GeForce GTX 580 3GB vs Radeon HD 3870 X2 512MB

Intro

Compare that to the Radeon HD 3870 X2 512MB, which uses a 55 nm design. AMD has clocked the core frequency at 825 MHz. The GDDR3 memory works at a speed of 900 MHz on this particular model. It features 320(64x5) SPUs as well as 16 Texture Address Units and 16 ROPs.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Memory Bandwidth

The GeForce GTX 580 3GB should theoretically perform much faster than the Radeon HD 3870 X2 512MB in general. (explain)

GeForce GTX 580 3GB		192384 MB/sec
Radeon HD 3870 X2 512MB		115200 MB/sec
	Difference: 77184 (67%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 580 3GB is a lot (approximately 87%) better at AF than the Radeon HD 3870 X2 512MB. (explain)

GeForce GTX 580 3GB		49408 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 3870 X2 512MB		26400 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 23008 (87%)

Pixel Rate

The GeForce GTX 580 3GB should be a lot (more or less 40%) better at AA than the Radeon HD 3870 X2 512MB, and capable of handling higher resolutions better. (explain)

GeForce GTX 580 3GB		37056 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 3870 X2 512MB		26400 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 10656 (40%)

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

Specifications

Memory Bandwidth: Memory bandwidth is the max amount of information (counted in MB per second) that can be transported across the external memory interface within a second. The number is worked out by multiplying the bus width by its memory speed. If the card has DDR memory, it must be multiplied by 2 again. If DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The higher the card's memory bandwidth, the better 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 amount of texture map elements (texels) that can be applied per second. This figure is worked out by multiplying the total number of texture units of the card by the core clock speed of the chip. The higher the texel rate, the better the video card will be at texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels processed in a second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum amount of pixels that the graphics chip could 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 clock speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also called Render Output Units) are responsible for outputting the pixels (image) to the screen. The actual pixel output rate also depends on quite a few other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the ability to reach the max fill rate.