GeForce 9800 GTX vs GeForce GTX 580 3GB

Intro

Compare those specifications to the GeForce GTX 580 3GB, which has GPU clock speed of 772 MHz, and 3072 MB of GDDR5 memory running at 1002 MHz through a 384-bit bus. It also is made up of 512 Stream Processors, 64 Texture Address Units, and 48 ROPs.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce 9800 GTX		140 Watts
GeForce GTX 580 3GB		244 Watts
	Difference: 104 Watts (74%)

Memory Bandwidth

The GeForce GTX 580 3GB should in theory be quite a bit faster than the GeForce 9800 GTX in general. (explain)

GeForce GTX 580 3GB		192384 MB/sec
GeForce 9800 GTX		70400 MB/sec
	Difference: 121984 (173%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 580 3GB is a small bit (more or less 14%) faster with regards to texture filtering than the GeForce 9800 GTX. (explain)

GeForce GTX 580 3GB		49408 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 9800 GTX		43200 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 6208 (14%)

Pixel Rate

The GeForce GTX 580 3GB should be a lot (about 243%) more effective at full screen anti-aliasing than the GeForce 9800 GTX, and capable of handling higher screen resolutions while still performing well. (explain)

GeForce GTX 580 3GB		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: Bandwidth is the max amount of data (in units of MB per second) that can be transferred over the external memory interface in a second. It's calculated by multiplying the interface width by its memory speed. If it uses DDR memory, it should be multiplied by 2 once again. If DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The higher the memory bandwidth, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, High Dynamic Range and higher screen resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum number of texture map elements (texels) that are applied in one second. This is calculated by multiplying the total number of texture units by the core clock speed of the chip. The better this number, the better the video 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 video card can possibly write to the local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is worked out by multiplying the amount of Render Output Units by the the core speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - aka Render Output Units) are responsible for outputting the pixels (image) to the screen. The actual pixel output rate is also dependant on quite a few other factors, especially the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the potential to get to the maximum fill rate.