GeForce GTX 285 1GB vs GeForce GTX 580

Intro

Compare all that to the GeForce GTX 580, which has clock speeds of 772 MHz on the GPU, and 1002 MHz on the 1536 MB of GDDR5 RAM. It features 512 SPUs along with 64 Texture Address Units and 48 Rasterization Operator Units.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GTX 285 1GB		204 Watts
GeForce GTX 580		244 Watts
	Difference: 40 Watts (20%)

Memory Bandwidth

Theoretically speaking, the GeForce GTX 580 will be 21% faster than the GeForce GTX 285 1GB overall, due to its greater bandwidth. (explain)

GeForce GTX 580		192384 MB/sec
GeForce GTX 285 1GB		158976 MB/sec
	Difference: 33408 (21%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 285 1GB is a bit (approximately 5%) better at texture filtering than the GeForce GTX 580. (explain)

GeForce GTX 285 1GB		51840 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GTX 580		49408 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 2432 (5%)

Pixel Rate

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

GeForce GTX 580		37056 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GTX 285 1GB		20736 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 16320 (79%)

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 maximum amount of data (measured in MB per second) that can be transferred across the external memory interface in one second. It is calculated by multiplying the card's bus width by the speed of its memory. If it uses DDR 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, HDR and higher screen resolutions.

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