GeForce GTX 460 1GB vs GeForce GTX 580 3GB

Intro

Compare those specs to the GeForce GTX 580 3GB, which has core clock speeds of 772 MHz on the GPU, and 1002 MHz on the 3072 MB of GDDR5 RAM. It features 512 SPUs along with 64 Texture Address Units and 48 ROPs.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GTX 460 1GB		160 Watts
GeForce GTX 580 3GB		244 Watts
	Difference: 84 Watts (53%)

Memory Bandwidth

As far as performance goes, the GeForce GTX 580 3GB should theoretically be quite a bit better than the GeForce GTX 460 1GB overall. (explain)

GeForce GTX 580 3GB		192384 MB/sec
GeForce GTX 460 1GB		115200 MB/sec
	Difference: 77184 (67%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 580 3GB will be a lot (more or less 31%) faster with regards to anisotropic filtering than the GeForce GTX 460 1GB. (explain)

GeForce GTX 580 3GB		49408 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GTX 460 1GB		37800 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 11608 (31%)

Pixel Rate

If using high levels of AA is important to you, then the GeForce GTX 580 3GB is superior to the GeForce GTX 460 1GB, by far. (explain)

GeForce GTX 580 3GB		37056 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GTX 460 1GB		21600 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 15456 (72%)

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 (in units of megabytes per second) that can be transferred across the external memory interface within a second. The number is worked out by multiplying the card's interface width by its memory speed. If the card has DDR type memory, it must be multiplied by 2 again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The higher the card's memory bandwidth, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, High Dynamic Range and higher screen resolutions.

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

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum amount of pixels that the graphics card can possibly write to its local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is worked out by multiplying the amount of colour ROPs by the the core 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 many other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the potential to get to the max fill rate.