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GeForce GTX 260 vs GeForce GTX 580

Intro

The GeForce GTX 260 comes with core speeds of 576 MHz on the GPU, and 999 MHz on the 896 MB of GDDR3 RAM. It features 192 SPUs as well as 64 Texture Address Units and 28 ROPs.

Compare all that to the GeForce GTX 580, which uses a 40 nm design. nVidia has clocked the core speed at 772 MHz. The GDDR5 memory is set to run at a speed of 1002 MHz on this card. It features 512 SPUs as well as 64 Texture Address Units and 48 ROPs.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GTX 260 182 Watts
GeForce GTX 580 244 Watts
Difference: 62 Watts (34%)

Memory Bandwidth

The GeForce GTX 580 should in theory be quite a bit faster than the GeForce GTX 260 overall. (explain)

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

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 580 is a lot (about 34%) more effective at anisotropic filtering than the GeForce GTX 260. (explain)

GeForce GTX 580 49408 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GTX 260 36864 Mtexels/sec
Difference: 12544 (34%)

Pixel Rate

The GeForce GTX 580 will be quite a bit (more or less 130%) faster with regards to FSAA than the GeForce GTX 260, and will be able to handle higher screen resolutions more effectively. (explain)

GeForce GTX 580 37056 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GTX 260 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

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GeForce GTX 260

Amazon.com

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GeForce GTX 580

Amazon.com

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Please note that the price comparisons are based on search keywords - sometimes it might show cards with very similar names that are not exactly the same as the one chosen in the comparison. We do try to filter out the wrong results as best we can, though.

Specifications

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Model GeForce GTX 260 GeForce GTX 580
Manufacturer nVidia nVidia
Year June 16, 2008 November 2010
Code Name G200 GF110
Memory 896 MB 1536 MB
Core Speed 576 MHz 772 MHz
Memory Speed 1998 MHz 4008 MHz
Power (Max TDP) 182 watts 244 watts
Bandwidth 111888 MB/sec 192384 MB/sec
Texel Rate 36864 Mtexels/sec 49408 Mtexels/sec
Pixel Rate 16128 Mpixels/sec 37056 Mpixels/sec
Unified Shaders 192 512
Texture Mapping Units 64 64
Render Output Units 28 48
Bus Type GDDR3 GDDR5
Bus Width 448-bit 384-bit
Fab Process 65 nm 40 nm
Transistors 1400 million 3000 million
Bus PCIe x16 2.0 PCIe x16
DirectX Version DirectX 10 DirectX 11
OpenGL Version OpenGL 3.1 OpenGL 4.1

Memory Bandwidth: Memory bandwidth is the largest amount of data (in units of MB per second) that can be transported over the external memory interface in one second. The number is worked out by multiplying the card's bus width by its memory clock speed. If the card has DDR type memory, it must be multiplied by 2 once again. If DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The better the card's memory bandwidth, 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 number of texture map elements (texels) that are processed in one second. This figure is calculated by multiplying the total number of 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 processed in a second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum number of pixels the video card can possibly record to the local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is worked out by multiplying the number of ROPs by the clock speed of the card. 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 - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the potential to reach the maximum fill rate.

Display Prices

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GeForce GTX 260

Amazon.com

Check prices at:

GeForce GTX 580

Amazon.com

Check prices at:

Please note that the price comparisons are based on search keywords - sometimes it might show cards with very similar names that are not exactly the same as the one chosen in the comparison. We do try to filter out the wrong results as best we can, though.

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