GeForce GTX 580 3GB vs GeForce GTX 660

Intro

Compare all that to the GeForce GTX 660, which features GPU core speed of 980 MHz, and 2048 MB of GDDR5 memory running at 1502 MHz through a 192-bit bus. It also features 960 Stream Processors, 80 Texture Address Units, and 24 ROPs.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GTX 660		140 Watts
GeForce GTX 580 3GB		244 Watts
	Difference: 104 Watts (74%)

Memory Bandwidth

The GeForce GTX 580 3GB should theoretically be quite a bit faster than the GeForce GTX 660 overall. (explain)

GeForce GTX 580 3GB		192384 MB/sec
GeForce GTX 660		144192 MB/sec
	Difference: 48192 (33%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 660 should be a lot (about 59%) better at anisotropic filtering than the GeForce GTX 580 3GB. (explain)

GeForce GTX 660		78400 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GTX 580 3GB		49408 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 28992 (59%)

Pixel Rate

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

GeForce GTX 580 3GB		37056 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GTX 660		23520 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 13536 (58%)

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 information (measured in MB per second) that can be moved across the external memory interface within a second. It's worked out by multiplying the interface width by the speed of its memory. If the card has DDR memory, it should be multiplied by 2 once again. If DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The better the memory bandwidth, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, HDR and high resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum amount of texture map elements (texels) that can be applied in one second. This number is calculated by multiplying the total texture units by the core speed of the chip. The higher the texel rate, the better the graphics 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 most pixels the video card can possibly write to its local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is worked out by multiplying the number of ROPs by the the core clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also sometimes called 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.