GeForce GTX 460 vs GeForce GTX 580 3GB

Intro

Compare those specs to the GeForce GTX 580 3GB, 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 specific model. It features 512 SPUs along with 64 Texture Address Units and 48 Rasterization Operator Units.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GTX 460		150 Watts
GeForce GTX 580 3GB		244 Watts
	Difference: 94 Watts (63%)

Memory Bandwidth

In theory, the GeForce GTX 580 3GB is 123% quicker than the GeForce GTX 460 in general, because of its higher bandwidth. (explain)

GeForce GTX 580 3GB		192384 MB/sec
GeForce GTX 460		86400 MB/sec
	Difference: 105984 (123%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 580 3GB is quite a bit (about 31%) more effective at anisotropic filtering than the GeForce GTX 460. (explain)

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

Pixel Rate

The GeForce GTX 580 3GB should be much (approximately 129%) more effective at anti-aliasing than the GeForce GTX 460, and also able to handle higher resolutions better. (explain)

GeForce GTX 580 3GB		37056 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GTX 460		16200 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 20856 (129%)

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 (measured in MB per second) that can be transferred over the external memory interface in one second. It's worked out by multiplying the card's interface width by its memory clock speed. In the case of DDR type memory, 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 AA, HDR and high resolutions.

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

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the most pixels the video card could possibly write to its local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is worked out by multiplying the amount of colour ROPs by the the card's clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - sometimes also referred to as Render Output Units) are responsible for filling the screen with pixels (the image). The actual pixel fill rate also depends on many other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the ability to get to the maximum fill rate.