GeForce 9600 GSO 768MB vs GeForce GTX 580 3GB

Intro

Compare those specifications to the GeForce GTX 580 3GB, which has a core clock speed of 772 MHz and a GDDR5 memory speed of 1002 MHz. It also uses a 384-bit memory bus, and uses a 40 nm design. It is made up of 512 SPUs, 64 TAUs, and 48 ROPs.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce 9600 GSO 768MB		84 Watts
GeForce GTX 580 3GB		244 Watts
	Difference: 160 Watts (190%)

Memory Bandwidth

The GeForce GTX 580 3GB should in theory perform much faster than the GeForce 9600 GSO 768MB overall. (explain)

GeForce GTX 580 3GB		192384 MB/sec
GeForce 9600 GSO 768MB		38400 MB/sec
	Difference: 153984 (401%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 580 3GB is a lot (more or less 87%) faster with regards to anisotropic filtering than the GeForce 9600 GSO 768MB. (explain)

GeForce GTX 580 3GB		49408 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 9600 GSO 768MB		26400 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 23008 (87%)

Pixel Rate

If running with high levels of AA is important to you, then the GeForce GTX 580 3GB is the winner, by a large margin. (explain)

GeForce GTX 580 3GB		37056 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 9600 GSO 768MB		6600 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 30456 (461%)

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 (measured in MB per second) that can be transported past the external memory interface within a second. The number is worked out by multiplying the card's interface width by its memory clock speed. If the card has DDR type RAM, the result should be multiplied by 2 once again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The higher the bandwidth is, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, High Dynamic Range and higher screen resolutions.

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

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum amount of pixels the graphics card could possibly write to its local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is calculated by multiplying the amount of Render Output Units by the the core 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 fill rate is also dependant on quite a few other factors, especially the memory bandwidth - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the ability to reach the maximum fill rate.