GeForce GTX 580 3GB vs GeForce GTX 980

Intro

Compare that to the GeForce GTX 980, which features clock speeds of 1126 MHz on the GPU, and 1750 MHz on the 4096 MB of GDDR5 memory. It features 2048 SPUs along with 128 TAUs and 64 ROPs.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GTX 980		165 Watts
GeForce GTX 580 3GB		244 Watts
	Difference: 79 Watts (48%)

Memory Bandwidth

Theoretically speaking, the GeForce GTX 980 is 16% quicker than the GeForce GTX 580 3GB overall, due to its greater bandwidth. (explain)

GeForce GTX 980		224000 MB/sec
GeForce GTX 580 3GB		192384 MB/sec
	Difference: 31616 (16%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 980 is much (about 192%) faster with regards to AF than the GeForce GTX 580 3GB. (explain)

GeForce GTX 980		144128 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GTX 580 3GB		49408 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 94720 (192%)

Pixel Rate

The GeForce GTX 980 will be quite a bit (approximately 94%) better at AA than the GeForce GTX 580 3GB, and also should be able to handle higher screen resolutions while still performing well. (explain)

GeForce GTX 980		72064 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GTX 580 3GB		37056 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 35008 (94%)

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 largest amount of data (counted in MB per second) that can be transported across the external memory interface in one second. It is calculated by multiplying the bus width by the speed of its memory. If it uses DDR RAM, it must be multiplied by 2 again. If DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The better the card's 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 texture map elements (texels) that can be processed per second. This number is calculated by multiplying the total amount of texture units of the card by the core clock speed of the chip. The higher this number, the better the video card will be at texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels in a second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the most pixels that the graphics card could possibly write to its local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is calculated by multiplying the number 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 rate also depends on many other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the ability to reach the max fill rate.