GeForce 9800 GX2 vs GeForce GTX 580

Intro

Compare those specs to the GeForce GTX 580, which has GPU clock speed of 772 MHz, and 1536 MB of GDDR5 RAM running at 1002 MHz through a 384-bit bus. It also features 512 SPUs, 64 TAUs, and 48 ROPs.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce 9800 GX2		197 Watts
GeForce GTX 580		244 Watts
	Difference: 47 Watts (24%)

Memory Bandwidth

Theoretically speaking, the GeForce GTX 580 is 50% quicker than the GeForce 9800 GX2 overall, due to its higher data rate. (explain)

GeForce GTX 580		192384 MB/sec
GeForce 9800 GX2		128000 MB/sec
	Difference: 64384 (50%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce 9800 GX2 should be much (more or less 55%) more effective at texture filtering than the GeForce GTX 580. (explain)

GeForce 9800 GX2		76800 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GTX 580		49408 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 27392 (55%)

Pixel Rate

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

GeForce GTX 580		37056 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 9800 GX2		19200 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 17856 (93%)

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.

One or more cards in this comparison are multi-core. This means that their bandwidth, texel and pixel rates are theoretically doubled - this does not mean the card will actually perform twice as fast, but only that it should in theory be able to. Actual game benchmarks will give a more accurate idea of what it's capable of.

Price Comparison

Specifications

Memory Bandwidth: Bandwidth is the max amount of data (counted in megabytes per second) that can be transferred past the external memory interface within a second. The number is calculated by multiplying the interface width by its memory speed. In the case of DDR memory, it should be multiplied by 2 once again. If DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The higher the card's memory bandwidth, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, High Dynamic Range and high resolutions.

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

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum number of pixels the video card can possibly write to the local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is calculated by multiplying the number of ROPs 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 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 ability to reach the max fill rate.