GeForce GTX 580 vs Radeon HD 5870

Intro

Compare those specifications to the Radeon HD 5870, which comes with GPU core speed of 850 MHz, and 1024 MB of GDDR5 RAM set to run at 1200 MHz through a 256-bit bus. It also is comprised of 1600(320x5) SPUs, 80 TAUs, and 32 ROPs.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

Radeon HD 5870		188 Watts
GeForce GTX 580		244 Watts
	Difference: 56 Watts (30%)

Memory Bandwidth

The GeForce GTX 580, in theory, should be quite a bit faster than the Radeon HD 5870 overall. (explain)

GeForce GTX 580		192384 MB/sec
Radeon HD 5870		153600 MB/sec
	Difference: 38784 (25%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon HD 5870 should be quite a bit (about 38%) more effective at texture filtering than the GeForce GTX 580. (explain)

Radeon HD 5870		68000 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GTX 580		49408 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 18592 (38%)

Pixel Rate

If using lots of anti-aliasing is important to you, then the GeForce GTX 580 is the winner, by a large margin. (explain)

GeForce GTX 580		37056 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 5870		27200 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 9856 (36%)

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: Memory bandwidth is the maximum amount of data (counted in MB per second) that can be transferred across the external memory interface within a second. It is calculated by multiplying the card's bus width by the speed of its memory. If the card has DDR RAM, it should be multiplied by 2 once again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The better the bandwidth is, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, HDR and high resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum texture map elements (texels) that can be processed in one second. This number is calculated by multiplying the total amount of texture units of the card by the core speed of the chip. The higher this number, the better the graphics 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 chip can possibly record to the local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is calculated by multiplying the amount of Raster Operations Pipelines by the the card's clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - aka Render Output Units) are responsible for outputting the pixels (image) to the screen. The actual pixel rate is also dependant on many other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the potential to get to the maximum fill rate.