GeForce GTX 260 216SP 55 nm vs GeForce GTX 580 3GB

Intro

Compare all that to the GeForce GTX 580 3GB, which has core clock speeds of 772 MHz on the GPU, and 1002 MHz on the 3072 MB of GDDR5 memory. It features 512 SPUs as well as 64 Texture Address Units and 48 ROPs.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GTX 260 216SP 55 nm		171 Watts
GeForce GTX 580 3GB		244 Watts
	Difference: 73 Watts (43%)

Memory Bandwidth

Theoretically, the GeForce GTX 580 3GB should be a lot faster than the GeForce GTX 260 216SP 55 nm overall. (explain)

GeForce GTX 580 3GB		192384 MB/sec
GeForce GTX 260 216SP 55 nm		111888 MB/sec
	Difference: 80496 (72%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 580 3GB should be a little bit (more or less 19%) faster with regards to AF than the GeForce GTX 260 216SP 55 nm. (explain)

GeForce GTX 580 3GB		49408 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GTX 260 216SP 55 nm		41472 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 7936 (19%)

Pixel Rate

The GeForce GTX 580 3GB will be quite a bit (more or less 130%) more effective at AA than the GeForce GTX 260 216SP 55 nm, and also should be capable of handling higher resolutions better. (explain)

GeForce GTX 580 3GB		37056 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GTX 260 216SP 55 nm		16128 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 20928 (130%)

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 max amount of information (counted in MB per second) that can be transferred past the external memory interface in a second. It is worked out by multiplying the interface width by its memory speed. If the card has DDR type memory, it must be multiplied by 2 once again. If DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The better the card's memory bandwidth, the faster 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 is calculated by multiplying the total amount of texture units of the card by the core clock speed of the chip. The higher this number, the better the graphics 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 number of pixels the video card can possibly write to the local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is calculated by multiplying the amount of ROPs by the the core speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - aka Render Output Units) are responsible for outputting the pixels (image) to the screen. The actual pixel fill rate also depends on lots of other factors, especially the memory bandwidth - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the potential to reach the maximum fill rate.