GeForce GTX 580 3GB vs Radeon HD 7870

Intro

Compare that to the Radeon HD 7870, which comes with GPU core speed of 1000 MHz, and 2048 MB of GDDR5 RAM set to run at 1200 MHz through a 256-bit bus. It also features 1280 Stream Processors, 80 Texture Address Units, and 32 ROPs.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

Radeon HD 7870		175 Watts
GeForce GTX 580 3GB		244 Watts
	Difference: 69 Watts (39%)

Memory Bandwidth

In theory, the GeForce GTX 580 3GB is 25% faster than the Radeon HD 7870 overall, due to its higher data rate. (explain)

GeForce GTX 580 3GB		192384 MB/sec
Radeon HD 7870		153600 MB/sec
	Difference: 38784 (25%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon HD 7870 will be much (more or less 62%) better at texture filtering than the GeForce GTX 580 3GB. (explain)

Radeon HD 7870		80000 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GTX 580 3GB		49408 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 30592 (62%)

Pixel Rate

If running with a high resolution is important to you, then the GeForce GTX 580 3GB is superior to the Radeon HD 7870, but not by far. (explain)

GeForce GTX 580 3GB		37056 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 7870		32000 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 5056 (16%)

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 (measured in MB per second) that can be transported over the external memory interface within a second. It's worked out by multiplying the interface width by its memory speed. If the card has DDR memory, the result should 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 AA, High Dynamic Range and high resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum texture map elements (texels) that can be processed per second. This figure is calculated by multiplying the total number of texture units 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 applied per second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the most pixels the graphics card can possibly write to the local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is worked out by multiplying the amount of colour ROPs by the the card's clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also sometimes called Render Output Units) are responsible for outputting the pixels (image) to the screen. The actual pixel fill rate also depends on lots of other factors, especially the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the potential to reach the max fill rate.