GeForce GT 430 vs GeForce GTX 580

Intro

Compare all that to the GeForce GTX 580, which makes use of a 40 nm design. nVidia has set the core frequency at 772 MHz. The GDDR5 memory works at a speed of 1002 MHz on this particular model. It features 512 SPUs as well as 64 Texture Address Units and 48 Rasterization Operator Units.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GT 430		60 Watts
GeForce GTX 580		244 Watts
	Difference: 184 Watts (307%)

Memory Bandwidth

As far as performance goes, the GeForce GTX 580 should theoretically be quite a bit better than the GeForce GT 430 overall. (explain)

GeForce GTX 580		192384 MB/sec
GeForce GT 430		28800 MB/sec
	Difference: 163584 (568%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 580 will be much (about 341%) better at AF than the GeForce GT 430. (explain)

GeForce GTX 580		49408 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GT 430		11200 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 38208 (341%)

Pixel Rate

The GeForce GTX 580 will be a lot (more or less 1223%) better at full screen anti-aliasing than the GeForce GT 430, and also capable of handling higher screen resolutions without losing too much performance. (explain)

GeForce GTX 580		37056 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GT 430		2800 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 34256 (1223%)

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 (in units of MB per second) that can be transported over the external memory interface in one second. It is worked out by multiplying the bus width by its memory speed. If the card has DDR memory, it must be multiplied by 2 once again. If DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The higher the 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 number of texture map elements (texels) that can be applied per second. This number is worked out by multiplying the total texture units of the card by the core speed of the chip. The higher the texel rate, the better the card will be at texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels processed per second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the most pixels that the graphics card can possibly record to its local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is calculated by multiplying the number of Raster Operations Pipelines by the the core clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - sometimes also referred to as Render Output Units) are responsible for outputting the pixels (image) to the screen. The actual pixel fill rate also depends on many other factors, especially the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the potential to reach the maximum fill rate.