GeForce GTS 450 1GB vs GeForce GTX 580

Intro

Compare those specifications to the GeForce GTX 580, which comes with clock speeds of 772 MHz on the GPU, and 1002 MHz on the 1536 MB of GDDR5 RAM. It features 512 SPUs as well as 64 TAUs and 48 ROPs.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GTS 450 1GB		106 Watts
GeForce GTX 580		244 Watts
	Difference: 138 Watts (130%)

Memory Bandwidth

In theory, the GeForce GTX 580 will be 233% faster than the GeForce GTS 450 1GB overall, because of its higher bandwidth. (explain)

GeForce GTX 580		192384 MB/sec
GeForce GTS 450 1GB		57728 MB/sec
	Difference: 134656 (233%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 580 will be a lot (about 97%) better at AF than the GeForce GTS 450 1GB. (explain)

GeForce GTX 580		49408 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GTS 450 1GB		25056 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 24352 (97%)

Pixel Rate

The GeForce GTX 580 is quite a bit (approximately 196%) more effective at AA than the GeForce GTS 450 1GB, and also capable of handling higher screen resolutions without slowing down too much. (explain)

GeForce GTX 580		37056 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GTS 450 1GB		12528 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 24528 (196%)

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 data (counted in megabytes per second) that can be transferred past the external memory interface in a second. It is worked out by multiplying the card's bus width by its memory clock speed. In the case of DDR RAM, it must be multiplied by 2 again. If DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The better the memory bandwidth, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, HDR and higher screen resolutions.

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

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum number of pixels that the graphics card can possibly record to its local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is worked out by multiplying the number of colour ROPs by the the card's clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - aka Render Output Units) are responsible for filling the screen with pixels (the image). The actual pixel output rate also depends on quite a few other factors, especially the memory bandwidth - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the potential to reach the max fill rate.