GeForce GTX 260 Core 216 vs GeForce GTX 580

Intro

Compare all of that to the GeForce GTX 580, which comes with a clock speed of 772 MHz and a GDDR5 memory frequency of 1002 MHz. It also features a 384-bit bus, and uses a 40 nm design. It features 512 SPUs, 64 Texture Address Units, and 48 Raster Operation Units.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GTX 260 Core 216		202 Watts
GeForce GTX 580		244 Watts
	Difference: 42 Watts (21%)

Memory Bandwidth

As far as performance goes, the GeForce GTX 580 should in theory be much superior to the GeForce GTX 260 Core 216 overall. (explain)

GeForce GTX 580		192384 MB/sec
GeForce GTX 260 Core 216		111888 MB/sec
	Difference: 80496 (72%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 580 is just a bit (about 19%) more effective at anisotropic filtering than the GeForce GTX 260 Core 216. (explain)

GeForce GTX 580		49408 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GTX 260 Core 216		41472 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 7936 (19%)

Pixel Rate

The GeForce GTX 580 should be much (approximately 130%) more effective at FSAA than the GeForce GTX 260 Core 216, and capable of handling higher screen resolutions without losing too much performance. (explain)

GeForce GTX 580		37056 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GTX 260 Core 216		16128 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 20928 (130%)

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 information (in units of megabytes per second) that can be transported over the external memory interface within a second. The number is worked out by multiplying the interface width by its memory clock speed. If the card has DDR type memory, the result should be multiplied by 2 once again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The better the memory bandwidth, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, HDR and high resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum number of texture map elements (texels) that can be processed in one second. This number is calculated by multiplying the total texture units of the card by the core clock speed of the chip. The higher this number, the better the video card will be at texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels processed in a second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum number of pixels that the graphics card could possibly record to its local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is calculated by multiplying the amount of ROPs by the clock speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - aka Render Output Units) are responsible for drawing the pixels (image) on the screen. 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 potential to get to the maximum fill rate.