GeForce GTX 560 Ti vs GeForce GTX 580 3GB

Intro

Compare those specs to the GeForce GTX 580 3GB, which makes use of a 40 nm design. nVidia has set the core frequency at 772 MHz. The GDDR5 memory is set to run at a frequency of 1002 MHz on this specific card. It features 512 SPUs along with 64 TAUs and 48 Rasterization Operator Units.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GTX 560 Ti		170 Watts
GeForce GTX 580 3GB		244 Watts
	Difference: 74 Watts (44%)

Memory Bandwidth

The GeForce GTX 580 3GB should in theory perform a lot faster than the GeForce GTX 560 Ti overall. (explain)

GeForce GTX 580 3GB		192384 MB/sec
GeForce GTX 560 Ti		128256 MB/sec
	Difference: 64128 (50%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 560 Ti is a bit (more or less 6%) faster with regards to texture filtering than the GeForce GTX 580 3GB. (explain)

GeForce GTX 560 Ti		52608 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GTX 580 3GB		49408 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 3200 (6%)

Pixel Rate

If using a high resolution is important to you, then the GeForce GTX 580 3GB is the winner, and very much so. (explain)

GeForce GTX 580 3GB		37056 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GTX 560 Ti		26304 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 10752 (41%)

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 information (counted in MB per second) that can be transferred over the external memory interface in a second. It's calculated by multiplying the card's bus width by its memory speed. In the case of DDR type RAM, the result should be multiplied by 2 once again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The higher the bandwidth is, 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 amount of texture map elements (texels) that can be applied in one second. This figure is worked out by multiplying the total number of texture units by the core clock speed of the chip. The better this number, the better the video card will be at handling texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels per second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum amount of pixels the graphics card can possibly record to its local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is calculated by multiplying the number of Raster Operations Pipelines by the the card's clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also called Render Output Units) are responsible for drawing the pixels (image) on the screen. The actual pixel output rate is also dependant on lots of other factors, especially the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the ability to get to the max fill rate.