GeForce GTX 470 vs GeForce GTX 580

Intro

Compare that to the GeForce GTX 580, which has GPU core speed of 772 MHz, and 1536 MB of GDDR5 RAM running at 1002 MHz through a 384-bit bus. It also features 512 Stream Processors, 64 TAUs, and 48 Raster Operation Units.

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 in theory 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 quite a bit (approximately 45%) better at anisotropic 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 lots of anti-aliasing is important to you, then the GeForce GTX 580 is the winner, by far. (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 largest amount of information (counted in MB per second) that can be transferred over the external memory interface in a second. It is calculated by multiplying the interface width by the speed of its memory. If the card has DDR type memory, it must be multiplied by 2 once again. If DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The better the bandwidth is, 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 can be processed in one second. This figure is worked out by multiplying the total number of texture units by the core speed of the chip. The better this number, the better the card will be at texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels applied per second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum number of pixels the video card can possibly record to the local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is worked out by multiplying the number of colour ROPs by the the core speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - sometimes also referred to as Render Output Units) are responsible for drawing the pixels (image) on the screen. The actual pixel rate also depends on quite a few other factors, especially the memory bandwidth - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the ability to get to the maximum fill rate.