GeForce GTX 580 3GB vs Radeon HD 7770

Intro

Compare those specifications to the Radeon HD 7770, which uses a 28 nm design. AMD has set the core speed at 1000 MHz. The GDDR5 memory is set to run at a frequency of 1125 MHz on this particular model. It features 640 SPUs as well as 40 Texture Address Units and 16 Rasterization Operator Units.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

Radeon HD 7770		80 Watts
GeForce GTX 580 3GB		244 Watts
	Difference: 164 Watts (205%)

Memory Bandwidth

Performance-wise, the GeForce GTX 580 3GB should theoretically be much superior to the Radeon HD 7770 in general. (explain)

GeForce GTX 580 3GB		192384 MB/sec
Radeon HD 7770		72000 MB/sec
	Difference: 120384 (167%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 580 3GB should be a lot (about 24%) better at texture filtering than the Radeon HD 7770. (explain)

GeForce GTX 580 3GB		49408 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 7770		40000 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 9408 (24%)

Pixel Rate

The GeForce GTX 580 3GB will be quite a bit (about 132%) faster with regards to AA than the Radeon HD 7770, and should be capable of handling higher resolutions while still performing well. (explain)

GeForce GTX 580 3GB		37056 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 7770		16000 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 21056 (132%)

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 data (measured in megabytes per second) that can be moved past the external memory interface in a second. It is calculated by multiplying the card's interface width by its memory speed. In the case of DDR RAM, the result should be multiplied by 2 once again. If 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, HDR and higher screen resolutions.

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

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum number of pixels that the graphics card can possibly record to its local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is calculated by multiplying the amount of Raster Operations Pipelines by the clock 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 rate also depends on lots of other factors, especially the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the ability to get to the max fill rate.