GeForce 8300 GS (OEM) vs GeForce GTX 580 3GB

Intro

Compare those specifications to the GeForce GTX 580 3GB, which uses a 40 nm design. nVidia has clocked the core frequency at 772 MHz. The GDDR5 RAM works at a frequency of 1002 MHz on this particular model. 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 8300 GS (OEM)		40 Watts
GeForce GTX 580 3GB		244 Watts
	Difference: 204 Watts (510%)

Memory Bandwidth

The GeForce GTX 580 3GB, in theory, should be much faster than the GeForce 8300 GS (OEM) in general. (explain)

GeForce GTX 580 3GB		192384 MB/sec
GeForce 8300 GS (OEM)		6400 MB/sec
	Difference: 185984 (2906%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 580 3GB is a lot (about 2645%) more effective at texture filtering than the GeForce 8300 GS (OEM). (explain)

GeForce GTX 580 3GB		49408 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 8300 GS (OEM)		1800 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 47608 (2645%)

Pixel Rate

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

GeForce GTX 580 3GB		37056 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 8300 GS (OEM)		900 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 36156 (4017%)

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 largest amount of data (in units of megabytes per second) that can be transferred past the external memory interface in a second. It is worked out by multiplying the card's interface width by the speed of its memory. In the case of DDR type memory, it should be multiplied by 2 once again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The higher the card's memory bandwidth, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, HDR and higher screen resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum texture map elements (texels) that can be applied per second. This is calculated by multiplying the total amount of texture units by the core speed of the chip. The higher this number, the better the video card will be at texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels in a second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum amount of pixels the graphics card could possibly write to its local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is calculated by multiplying the amount of Raster Operations Pipelines by the the core clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also called Render Output Units) are responsible for outputting the pixels (image) to the screen. The actual pixel fill rate is also dependant on lots of other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the potential to reach the max fill rate.