GeForce GTX 580 vs Radeon RX 480 4GB

Intro

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

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

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

Memory Bandwidth

In theory, the Radeon RX 480 4GB will be 19% quicker than the GeForce GTX 580 overall, due to its greater bandwidth. (explain)

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

Texel Rate

The Radeon RX 480 4GB is quite a bit (approximately 226%) more effective at texture filtering than the GeForce GTX 580. (explain)

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

Pixel Rate

If using a high screen resolution is important to you, then the GeForce GTX 580 is the winner, not by a very large margin though. (explain)

GeForce GTX 580		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: Bandwidth is the largest amount of information (counted in MB per second) that can be moved over the external memory interface within a second. It's worked out by multiplying the interface width by the speed of its memory. If the card has DDR memory, the result should be multiplied by 2 once again. If DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The higher the bandwidth is, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, High Dynamic Range and higher screen resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum number of texture map elements (texels) that can be processed in one second. This is calculated by multiplying the total amount of texture units of the card by the core clock speed of the chip. The higher this number, the better the 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 graphics card could possibly write to the local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is calculated by multiplying the number of Render Output Units by the the card's clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - aka Render Output Units) are responsible for filling the screen with pixels (the image). The actual pixel rate is also dependant on many other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the potential to reach the maximum fill rate.