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GeForce GTX 580 vs Radeon HD 4870 X2

Intro

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

Compare that to the Radeon HD 4870 X2, which makes use of a 55 nm design. AMD has clocked the core speed at 750 MHz. The GDDR5 memory is set to run at a frequency of 900 MHz on this particular card. It features 800(160x5) SPUs as well as 40 TAUs and 16 Rasterization Operator Units.

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GTX 580 244 Watts
Radeon HD 4870 X2 350 Watts
Difference: 106 Watts (43%)

Memory Bandwidth

The Radeon HD 4870 X2 should in theory perform a bit faster than the GeForce GTX 580 overall. (explain)

Radeon HD 4870 X2 230400 MB/sec
GeForce GTX 580 192384 MB/sec
Difference: 38016 (20%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon HD 4870 X2 will be much (approximately 21%) faster with regards to texture filtering than the GeForce GTX 580. (explain)

Radeon HD 4870 X2 60000 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GTX 580 49408 Mtexels/sec
Difference: 10592 (21%)

Pixel Rate

If running with a high resolution is important to you, then the GeForce GTX 580 is a better choice, and very much so. (explain)

GeForce GTX 580 37056 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 4870 X2 24000 Mpixels/sec
Difference: 13056 (54%)

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.

One or more cards in this comparison are multi-core. This means that their bandwidth, texel and pixel rates are theoretically doubled - this does not mean the card will actually perform twice as fast, but only that it should in theory be able to. Actual game benchmarks will give a more accurate idea of what it's capable of.

Price Comparison

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GeForce GTX 580

Amazon.com

Check prices at:

Radeon HD 4870 X2

Amazon.com

Check prices at:

Please note that the price comparisons are based on search keywords - sometimes it might show cards with very similar names that are not exactly the same as the one chosen in the comparison. We do try to filter out the wrong results as best we can, though.

Specifications

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Model GeForce GTX 580 Radeon HD 4870 X2
Manufacturer nVidia AMD
Year November 2010 Aug 12, 2008
Code Name GF110 R700
Memory 1536 MB 1024 MB (x2)
Core Speed 772 MHz 750 MHz (x2)
Memory Speed 4008 MHz 3600 MHz (x2)
Power (Max TDP) 244 watts 350 watts
Bandwidth 192384 MB/sec 230400 MB/sec
Texel Rate 49408 Mtexels/sec 60000 Mtexels/sec
Pixel Rate 37056 Mpixels/sec 24000 Mpixels/sec
Unified Shaders 512 800(160x5) (x2)
Texture Mapping Units 64 40 (x2)
Render Output Units 48 16 (x2)
Bus Type GDDR5 GDDR5
Bus Width 384-bit 256-bit (x2)
Fab Process 40 nm 55 nm
Transistors 3000 million 956 million
Bus PCIe x16 PCIe 2.0 x16 (PCIe bridge)
DirectX Version DirectX 11 DirectX 10.1
OpenGL Version OpenGL 4.1 OpenGL 3.0

Memory Bandwidth: Memory bandwidth is the max amount of information (in units of MB per second) that can be moved over the external memory interface in one second. The number is worked out by multiplying the card's interface width by the speed of its memory. In the case of DDR type memory, it should be multiplied by 2 again. If DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The higher the bandwidth is, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, High Dynamic Range and high resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum amount of texture map elements (texels) that are applied per second. This figure is calculated by multiplying the total amount of texture units by the core speed of the chip. The higher this number, 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 most pixels that the graphics card can possibly record to its local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is calculated by multiplying the number of ROPs by the clock speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also sometimes called Render Output Units) are responsible for filling the screen with pixels (the image). The actual pixel rate is also dependant on lots of other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the ability to reach the maximum fill rate.

Display Prices

Hide Prices

GeForce GTX 580

Amazon.com

Check prices at:

Radeon HD 4870 X2

Amazon.com

Check prices at:

Please note that the price comparisons are based on search keywords - sometimes it might show cards with very similar names that are not exactly the same as the one chosen in the comparison. We do try to filter out the wrong results as best we can, though.

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