GeForce GTX 285 2GB vs GeForce GTX 580

Intro

Compare all of that to the GeForce GTX 580, which has a GPU core clock speed of 772 MHz, and 1536 MB of GDDR5 memory set to run at 1002 MHz through a 384-bit bus. It also features 512 Stream Processors, 64 Texture Address Units, and 48 ROPs.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GTX 285 2GB		204 Watts
GeForce GTX 580		244 Watts
	Difference: 40 Watts (20%)

Memory Bandwidth

In theory, the GeForce GTX 580 will be 21% faster than the GeForce GTX 285 2GB in general, due to its higher bandwidth. (explain)

GeForce GTX 580		192384 MB/sec
GeForce GTX 285 2GB		158976 MB/sec
	Difference: 33408 (21%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 285 2GB will be a bit (approximately 5%) better at AF than the GeForce GTX 580. (explain)

GeForce GTX 285 2GB		51840 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GTX 580		49408 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 2432 (5%)

Pixel Rate

The GeForce GTX 580 should be much (about 79%) better at AA than the GeForce GTX 285 2GB, and also capable of handling higher resolutions more effectively. (explain)

GeForce GTX 580		37056 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GTX 285 2GB		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: Memory bandwidth is the largest amount of information (measured in megabytes per second) that can be transferred past the external memory interface in a second. It's calculated by multiplying the card's bus width by its memory clock speed. If it uses DDR type RAM, it should be multiplied by 2 again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The higher the bandwidth is, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, HDR and higher screen resolutions.

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

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum amount of pixels that the graphics card can possibly write to the local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is calculated by multiplying the amount of colour ROPs by the the core speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also sometimes called Render Output Units) are responsible for outputting the pixels (image) to the screen. The actual pixel output rate is also dependant on quite a few other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the potential to get to the maximum fill rate.