GeForce GTX 460 1GB vs GeForce GTX 580

Intro

Compare all that to the GeForce GTX 580, which has 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 made up of 512 SPUs, 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

As far as performance goes, the GeForce GTX 580 should theoretically be a lot superior to the GeForce GTX 460 1GB overall. (explain)

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

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 580 is quite a bit (approximately 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 will be quite a bit (approximately 72%) more effective at FSAA than the GeForce GTX 460 1GB, and able to handle higher 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 (measured in MB per second) that can be transported across the external memory interface within a second. It is worked out by multiplying the bus width by its memory clock speed. In the case of DDR type memory, it should be multiplied by 2 again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The higher the card's memory bandwidth, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, HDR and high resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum number of texture map elements (texels) that can be applied in one second. This number is worked out by multiplying the total texture units of the card by the core clock speed of the chip. The higher this number, the better the graphics card will be at handling texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels processed per second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the most pixels the video card could possibly write to the local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is worked out 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 rate also depends on many other factors, especially the memory bandwidth - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the ability to reach the maximum fill rate.