GeForce 9600 GT 512MB vs GeForce GTX 580 3GB

Intro

Compare that to the GeForce GTX 580 3GB, which uses a 40 nm design. nVidia has set the core speed at 772 MHz. The GDDR5 RAM works at a frequency of 1002 MHz on this particular card. It features 512 SPUs as well as 64 TAUs and 48 ROPs.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce 9600 GT 512MB		95 Watts
GeForce GTX 580 3GB		244 Watts
	Difference: 149 Watts (157%)

Memory Bandwidth

In theory, the GeForce GTX 580 3GB should be 234% faster than the GeForce 9600 GT 512MB in general, due to its greater bandwidth. (explain)

GeForce GTX 580 3GB		192384 MB/sec
GeForce 9600 GT 512MB		57600 MB/sec
	Difference: 134784 (234%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 580 3GB is quite a bit (about 138%) faster with regards to anisotropic filtering than the GeForce 9600 GT 512MB. (explain)

GeForce GTX 580 3GB		49408 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 9600 GT 512MB		20800 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 28608 (138%)

Pixel Rate

If using high levels of AA is important to you, then the GeForce GTX 580 3GB is the winner, by a large margin. (explain)

GeForce GTX 580 3GB		37056 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 9600 GT 512MB		10400 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 26656 (256%)

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 (in units of MB per second) that can be moved over the external memory interface in one second. The number is worked out by multiplying the card's bus width by its memory speed. If the card has DDR memory, the result should be multiplied by 2 again. If DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The better the bandwidth is, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, 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 is worked out by multiplying the total amount of texture units of the card by the core clock speed of the chip. The higher the texel rate, the better the video card will be at texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels applied per second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum amount of pixels that the graphics card can possibly write to the local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is worked out by multiplying the number of ROPs by the the core speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - sometimes also referred to as Render Output Units) are responsible for drawing the pixels (image) on the screen. The actual pixel fill rate also depends on lots of other factors, especially the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the potential to reach the maximum fill rate.