GeForce 9500 GT DDR2 vs GeForce GTX 580 3GB

Intro

Compare all of that to the GeForce GTX 580 3GB, which has a GPU core clock speed of 772 MHz, and 3072 MB of GDDR5 RAM set to run at 1002 MHz through a 384-bit bus. It also is comprised of 512 Stream Processors, 64 Texture Address Units, and 48 ROPs.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce 9500 GT DDR2		50 Watts
GeForce GTX 580 3GB		244 Watts
	Difference: 194 Watts (388%)

Memory Bandwidth

Theoretically speaking, the GeForce GTX 580 3GB should perform quite a bit faster than the GeForce 9500 GT DDR2 overall. (explain)

GeForce GTX 580 3GB		192384 MB/sec
GeForce 9500 GT DDR2		16000 MB/sec
	Difference: 176384 (1102%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 580 3GB is quite a bit (approximately 461%) more effective at anisotropic filtering than the GeForce 9500 GT DDR2. (explain)

GeForce GTX 580 3GB		49408 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 9500 GT DDR2		8800 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 40608 (461%)

Pixel Rate

The GeForce GTX 580 3GB is much (approximately 742%) faster with regards to anti-aliasing than the GeForce 9500 GT DDR2, and capable of handling higher resolutions without slowing down too much. (explain)

GeForce GTX 580 3GB		37056 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 9500 GT DDR2		4400 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 32656 (742%)

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 maximum amount of data (in units of megabytes per second) that can be moved across the external memory interface within a second. The number is calculated 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 it uses DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The higher the memory bandwidth, the faster 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 texture map elements (texels) that can be applied per second. This is worked out by multiplying the total amount of texture units of the card by the core speed of the chip. The better this number, the better the card will be at handling 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 that the graphics chip could possibly write to the local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is worked out 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 filling the screen with pixels (the image). The actual pixel rate is also dependant on lots of other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the ability to reach the maximum fill rate.