GeForce GTX 580 3GB vs GeForce GTX 960

Intro

Compare those specifications to the GeForce GTX 960, which has clock speeds of 1127 MHz on the GPU, and 1750 MHz on the 2048 MB of GDDR5 RAM. It features 1024 SPUs as well as 64 Texture Address Units and 32 ROPs.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GTX 960		120 Watts
GeForce GTX 580 3GB		244 Watts
	Difference: 124 Watts (103%)

Memory Bandwidth

The GeForce GTX 580 3GB, in theory, should be much faster than the GeForce GTX 960 overall. (explain)

GeForce GTX 580 3GB		192384 MB/sec
GeForce GTX 960		112000 MB/sec
	Difference: 80384 (72%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 960 is a lot (more or less 46%) faster with regards to anisotropic filtering than the GeForce GTX 580 3GB. (explain)

GeForce GTX 960		72128 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GTX 580 3GB		49408 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 22720 (46%)

Pixel Rate

If running with a high resolution is important to you, then the GeForce GTX 580 3GB is superior to the GeForce GTX 960, though only just barely. (explain)

GeForce GTX 580 3GB		37056 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GTX 960		36064 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 992 (3%)

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: Bandwidth is the max amount of data (in units of MB per second) that can be moved past the external memory interface in a second. It's worked out by multiplying the card's bus width by its memory speed. If the card has DDR type memory, it must be multiplied by 2 once again. If DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The better the bandwidth is, 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 texture map elements (texels) that can be processed in one second. This is worked out by multiplying the total number of texture units by the core speed of the chip. The higher this number, the better the graphics card will be at texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels processed in a second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the most pixels the video card could possibly record to its local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is worked out by multiplying the number of Render Output Units by the the core 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, especially the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the ability to reach the maximum fill rate.