GeForce GTX 285 2GB vs GeForce GTX 580 3GB

Intro

The GeForce GTX 285 2GB comes with a GPU core clock speed of 648 MHz, and the 2048 MB of GDDR3 memory is set to run at 1242 MHz through a 512-bit bus. It also is comprised of 240 SPUs, 80 Texture Address Units, and 32 ROPs.

Compare that to the GeForce GTX 580 3GB, which uses a 40 nm design. nVidia has set the core frequency at 772 MHz. The GDDR5 RAM works at a frequency of 1002 MHz on this specific model. It features 512 SPUs as well as 64 Texture Address Units and 48 Rasterization Operator Units.

Price Comparison

Please note that the price comparisons are based on search keywords, and might not be the exact same card listed on this page. We have no control over the accuracy of their search results.

GeForce GTX 285 2GB Amazon.com Other US-based stores Amazon.co.uk Amazon.de Amazon.fr

GeForce GTX 580 3GB Amazon.com Other US-based stores Amazon.co.uk Amazon.de Amazon.fr

Specifications

Model	GeForce GTX 285 2GB	GeForce GTX 580 3GB
Manufacturer	nVidia	nVidia
Year	January 15, 2009	November 2010
Code Name	G200b	GF110
Fab Process	55 nm	40 nm
Bus	PCIe x16 2.0	PCIe x16
Memory	2048 MB	3072 MB
Core Speed	648 MHz	772 MHz
Shader Speed	1476 MHz	1544 MHz
Memory Speed	1242 MHz	1002 MHz
Unified Shaders	240	512
Texture Mapping Units	80	64
Render Output Units	32	48
Bus Type	GDDR3	GDDR5
Bus Width	512-bit	384-bit
DirectX Version	DirectX 10	DirectX 11
OpenGL Version	OpenGL 3.1	OpenGL 4.1
Power (Max TDP)	204 watts	244 watts
Shader Model	4.0	5.0
Bandwidth	158976 MB/sec	192384 MB/sec
Texel Rate	51840 Mtexels/sec	49408 Mtexels/sec
Pixel Rate	20736 Mpixels/sec	37056 Mpixels/sec

Memory Bandwidth: Bandwidth is the maximum amount of information (counted in megabytes per second) that can be moved past the external memory interface in a second. The number is calculated by multiplying the card's bus width by its memory speed. In the case of DDR memory, it must be multiplied by 2 again. If DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The better 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 are applied per second. This is worked out by multiplying the total amount of texture units by the core speed of the chip. The higher this number, the better the card will be at texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels applied in a second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum amount of pixels the graphics card could possibly write to its local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is worked out by multiplying the amount of Render Output Units by the the card's clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also sometimes called Render Output Units) are responsible for outputting the pixels (image) to the screen. The actual pixel output rate also depends on lots of other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the ability to get to the maximum fill rate.