GeForce GTX 280 vs GeForce GTX 570

Intro

Compare that to the GeForce GTX 570, which features a GPU core clock speed of 732 MHz, and 1280 MB of GDDR5 RAM running at 950 MHz through a 320-bit bus. It also is made up of 480 SPUs, 60 TAUs, and 40 ROPs.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GTX 570		219 Watts
GeForce GTX 280		236 Watts
	Difference: 17 Watts (8%)

Memory Bandwidth

As far as performance goes, the GeForce GTX 570 should in theory be a small bit better than the GeForce GTX 280 overall. (explain)

GeForce GTX 570		152000 MB/sec
GeForce GTX 280		141696 MB/sec
	Difference: 10304 (7%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 280 will be a bit (more or less 10%) better at anisotropic filtering than the GeForce GTX 570. (explain)

GeForce GTX 280		48160 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GTX 570		43920 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 4240 (10%)

Pixel Rate

The GeForce GTX 570 is much (about 52%) faster with regards to FSAA than the GeForce GTX 280, and also capable of handling higher resolutions without losing too much performance. (explain)

GeForce GTX 570		29280 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GTX 280		19264 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 10016 (52%)

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 maximum amount of data (in units of MB per second) that can be moved over the external memory interface in a second. The number is calculated by multiplying the card's interface width by its memory clock speed. If it uses DDR type memory, it should be multiplied by 2 once again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The higher the bandwidth is, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, HDR and higher screen resolutions.

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

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum number of pixels that the graphics card can possibly record to its local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is worked out by multiplying the amount of Raster Operations Pipelines by the clock speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - aka Render Output Units) are responsible for outputting the pixels (image) to the screen. The actual pixel output rate also depends on many other factors, especially the memory bandwidth - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the potential to get to the maximum fill rate.