GeForce 9600 GSO 1.5GB vs GeForce GTX 580 3GB

Intro

Compare all that to the GeForce GTX 580 3GB, which features core 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 Texture Address Units and 48 Rasterization Operator Units.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce 9600 GSO 1.5GB		84 Watts
GeForce GTX 580 3GB		244 Watts
	Difference: 160 Watts (190%)

Memory Bandwidth

Theoretically speaking, the GeForce GTX 580 3GB should be much faster than the GeForce 9600 GSO 1.5GB in general. (explain)

GeForce GTX 580 3GB		192384 MB/sec
GeForce 9600 GSO 1.5GB		38400 MB/sec
	Difference: 153984 (401%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 580 3GB will be a lot (more or less 87%) better at AF than the GeForce 9600 GSO 1.5GB. (explain)

GeForce GTX 580 3GB		49408 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 9600 GSO 1.5GB		26400 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 23008 (87%)

Pixel Rate

The GeForce GTX 580 3GB should be a lot (approximately 461%) more effective at FSAA than the GeForce 9600 GSO 1.5GB, and capable of handling higher screen resolutions without slowing down too much. (explain)

GeForce GTX 580 3GB		37056 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 9600 GSO 1.5GB		6600 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 30456 (461%)

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 information (measured in megabytes per second) that can be moved past the external memory interface in a second. It's worked out by multiplying the card's bus width by its memory clock speed. If the card has DDR RAM, it should be multiplied by 2 once again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The better the card's memory bandwidth, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, HDR and high resolutions.

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

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum amount of pixels the graphics card could possibly write to its local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is worked out by multiplying the amount of Raster Operations Pipelines by the the card's clock speed. 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 is also dependant on many other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the ability to get to the max fill rate.