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GeForce GTX 580 3GB vs Radeon HD 4870 X2

Intro

The GeForce GTX 580 3GB features clock speeds of 772 MHz on the GPU, and 1002 MHz on the 3072 MB of GDDR5 RAM. It features 512 SPUs as well as 64 Texture Address Units and 48 Rasterization Operator Units.

Compare that to the Radeon HD 4870 X2, which has a core clock speed of 750 MHz and a GDDR5 memory speed of 900 MHz. It also features a 256-bit bus, and makes use of a 55 nm design. It is comprised of 800(160x5) SPUs, 40 Texture Address Units, and 16 Raster Operation Units.

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GTX 580 3GB 244 Watts
Radeon HD 4870 X2 350 Watts
Difference: 106 Watts (43%)

Memory Bandwidth

The Radeon HD 4870 X2 should theoretically perform a bit faster than the GeForce GTX 580 3GB in general. (explain)

Radeon HD 4870 X2 230400 MB/sec
GeForce GTX 580 3GB 192384 MB/sec
Difference: 38016 (20%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon HD 4870 X2 should be quite a bit (about 21%) more effective at texture filtering than the GeForce GTX 580 3GB. (explain)

Radeon HD 4870 X2 60000 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GTX 580 3GB 49408 Mtexels/sec
Difference: 10592 (21%)

Pixel Rate

The GeForce GTX 580 3GB should be quite a bit (more or less 54%) better at full screen anti-aliasing than the Radeon HD 4870 X2, and also able to handle higher screen resolutions more effectively. (explain)

GeForce GTX 580 3GB 37056 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 4870 X2 24000 Mpixels/sec
Difference: 13056 (54%)

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.

One or more cards in this comparison are multi-core. This means that their bandwidth, texel and pixel rates are theoretically doubled - this does not mean the card will actually perform twice as fast, but only that it should in theory be able to. Actual game benchmarks will give a more accurate idea of what it's capable of.

Price Comparison

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GeForce GTX 580 3GB

Amazon.com

Check prices at:

Radeon HD 4870 X2

Amazon.com

Check prices at:

Please note that the price comparisons are based on search keywords - sometimes it might show cards with very similar names that are not exactly the same as the one chosen in the comparison. We do try to filter out the wrong results as best we can, though.

Specifications

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Model GeForce GTX 580 3GB Radeon HD 4870 X2
Manufacturer nVidia AMD
Year November 2010 Aug 12, 2008
Code Name GF110 R700
Memory 3072 MB 1024 MB (x2)
Core Speed 772 MHz 750 MHz (x2)
Memory Speed 4008 MHz 3600 MHz (x2)
Power (Max TDP) 244 watts 350 watts
Bandwidth 192384 MB/sec 230400 MB/sec
Texel Rate 49408 Mtexels/sec 60000 Mtexels/sec
Pixel Rate 37056 Mpixels/sec 24000 Mpixels/sec
Unified Shaders 512 800(160x5) (x2)
Texture Mapping Units 64 40 (x2)
Render Output Units 48 16 (x2)
Bus Type GDDR5 GDDR5
Bus Width 384-bit 256-bit (x2)
Fab Process 40 nm 55 nm
Transistors 3000 million 956 million
Bus PCIe x16 PCIe 2.0 x16 (PCIe bridge)
DirectX Version DirectX 11 DirectX 10.1
OpenGL Version OpenGL 4.1 OpenGL 3.0

Memory Bandwidth: Memory bandwidth is the max amount of data (counted in megabytes per second) that can be moved past the external memory interface within a second. It's worked out by multiplying the bus width by its memory speed. In the case of DDR type RAM, it should be multiplied by 2 once again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The better the card's memory bandwidth, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, High Dynamic Range and high resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum amount of texture map elements (texels) that are applied per 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 video card could possibly write to the local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is worked out by multiplying the number of colour ROPs by the the core speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also sometimes called Render Output Units) are responsible for drawing the pixels (image) on the screen. The actual pixel rate also depends on many other factors, especially the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the potential to get to the maximum fill rate.

Display Prices

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GeForce GTX 580 3GB

Amazon.com

Check prices at:

Radeon HD 4870 X2

Amazon.com

Check prices at:

Please note that the price comparisons are based on search keywords - sometimes it might show cards with very similar names that are not exactly the same as the one chosen in the comparison. We do try to filter out the wrong results as best we can, though.

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