GeForce GTX 580 vs Radeon HD 5830

Intro

Compare those specs to the Radeon HD 5830, which features a clock frequency of 800 MHz and a GDDR5 memory speed of 1000 MHz. It also uses a 256-bit memory bus, and makes use of a 40 nm design. It features 1120(224x5) SPUs, 56 TAUs, and 16 Raster Operation Units.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

Radeon HD 5830		175 Watts
GeForce GTX 580		244 Watts
	Difference: 69 Watts (39%)

Memory Bandwidth

Theoretically speaking, the GeForce GTX 580 is 50% quicker than the Radeon HD 5830 overall, because of its higher data rate. (explain)

GeForce GTX 580		192384 MB/sec
Radeon HD 5830		128000 MB/sec
	Difference: 64384 (50%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 580 will be just a bit (about 10%) more effective at texture filtering than the Radeon HD 5830. (explain)

GeForce GTX 580		49408 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 5830		44800 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 4608 (10%)

Pixel Rate

The GeForce GTX 580 will be quite a bit (more or less 190%) better at FSAA than the Radeon HD 5830, and also capable of handling higher screen resolutions without slowing down too much. (explain)

GeForce GTX 580		37056 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 5830		12800 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 24256 (190%)

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 data (in units of megabytes per second) that can be transported across the external memory interface in one second. It's calculated by multiplying the card's interface width by its memory speed. If the card has DDR memory, it should be multiplied by 2 once again. If DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The better 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 are processed in one second. This figure is worked out by multiplying the total texture units of the card by the core clock speed of the chip. The better this number, the better the card will be at handling texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels applied in a second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum amount of pixels the video card can possibly record to the local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is calculated by multiplying the amount 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 is also dependant on many other factors, especially the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the ability to reach the max fill rate.