GeForce GTX 580 3GB vs Radeon HD 3470 512MB

Intro

Compare that to the Radeon HD 3470 512MB, which comes with a clock frequency of 800 MHz and a GDDR3 memory speed of 950 MHz. It also uses a 128-bit bus, and uses a 55 nm design. It is comprised of 40(8x5) SPUs, 4 TAUs, and 4 Raster Operation Units.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Memory Bandwidth

The GeForce GTX 580 3GB should in theory perform a lot faster than the Radeon HD 3470 512MB in general. (explain)

GeForce GTX 580 3GB		192384 MB/sec
Radeon HD 3470 512MB		30400 MB/sec
	Difference: 161984 (533%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 580 3GB will be quite a bit (about 1444%) better at anisotropic filtering than the Radeon HD 3470 512MB. (explain)

GeForce GTX 580 3GB		49408 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 3470 512MB		3200 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 46208 (1444%)

Pixel Rate

The GeForce GTX 580 3GB will be much (about 1058%) more effective at anti-aliasing than the Radeon HD 3470 512MB, and also should be able to handle higher resolutions while still performing well. (explain)

GeForce GTX 580 3GB		37056 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 3470 512MB		3200 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 33856 (1058%)

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 data (in units of megabytes per second) that can be transferred past the external memory interface in one second. The number is worked out by multiplying the interface width by its memory speed. If the card has DDR type RAM, it must be multiplied by 2 again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The higher the bandwidth is, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, HDR and high resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum texture map elements (texels) that are applied in one second. This number is calculated by multiplying the total amount of texture units of the card by the core speed of the chip. The higher the texel rate, the better the video 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 write to the local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is worked out by multiplying the number of Render Output Units by the the core speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also sometimes called Render Output Units) are responsible for drawing the pixels (image) on the screen. The actual pixel output rate also depends on many other factors, especially the memory bandwidth - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the ability to reach the maximum fill rate.