GeForce GTX 470 vs GeForce GTX 580

Intro

Compare all that to the GeForce GTX 580, which features a core clock speed of 772 MHz and a GDDR5 memory frequency of 1002 MHz. It also uses a 384-bit memory bus, and makes use of a 40 nm design. It features 512 SPUs, 64 TAUs, and 48 ROPs.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

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 470		2937 points
	Difference: 2019 (69%)

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GTX 470		215 Watts
GeForce GTX 580		244 Watts
	Difference: 29 Watts (13%)

Memory Bandwidth

The GeForce GTX 580 should theoretically be quite a bit faster than the GeForce GTX 470 overall. (explain)

GeForce GTX 580		192384 MB/sec
GeForce GTX 470		133920 MB/sec
	Difference: 58464 (44%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 580 is much (more or less 45%) more effective at texture filtering than the GeForce GTX 470. (explain)

GeForce GTX 580		49408 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GTX 470		33992 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 15416 (45%)

Pixel Rate

If running with a high screen resolution is important to you, then the GeForce GTX 580 is a better choice, by a large margin. (explain)

GeForce GTX 580		37056 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GTX 470		24280 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 12776 (53%)

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 (counted in megabytes per second) that can be moved across the external memory interface within a second. It's worked out by multiplying the bus width by its memory clock speed. In the case of DDR type memory, the result should be multiplied by 2 once again. If DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The better the card's memory bandwidth, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, High Dynamic Range and high resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum number of texture map elements (texels) that are processed in one second. This figure is calculated by multiplying the total amount of texture units of the card by the core clock speed of the chip. The better the texel rate, the better the graphics card will be at handling texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels applied 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. The figure is calculated by multiplying the number of colour 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 fill rate also depends on many other factors, especially the memory bandwidth - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the potential to reach the maximum fill rate.