GeForce GTX 580 vs Radeon HD 5830

Intro

Compare those specs to the Radeon HD 5830, which comes with GPU clock speed of 800 MHz, and 1024 MB of GDDR5 RAM set to run at 1000 MHz through a 256-bit bus. It also is comprised of 1120(224x5) SPUs, 56 TAUs, and 16 ROPs.

Display Graphs

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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

The GeForce GTX 580 should in theory be quite a bit faster than the Radeon HD 5830 overall. (explain)

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

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 580 will be a small bit (about 10%) better at AF than the Radeon HD 5830. (explain)

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

Pixel Rate

If using a high screen resolution is important to you, then the GeForce GTX 580 is superior to the Radeon HD 5830, and very much so. (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 largest amount of data (counted in megabytes per second) that can be transferred past the external memory interface within a second. The number is worked out by multiplying the bus width by its memory speed. If it uses DDR type memory, the result should be multiplied by 2 again. If DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The better the memory bandwidth, the better 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 processed per second. This figure is worked out by multiplying the total number of texture units by the core speed of the chip. The higher this number, the better the 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 the graphics card can possibly write to the local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is calculated by multiplying the number of colour ROPs by the the card's clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also called Render Output Units) are responsible for filling the screen with pixels (the image). The actual pixel fill rate also depends on many other factors, especially the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the ability to get to the maximum fill rate.