GeForce GTX 580 3GB vs Radeon RX 480 4GB

Intro

Compare all of that to the Radeon RX 480 4GB, which features a core clock speed of 1120 MHz and a GDDR5 memory speed of 1750 MHz. It also makes use of a 256-bit memory bus, and makes use of a 14 nm design. It is made up of 2304 SPUs, 144 Texture Address Units, and 32 ROPs.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

Radeon RX 480 4GB		150 Watts
GeForce GTX 580 3GB		244 Watts
	Difference: 94 Watts (63%)

Memory Bandwidth

Performance-wise, the Radeon RX 480 4GB should in theory be a bit superior to the GeForce GTX 580 3GB overall. (explain)

Radeon RX 480 4GB		229376 MB/sec
GeForce GTX 580 3GB		192384 MB/sec
	Difference: 36992 (19%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon RX 480 4GB should be much (approximately 226%) faster with regards to anisotropic filtering than the GeForce GTX 580 3GB. (explain)

Radeon RX 480 4GB		161280 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GTX 580 3GB		49408 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 111872 (226%)

Pixel Rate

The GeForce GTX 580 3GB will be a bit (approximately 3%) better at full screen anti-aliasing than the Radeon RX 480 4GB, and also able to handle higher screen resolutions better. (explain)

GeForce GTX 580 3GB		37056 Mpixels/sec
Radeon RX 480 4GB		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: Memory bandwidth is the maximum amount of data (measured in megabytes per second) that can be transferred over the external memory interface in a second. It's worked out by multiplying the interface width by the speed of its memory. If it uses DDR type memory, it must be multiplied by 2 again. If DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The higher the memory bandwidth, the faster 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 processed per second. This figure is calculated by multiplying the total texture units by the core clock speed of the chip. The better this number, the better the 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 amount of pixels the video card could possibly record to its local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is worked out by multiplying the amount of Render Output Units by the the card's clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also sometimes called Render Output Units) are responsible for drawing the pixels (image) on 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 memory bandwidth is, the lower the potential to get to the max fill rate.