GeForce GTX 470 vs GeForce GTX 580

Intro

Compare those specifications to the GeForce GTX 580, which features a GPU core clock speed of 772 MHz, and 1536 MB of GDDR5 RAM running at 1002 MHz through a 384-bit bus. It also is comprised of 512 SPUs, 64 Texture Address Units, 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

Theoretically speaking, the GeForce GTX 580 should perform much 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 (more or less 45%) faster with regards to 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 lots of anti-aliasing 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: Memory bandwidth is the max amount of information (measured in MB per second) that can be moved across the external memory interface within a second. It is worked out by multiplying the interface width by its memory clock speed. If the card has DDR type RAM, it should be multiplied by 2 again. If DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The better the card's memory bandwidth, 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 can be applied per 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 graphics card will be at handling texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels per second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum number of pixels the video card can possibly record to its local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is worked out by multiplying the number of ROPs by the clock speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - sometimes also referred to as Render Output Units) are responsible for filling the screen with pixels (the image). The actual pixel rate is also dependant on quite a few other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the potential to get to the maximum fill rate.