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

Intro

Compare all that to the Radeon HD 3870 X2 512MB, which uses a 55 nm design. AMD has set the core frequency at 825 MHz. The GDDR3 memory runs at a frequency of 900 MHz on this specific card. It features 320(64x5) SPUs as well as 16 Texture Address Units and 16 Rasterization Operator Units.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Memory Bandwidth

Theoretically speaking, the GeForce GTX 580 3GB should be much faster than the Radeon HD 3870 X2 512MB overall. (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 will be a lot (about 87%) more effective at texture filtering 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 (approximately 40%) more effective at FSAA than the Radeon HD 3870 X2 512MB, and capable of handling higher screen resolutions without losing too much performance. (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: Bandwidth is the maximum amount of data (measured in megabytes per second) that can be transported across the external memory interface in a second. It's worked out by multiplying the bus width by the speed of its memory. If the card has DDR memory, the result should be multiplied by 2 again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The higher the bandwidth is, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, High Dynamic Range and high resolutions.

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

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum number of pixels the video 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 number of ROPs by the clock speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also sometimes called Render Output Units) are responsible for filling the screen with pixels (the image). The actual pixel rate also depends on quite a few other factors, especially the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the potential to get to the maximum fill rate.