 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 write to the local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is worked out by multiplying the number of Raster Operations Pipelines by the the core clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - sometimes also referred to as Render Output Units) are responsible for filling the screen with pixels (the image). The actual pixel rate also depends on lots of other factors, especially the memory bandwidth - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the potential to get to the maximum fill rate.