GeForce GTX 580 3GB vs Radeon R9 380X

Intro

Compare those specs to the Radeon R9 380X, which comes with a GPU core clock speed of 970 MHz, and 4096 MB of GDDR5 RAM set to run at 1425 MHz through a 256-bit bus. It also is made up of 2048 SPUs, 128 TAUs, and 32 ROPs.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

Radeon R9 380X		190 Watts
GeForce GTX 580 3GB		244 Watts
	Difference: 54 Watts (28%)

Memory Bandwidth

Theoretically speaking, the GeForce GTX 580 3GB will be 5% faster than the Radeon R9 380X overall, because of its higher bandwidth. (explain)

GeForce GTX 580 3GB		192384 MB/sec
Radeon R9 380X		182400 MB/sec
	Difference: 9984 (5%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon R9 380X is a lot (about 151%) faster with regards to AF than the GeForce GTX 580 3GB. (explain)

Radeon R9 380X		124160 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GTX 580 3GB		49408 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 74752 (151%)

Pixel Rate

If using lots of anti-aliasing is important to you, then the GeForce GTX 580 3GB is the winner, but it probably won't make a huge difference. (explain)

GeForce GTX 580 3GB		37056 Mpixels/sec
Radeon R9 380X		31040 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 6016 (19%)

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 (counted in MB per second) that can be transferred across the external memory interface in a second. It is worked out by multiplying the bus width by its memory clock speed. If it uses DDR memory, it should be multiplied by 2 again. If DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The higher the card's memory bandwidth, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, High Dynamic Range and high resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum amount of texture map elements (texels) that can be applied in one second. This figure is calculated by multiplying the total number of texture units of the card by the core speed of the chip. The higher this number, the better the video card will be at handling texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels per second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum number of pixels that the graphics card can 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 the core speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also sometimes called Render Output Units) are responsible for drawing the pixels (image) on the screen. The actual pixel fill rate is also dependant on quite a few other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the potential to reach the maximum fill rate.