GeForce 8800 GT 256MB vs GeForce GTX 580 3GB

Intro

Compare all that to the GeForce GTX 580 3GB, which makes use of a 40 nm design. nVidia has set the core speed at 772 MHz. The GDDR5 memory works at a frequency of 1002 MHz on this specific model. It features 512 SPUs as well as 64 Texture Address Units and 48 ROPs.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce 8800 GT 256MB		105 Watts
GeForce GTX 580 3GB		244 Watts
	Difference: 139 Watts (132%)

Memory Bandwidth

The GeForce GTX 580 3GB, in theory, should perform a lot faster than the GeForce 8800 GT 256MB overall. (explain)

GeForce GTX 580 3GB		192384 MB/sec
GeForce 8800 GT 256MB		44800 MB/sec
	Difference: 147584 (329%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 580 3GB is quite a bit (approximately 47%) more effective at AF than the GeForce 8800 GT 256MB. (explain)

GeForce GTX 580 3GB		49408 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 8800 GT 256MB		33600 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 15808 (47%)

Pixel Rate

If running with a high resolution is important to you, then the GeForce GTX 580 3GB is a better choice, by a large margin. (explain)

GeForce GTX 580 3GB		37056 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 8800 GT 256MB		9600 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 27456 (286%)

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 megabytes per second) that can be moved past the external memory interface in a second. The number is worked out by multiplying the card's bus width by its memory speed. In the case of DDR RAM, it should be multiplied by 2 again. If it uses 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, HDR and higher screen resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum amount of texture map elements (texels) that can be processed per second. This number is worked out by multiplying the total texture units of the card by the core clock speed of the chip. The better the texel rate, the better the 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 most pixels that the graphics card can possibly record to its local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is worked out by multiplying the number of Render Output Units by the the card's clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also called Render Output Units) are responsible for drawing the pixels (image) on the screen. The actual pixel rate also depends on many other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the potential to reach the max fill rate.