GeForce GTX 580 3GB vs Radeon R9 390X 8G

Intro

Compare all that to the Radeon R9 390X 8G, which features a clock speed of 1050 MHz and a GDDR5 memory frequency of 1500 MHz. It also makes use of a 512-bit bus, and makes use of a 28 nm design. It is comprised of 2816 SPUs, 176 TAUs, and 64 ROPs.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GTX 580 3GB		244 Watts
Radeon R9 390X 8G		275 Watts
	Difference: 31 Watts (13%)

Memory Bandwidth

As far as performance goes, the Radeon R9 390X 8G should theoretically be much better than the GeForce GTX 580 3GB in general. (explain)

Radeon R9 390X 8G		384000 MB/sec
GeForce GTX 580 3GB		192384 MB/sec
	Difference: 191616 (100%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon R9 390X 8G will be much (more or less 274%) more effective at texture filtering than the GeForce GTX 580 3GB. (explain)

Radeon R9 390X 8G		184800 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GTX 580 3GB		49408 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 135392 (274%)

Pixel Rate

If running with a high resolution is important to you, then the Radeon R9 390X 8G is superior to the GeForce GTX 580 3GB, by a large margin. (explain)

Radeon R9 390X 8G		67200 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GTX 580 3GB		37056 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 30144 (81%)

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 (counted in megabytes per second) that can be moved past the external memory interface in a second. It's calculated by multiplying the card's interface width by the speed of its memory. If the card has DDR type RAM, the result should be multiplied by 2 again. If DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The higher the bandwidth is, the better 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 figure is calculated by multiplying the total amount of texture units of the card by the core speed of the chip. The better this number, the better the graphics card will be at texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels processed in one second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum amount of pixels the video card could possibly record to the local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is calculated by multiplying the number of Raster Operations Pipelines 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 get to the maximum fill rate.