GeForce GTX 580 3GB vs Radeon RX 480

Intro

Compare those specifications to the Radeon RX 480, which features a GPU core clock speed of 1120 MHz, and 8192 MB of GDDR5 RAM running at 2000 MHz through a 256-bit bus. It also features 2304 Stream Processors, 144 TAUs, and 32 Raster Operation Units.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

Radeon RX 480		150 Watts
GeForce GTX 580 3GB		244 Watts
	Difference: 94 Watts (63%)

Memory Bandwidth

The Radeon RX 480 should theoretically be a lot faster than the GeForce GTX 580 3GB overall. (explain)

Radeon RX 480		262144 MB/sec
GeForce GTX 580 3GB		192384 MB/sec
	Difference: 69760 (36%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon RX 480 should be quite a bit (more or less 226%) better at AF than the GeForce GTX 580 3GB. (explain)

Radeon RX 480		161280 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GTX 580 3GB		49408 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 111872 (226%)

Pixel Rate

If using lots of anti-aliasing is important to you, then the GeForce GTX 580 3GB is a better choice, but only just. (explain)

GeForce GTX 580 3GB		37056 Mpixels/sec
Radeon RX 480		35840 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 1216 (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 information (measured in megabytes per second) that can be moved across the external memory interface in one second. The number is worked out by multiplying the card's bus width by its memory clock speed. If it uses DDR RAM, the result should be multiplied by 2 once again. If DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The better the card's memory bandwidth, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, HDR and high resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum texture map elements (texels) that are applied 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 the texel rate, the better the video card will be at texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels in a second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the most pixels that the graphics card could possibly write to the local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is calculated by multiplying the amount of ROPs by the clock speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - sometimes also referred to as Render Output Units) are responsible for drawing the pixels (image) on the screen. The actual pixel rate also depends on lots of other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the ability to reach the max fill rate.