GeForce GTX 580 3GB vs Radeon HD 4670 512MB

Intro

Compare all of that to the Radeon HD 4670 512MB, which has GPU clock speed of 750 MHz, and 512 MB of GDDR4/GDDR3/DDR3/DDR2 RAM set to run at 1000 MHz through a 128-bit bus. It also is made up of 320(64x5) Stream Processors, 32 TAUs, and 8 ROPs.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

Radeon HD 4670 512MB		70 Watts
GeForce GTX 580 3GB		244 Watts
	Difference: 174 Watts (249%)

Memory Bandwidth

Performance-wise, the GeForce GTX 580 3GB should in theory be quite a bit better than the Radeon HD 4670 512MB in general. (explain)

GeForce GTX 580 3GB		192384 MB/sec
Radeon HD 4670 512MB		32000 MB/sec
	Difference: 160384 (501%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 580 3GB will be much (about 106%) better at AF than the Radeon HD 4670 512MB. (explain)

GeForce GTX 580 3GB		49408 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 4670 512MB		24000 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 25408 (106%)

Pixel Rate

The GeForce GTX 580 3GB is much (about 518%) more effective at FSAA than the Radeon HD 4670 512MB, and also will be capable of handling higher resolutions without slowing down too much. (explain)

GeForce GTX 580 3GB		37056 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 4670 512MB		6000 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 31056 (518%)

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: Bandwidth is the maximum amount of information (in units of megabytes per second) that can be transferred past the external memory interface in one second. It's calculated by multiplying the card's bus width by its memory clock speed. In the case of DDR RAM, it should be multiplied by 2 once again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The better the bandwidth is, 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 number of texture map elements (texels) that are applied in one second. This is worked out by multiplying the total texture units by the core clock speed of the chip. The better 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 that the graphics chip could possibly record to the local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is worked out by multiplying the amount of ROPs by the clock speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - sometimes also referred to as Render Output Units) are responsible for drawing the pixels (image) on the screen. The actual pixel fill 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 ability to get to the max fill rate.