GeForce GTX 480 vs GeForce GTX 580

Intro

Compare those specs to the GeForce GTX 580, which makes use of a 40 nm design. nVidia has set the core frequency at 772 MHz. The GDDR5 memory runs at a speed of 1002 MHz on this specific card. It features 512 SPUs along with 64 Texture Address Units and 48 ROPs.

Display Graphs

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Benchmarks

These are real-world performance benchmarks that were submitted by Hardware Compare users. The scores seen here are the average of all benchmarks submitted for each respective test and hardware.

3DMark Fire Strike Graphics Score

GeForce GTX 580		4956 points
GeForce GTX 480		3650 points
	Difference: 1306 (36%)

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GTX 580		244 Watts
GeForce GTX 480		250 Watts
	Difference: 6 Watts (2%)

Memory Bandwidth

Theoretically speaking, the GeForce GTX 580 is 8% quicker than the GeForce GTX 480 overall, because of its greater bandwidth. (explain)

GeForce GTX 580		192384 MB/sec
GeForce GTX 480		177408 MB/sec
	Difference: 14976 (8%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 580 should be a small bit (approximately 18%) more effective at anisotropic filtering than the GeForce GTX 480. (explain)

GeForce GTX 580		49408 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GTX 480		42000 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 7408 (18%)

Pixel Rate

The GeForce GTX 580 is a little bit (approximately 10%) more effective at full screen anti-aliasing than the GeForce GTX 480, and should be capable of handling higher resolutions without losing too much performance. (explain)

GeForce GTX 580		37056 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GTX 480		33600 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 3456 (10%)

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 max amount of information (measured in megabytes per second) that can be moved past the external memory interface in one second. The number is worked out by multiplying the bus width by the speed of its memory. If the card has DDR type memory, it should be multiplied by 2 once again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The higher the card's memory bandwidth, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, High Dynamic Range and higher screen resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum texture map elements (texels) that are processed per second. This figure is worked out by multiplying the total texture units by the core speed of the chip. The higher this number, 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 can possibly write to the local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is worked out by multiplying the number 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 quite a few other factors, especially the memory bandwidth - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the ability to get to the max fill rate.