GeForce GTX 560 vs GeForce GTX 580 3GB

Intro

Compare all of that to the GeForce GTX 580 3GB, which features a clock frequency of 772 MHz and a GDDR5 memory speed of 1002 MHz. It also makes use of a 384-bit memory bus, and uses a 40 nm design. It features 512 SPUs, 64 Texture Address Units, and 48 ROPs.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GTX 560		150 Watts
GeForce GTX 580 3GB		244 Watts
	Difference: 94 Watts (63%)

Memory Bandwidth

Theoretically speaking, the GeForce GTX 580 3GB should be 50% faster than the GeForce GTX 560 overall, because of its higher bandwidth. (explain)

GeForce GTX 580 3GB		192384 MB/sec
GeForce GTX 560		128128 MB/sec
	Difference: 64256 (50%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 580 3GB will be just a bit (approximately 9%) more effective at texture filtering than the GeForce GTX 560. (explain)

GeForce GTX 580 3GB		49408 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GTX 560		45360 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 4048 (9%)

Pixel Rate

The GeForce GTX 580 3GB will be quite a bit (approximately 43%) faster with regards to FSAA than the GeForce GTX 560, and also will be able to handle higher screen resolutions without losing too much performance. (explain)

GeForce GTX 580 3GB		37056 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GTX 560		25920 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 11136 (43%)

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 information (measured in megabytes per second) that can be transported past the external memory interface in a second. It is calculated by multiplying the interface width by its memory clock speed. If the card has DDR RAM, it should be multiplied by 2 once again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The higher the card's 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 amount of texture map elements (texels) that can be processed in one second. This is calculated by multiplying the total texture units of the card 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 processed per second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the most pixels the video card can possibly record to its local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is calculated by multiplying the amount of ROPs by the the core speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - aka Render Output Units) are responsible for drawing the pixels (image) on the screen. The actual pixel fill rate also depends on quite a few other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the potential to reach the max fill rate.