GeForce GTX 460 2GB vs GeForce GTX 580

Intro

Compare all of that to the GeForce GTX 580, which has a clock frequency 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

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GTX 460 2GB		160 Watts
GeForce GTX 580		244 Watts
	Difference: 84 Watts (53%)

Memory Bandwidth

Performance-wise, the GeForce GTX 580 should theoretically be a lot superior to the GeForce GTX 460 2GB overall. (explain)

GeForce GTX 580		192384 MB/sec
GeForce GTX 460 2GB		115200 MB/sec
	Difference: 77184 (67%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 580 should be a lot (about 31%) faster with regards to AF than the GeForce GTX 460 2GB. (explain)

GeForce GTX 580		49408 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GTX 460 2GB		37800 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 11608 (31%)

Pixel Rate

If running with a high resolution is important to you, then the GeForce GTX 580 is superior to the GeForce GTX 460 2GB, by a large margin. (explain)

GeForce GTX 580		37056 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GTX 460 2GB		21600 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 15456 (72%)

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 (measured in megabytes per second) that can be transported across the external memory interface in one second. It's calculated by multiplying the interface width by the speed of its memory. If the card has DDR type RAM, it must be multiplied by 2 once again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The higher the 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 amount of texture map elements (texels) that are applied in one second. This number is calculated by multiplying the total number of texture units of the card by the core speed of the chip. The higher the texel rate, the better the graphics 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 amount of pixels the graphics card can possibly record to the local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is calculated by multiplying the amount of colour ROPs by the the card's clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - aka Render Output Units) are responsible for outputting the pixels (image) to the screen. The actual pixel fill rate is also dependant on quite a few other factors, especially the memory bandwidth - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the potential to reach the max fill rate.