GeForce 8800 GTS (G80) 320MB vs GeForce GTX 580

Intro

Compare those specs to the GeForce GTX 580, which makes use of a 40 nm design. nVidia has clocked the core frequency at 772 MHz. The GDDR5 memory runs at a speed of 1002 MHz on this 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 GTS (G80) 320MB		143 Watts
GeForce GTX 580		244 Watts
	Difference: 101 Watts (71%)

Memory Bandwidth

The GeForce GTX 580 should theoretically be much faster than the GeForce 8800 GTS (G80) 320MB overall. (explain)

GeForce GTX 580		192384 MB/sec
GeForce 8800 GTS (G80) 320MB		63360 MB/sec
	Difference: 129024 (204%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 580 should be quite a bit (approximately 101%) faster with regards to AF than the GeForce 8800 GTS (G80) 320MB. (explain)

GeForce GTX 580		49408 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 8800 GTS (G80) 320MB		24624 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 24784 (101%)

Pixel Rate

The GeForce GTX 580 is a lot (about 261%) more effective at anti-aliasing than the GeForce 8800 GTS (G80) 320MB, and should be capable of handling higher screen resolutions while still performing well. (explain)

GeForce GTX 580		37056 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 8800 GTS (G80) 320MB		10260 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 26796 (261%)

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 max amount of data (measured in MB per second) that can be moved past the external memory interface in one second. It is calculated by multiplying the card's bus width by its memory clock speed. If the card has DDR type RAM, it must be multiplied by 2 again. If DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The better the memory bandwidth, the faster 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 can be processed in one second. This number is worked out by multiplying the total amount of texture units by the core speed of the chip. The better this number, the better the card will be at texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels in one second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum amount of pixels that the graphics chip can possibly record to the local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is calculated by multiplying the amount of colour ROPs by the clock speed of the card. 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, especially the memory bandwidth - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the potential to reach the maximum fill rate.