GeForce GTX 580 3GB vs GeForce GTX 980

Intro

Compare all that to the GeForce GTX 980, which comes with a GPU core clock speed of 1126 MHz, and 4096 MB of GDDR5 RAM running at 1750 MHz through a 256-bit bus. It also is made up of 2048 Stream Processors, 128 TAUs, and 64 ROPs.

Display Graphs

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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

Performance-wise, the GeForce GTX 980 should theoretically be a small bit better than the GeForce GTX 580 3GB overall. (explain)

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

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 980 will be quite a bit (more or less 192%) better at 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

If using a high resolution is important to you, then the GeForce GTX 980 is a better choice, by a large margin. (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 maximum amount of data (measured in MB per second) that can be moved over the external memory interface within a second. It is worked out by multiplying the card's interface width by its memory clock speed. If the card has DDR type RAM, it should be multiplied by 2 once again. If DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The better the card's memory bandwidth, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, HDR and higher screen resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum amount of texture map elements (texels) that are processed per second. This number is calculated by multiplying the total amount of texture units by the core clock 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 in one second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the most pixels the video card could possibly write to the local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is worked out by multiplying the amount of colour ROPs 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 output rate also depends on many other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the ability to reach the max fill rate.