GeForce GTX 580 3GB vs Radeon HD 5870

Intro

Compare all of that to the Radeon HD 5870, which features core clock speeds of 850 MHz on the GPU, and 1200 MHz on the 1024 MB of GDDR5 memory. It features 1600(320x5) SPUs as well as 80 TAUs and 32 ROPs.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

Radeon HD 5870		188 Watts
GeForce GTX 580 3GB		244 Watts
	Difference: 56 Watts (30%)

Memory Bandwidth

The GeForce GTX 580 3GB, in theory, should be quite a bit faster than the Radeon HD 5870 overall. (explain)

GeForce GTX 580 3GB		192384 MB/sec
Radeon HD 5870		153600 MB/sec
	Difference: 38784 (25%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon HD 5870 is much (more or less 38%) more effective at AF than the GeForce GTX 580 3GB. (explain)

Radeon HD 5870		68000 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GTX 580 3GB		49408 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 18592 (38%)

Pixel Rate

The GeForce GTX 580 3GB will be a lot (about 36%) more effective at full screen anti-aliasing than the Radeon HD 5870, and also should be able to handle higher resolutions more effectively. (explain)

GeForce GTX 580 3GB		37056 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 5870		27200 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 9856 (36%)

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 data (counted in MB per second) that can be moved over the external memory interface in one second. It's calculated by multiplying the bus width by its memory clock speed. In the case of DDR type RAM, it 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 anti-aliasing, HDR and high resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum amount of texture map elements (texels) that can be applied in one second. This number is worked out by multiplying the total 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 texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels processed in one second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum number of pixels that the graphics card could possibly write to the local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is calculated by multiplying the number of ROPs by the the core clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - aka Render Output Units) are responsible for drawing the pixels (image) on the screen. The actual pixel output rate also depends on lots of other factors, especially the memory bandwidth - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the ability to get to the max fill rate.