GeForce GTX 580 vs GeForce GTX 590

Intro

Compare those specs to the GeForce GTX 590, which has a GPU core clock speed of 607 MHz, and 1536 MB of GDDR5 memory set to run at 855 MHz through a 384-bit bus. It also is comprised of 512 SPUs, 64 Texture Address Units, and 48 ROPs.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Benchmarks

These are real-world performance benchmarks that were submitted by Hardware Compare users. The scores seen here are the average of all benchmarks submitted for each respective test and hardware.

3DMark Fire Strike Graphics Score

GeForce GTX 590		6680 points
GeForce GTX 580		4956 points
	Difference: 1724 (35%)

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GTX 580		244 Watts
GeForce GTX 590		365 Watts
	Difference: 121 Watts (50%)

Memory Bandwidth

Performance-wise, the GeForce GTX 590 should in theory be a lot better than the GeForce GTX 580 overall. (explain)

GeForce GTX 590		328320 MB/sec
GeForce GTX 580		192384 MB/sec
	Difference: 135936 (71%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 590 is quite a bit (more or less 57%) more effective at texture filtering than the GeForce GTX 580. (explain)

GeForce GTX 590		77696 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GTX 580		49408 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 28288 (57%)

Pixel Rate

If using a high resolution is important to you, then the GeForce GTX 590 is superior to the GeForce GTX 580, by far. (explain)

GeForce GTX 590		58272 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GTX 580		37056 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 21216 (57%)

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.

One or more cards in this comparison are multi-core. This means that their bandwidth, texel and pixel rates are theoretically doubled - this does not mean the card will actually perform twice as fast, but only that it should in theory be able to. Actual game benchmarks will give a more accurate idea of what it's capable of.

Price Comparison

Specifications

Memory Bandwidth: Bandwidth is the max amount of information (in units of MB per second) that can be transferred over the external memory interface in a second. It's calculated by multiplying the card's bus width by its memory speed. If the card has DDR type memory, it should be multiplied by 2 again. If DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The better the memory bandwidth, the better 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 number of texture map elements (texels) that are applied in one second. This is worked out by multiplying the total texture units of the card by the core speed of the chip. The better this number, 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 that the graphics chip can possibly record to the local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is worked out by multiplying the amount of colour ROPs by the the core clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - aka 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, especially the memory bandwidth - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the potential to reach the max fill rate.