GeForce GTX 580 3GB vs Radeon R9 285

Intro

Compare all that to the Radeon R9 285, which features GPU core speed of 918 MHz, and 2048 MB of GDDR5 memory running at 1375 MHz through a 256-bit bus. It also is comprised of 1792 Stream Processors, 112 TAUs, and 32 ROPs.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

Radeon R9 285		190 Watts
GeForce GTX 580 3GB		244 Watts
	Difference: 54 Watts (28%)

Memory Bandwidth

The GeForce GTX 580 3GB, in theory, should perform just a bit faster than the Radeon R9 285 in general. (explain)

GeForce GTX 580 3GB		192384 MB/sec
Radeon R9 285		176000 MB/sec
	Difference: 16384 (9%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon R9 285 will be quite a bit (more or less 108%) better at texture filtering than the GeForce GTX 580 3GB. (explain)

Radeon R9 285		102816 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GTX 580 3GB		49408 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 53408 (108%)

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 R9 285		29376 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 7680 (26%)

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 information (in units of megabytes per second) that can be transferred over the external memory interface in one second. The number is worked out by multiplying the bus width by its memory speed. If the card has DDR RAM, it must be multiplied by 2 again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The higher the memory bandwidth, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, High Dynamic Range and high resolutions.

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

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the most pixels the graphics card could possibly write to its local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is worked out by multiplying the amount of ROPs by the the core speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also called Render Output Units) are responsible for outputting the pixels (image) to the screen. The actual pixel output rate is also dependant on lots of other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the ability to reach the maximum fill rate.