GeForce GTX 460 1GB vs GeForce GTX 580

Intro

Compare those specifications to the GeForce GTX 580, which comes with GPU core speed of 772 MHz, and 1536 MB of GDDR5 RAM set to run at 1002 MHz through a 384-bit bus. It also is made up of 512 Stream Processors, 64 Texture Address Units, and 48 ROPs.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GTX 460 1GB		160 Watts
GeForce GTX 580		244 Watts
	Difference: 84 Watts (53%)

Memory Bandwidth

In theory, the GeForce GTX 580 will be 67% faster than the GeForce GTX 460 1GB in general, because of its higher data rate. (explain)

GeForce GTX 580		192384 MB/sec
GeForce GTX 460 1GB		115200 MB/sec
	Difference: 77184 (67%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 580 is a lot (about 31%) better at texture filtering than the GeForce GTX 460 1GB. (explain)

GeForce GTX 580		49408 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GTX 460 1GB		37800 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 11608 (31%)

Pixel Rate

The GeForce GTX 580 should be quite a bit (about 72%) more effective at full screen anti-aliasing than the GeForce GTX 460 1GB, and also will be capable of handling higher screen resolutions better. (explain)

GeForce GTX 580		37056 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GTX 460 1GB		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: Memory bandwidth is the largest amount of information (in units of megabytes per second) that can be transferred across the external memory interface within a second. The number is calculated by multiplying the card's interface width by its memory clock speed. If it uses DDR RAM, the result should be multiplied by 2 once again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The better the card's memory bandwidth, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, HDR and higher screen resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum texture map elements (texels) that are applied in one second. This is worked out by multiplying the total amount of texture units by the core speed of the chip. The better the texel rate, 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 that the graphics chip can 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 Render Output Units 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 also depends on quite a few other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the potential to reach the max fill rate.