GeForce GT 430 vs GeForce GTX 580 3GB

Intro

Compare that to the GeForce GTX 580 3GB, which has a GPU core clock speed of 772 MHz, and 3072 MB of GDDR5 RAM running at 1002 MHz through a 384-bit bus. It also features 512 SPUs, 64 Texture Address Units, and 48 ROPs.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GT 430		60 Watts
GeForce GTX 580 3GB		244 Watts
	Difference: 184 Watts (307%)

Memory Bandwidth

The GeForce GTX 580 3GB should theoretically perform a lot faster than the GeForce GT 430 overall. (explain)

GeForce GTX 580 3GB		192384 MB/sec
GeForce GT 430		28800 MB/sec
	Difference: 163584 (568%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 580 3GB is a lot (more or less 341%) more effective at AF than the GeForce GT 430. (explain)

GeForce GTX 580 3GB		49408 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GT 430		11200 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 38208 (341%)

Pixel Rate

If running with lots of anti-aliasing is important to you, then the GeForce GTX 580 3GB is the winner, by a large margin. (explain)

GeForce GTX 580 3GB		37056 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GT 430		2800 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 34256 (1223%)

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 maximum amount of information (counted in MB per second) that can be moved over the external memory interface in one second. The number is worked out by multiplying the bus width by its memory speed. If the card has DDR type RAM, the result should be multiplied by 2 once again. If DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The better the memory bandwidth, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, HDR and high resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum texture map elements (texels) that can be processed in one second. This figure is calculated by multiplying the total 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 one second.

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