GeForce GTX 580 3GB vs Radeon HD 6990

Intro

Compare those specifications to the Radeon HD 6990, which makes use of a 40 nm design. AMD has clocked the core frequency at 830 MHz. The GDDR5 RAM is set to run at a speed of 1250 MHz on this specific model. It features 1536 SPUs as well as 96 TAUs and 32 ROPs.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GTX 580 3GB		244 Watts
Radeon HD 6990		375 Watts
	Difference: 131 Watts (54%)

Memory Bandwidth

The Radeon HD 6990 should theoretically perform quite a bit faster than the GeForce GTX 580 3GB overall. (explain)

Radeon HD 6990		320000 MB/sec
GeForce GTX 580 3GB		192384 MB/sec
	Difference: 127616 (66%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon HD 6990 is much (about 223%) more effective at texture filtering than the GeForce GTX 580 3GB. (explain)

Radeon HD 6990		159360 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GTX 580 3GB		49408 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 109952 (223%)

Pixel Rate

The Radeon HD 6990 will be quite a bit (more or less 43%) faster with regards to AA than the GeForce GTX 580 3GB, and will be able to handle higher screen resolutions more effectively. (explain)

Radeon HD 6990		53120 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GTX 580 3GB		37056 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 16064 (43%)

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.

One or more cards in this comparison are multi-core. This means that their bandwidth, texel and pixel rates are theoretically doubled - this does not mean the card will actually perform twice as fast, but only that it should in theory be able to. Actual game benchmarks will give a more accurate idea of what it's capable of.

Price Comparison

Specifications

Memory Bandwidth: Bandwidth is the largest amount of data (measured in megabytes per second) that can be moved past the external memory interface in a second. It's worked out by multiplying the bus width by its memory clock speed. If the card has DDR type memory, the result should be multiplied by 2 once again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The better the memory bandwidth, 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 amount of texture map elements (texels) that are processed in one second. This is worked out by multiplying the total amount of texture units by the core clock 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 processed in a second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum number of pixels the graphics card could possibly record to its local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is worked out by multiplying the amount of ROPs by the clock speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - aka Render Output Units) are responsible for filling the screen with pixels (the image). The actual pixel output rate is also dependant on many other factors, especially the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the potential to get to the maximum fill rate.