GeForce GTX 580 3GB vs Radeon R7 M260X

Intro

Compare all that to the Radeon R7 M260X, which uses a 28 nm design. AMD has clocked the core frequency at 825 MHz. The GDDR5 memory runs at a frequency of 1000 MHz on this particular card. It features 384 SPUs along with 24 TAUs and 8 Rasterization Operator Units.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Memory Bandwidth

Theoretically speaking, the GeForce GTX 580 3GB will be 201% faster than the Radeon R7 M260X in general, due to its higher bandwidth. (explain)

GeForce GTX 580 3GB		192384 MB/sec
Radeon R7 M260X		64000 MB/sec
	Difference: 128384 (201%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 580 3GB is much (about 150%) more effective at texture filtering than the Radeon R7 M260X. (explain)

GeForce GTX 580 3GB		49408 Mtexels/sec
Radeon R7 M260X		19800 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 29608 (150%)

Pixel Rate

If running with a high screen resolution is important to you, then the GeForce GTX 580 3GB is a better choice, by a large margin. (explain)

GeForce GTX 580 3GB		37056 Mpixels/sec
Radeon R7 M260X		6600 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 30456 (461%)

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 largest amount of data (measured in megabytes per second) that can be transported over the external memory interface within a second. It is calculated by multiplying the card's interface width by its memory clock speed. In the case of DDR type memory, it must be multiplied by 2 once again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The better the 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 amount of texture map elements (texels) that are processed in one second. This number is calculated by multiplying the total texture units of the card 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 processed in a second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum number of pixels the video card can possibly record to its local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is calculated by multiplying the number of Render Output Units by the the core speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also sometimes called Render Output Units) are responsible for outputting the pixels (image) to the screen. The actual pixel rate also depends on lots of other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the ability to reach the max fill rate.