GeForce 9600 GSO 512MB vs GeForce GTX 580 3GB

Intro

Compare all that to the GeForce GTX 580 3GB, which features clock speeds of 772 MHz on the GPU, and 1002 MHz on the 3072 MB of GDDR5 RAM. It features 512 SPUs along with 64 TAUs and 48 Rasterization Operator Units.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce 9600 GSO 512MB		90 Watts
GeForce GTX 580 3GB		244 Watts
	Difference: 154 Watts (171%)

Memory Bandwidth

Theoretically, the GeForce GTX 580 3GB should perform a lot faster than the GeForce 9600 GSO 512MB overall. (explain)

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

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 580 3GB should be quite a bit (more or less 58%) more effective at anisotropic filtering than the GeForce 9600 GSO 512MB. (explain)

GeForce GTX 580 3GB		49408 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 9600 GSO 512MB		31200 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 18208 (58%)

Pixel Rate

The GeForce GTX 580 3GB should be quite a bit (about 256%) better at AA than the GeForce 9600 GSO 512MB, and also should be able to handle higher resolutions while still performing well. (explain)

GeForce GTX 580 3GB		37056 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 9600 GSO 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 data (counted in megabytes per second) that can be moved across the external memory interface within a second. It is worked out by multiplying the card's bus width by its memory clock speed. If it uses DDR RAM, it should be multiplied by 2 again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The higher the memory bandwidth, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, HDR and high resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum texture map elements (texels) that are applied per second. This figure is worked out by multiplying the total amount of texture units by the core clock speed of the chip. The higher the texel rate, the better the video card will be at handling texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels processed in one second.

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