GeForce 9800 GTX vs GeForce GTX 580

Intro

Compare all that to the GeForce GTX 580, which uses a 40 nm design. nVidia has set the core speed at 772 MHz. The GDDR5 memory is set to run at a speed of 1002 MHz on this card. It features 512 SPUs as well as 64 TAUs and 48 ROPs.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce 9800 GTX		140 Watts
GeForce GTX 580		244 Watts
	Difference: 104 Watts (74%)

Memory Bandwidth

The GeForce GTX 580 should in theory be quite a bit faster than the GeForce 9800 GTX in general. (explain)

GeForce GTX 580		192384 MB/sec
GeForce 9800 GTX		70400 MB/sec
	Difference: 121984 (173%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 580 is a little bit (approximately 14%) faster with regards to AF than the GeForce 9800 GTX. (explain)

GeForce GTX 580		49408 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 9800 GTX		43200 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 6208 (14%)

Pixel Rate

The GeForce GTX 580 is a lot (about 243%) faster with regards to full screen anti-aliasing than the GeForce 9800 GTX, and also able to handle higher resolutions better. (explain)

GeForce GTX 580		37056 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 9800 GTX		10800 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 26256 (243%)

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 (measured in megabytes per second) that can be moved over the external memory interface within a second. It is worked out by multiplying the card's bus width by its memory clock speed. If the card has DDR RAM, it must be multiplied by 2 again. If DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The better the card's memory bandwidth, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, HDR and higher screen resolutions.

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