GeForce GTX 550 Ti vs GeForce GTX 580

Intro

Compare that to the GeForce GTX 580, which features GPU core speed of 772 MHz, and 1536 MB of GDDR5 RAM set to run at 1002 MHz through a 384-bit bus. It also is made up of 512 Stream Processors, 64 TAUs, and 48 ROPs.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Benchmarks

These are real-world performance benchmarks that were submitted by Hardware Compare users. The scores seen here are the average of all benchmarks submitted for each respective test and hardware.

3DMark Fire Strike Graphics Score

GeForce GTX 580		4956 points
GeForce GTX 550 Ti		1897 points
	Difference: 3059 (161%)

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GTX 550 Ti		116 Watts
GeForce GTX 580		244 Watts
	Difference: 128 Watts (110%)

Memory Bandwidth

As far as performance goes, the GeForce GTX 580 should theoretically be a lot superior to the GeForce GTX 550 Ti overall. (explain)

GeForce GTX 580		192384 MB/sec
GeForce GTX 550 Ti		98496 MB/sec
	Difference: 93888 (95%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 580 is much (about 72%) more effective at texture filtering than the GeForce GTX 550 Ti. (explain)

GeForce GTX 580		49408 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GTX 550 Ti		28800 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 20608 (72%)

Pixel Rate

If using high levels of AA is important to you, then the GeForce GTX 580 is the winner, by far. (explain)

GeForce GTX 580		37056 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GTX 550 Ti		21600 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 15456 (72%)

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 largest amount of information (counted in megabytes per second) that can be transported over the external memory interface in one second. It's calculated by multiplying the bus width by the speed of its memory. If the card has DDR type RAM, it should be multiplied by 2 once again. If DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The better the card's memory bandwidth, the faster 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 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 card will be at handling texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels applied in a second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum number of pixels that the graphics card can possibly record to the local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is calculated by multiplying the number of ROPs by the the core clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also called Render Output Units) are responsible for outputting the pixels (image) to the screen. The actual pixel rate is also dependant on lots of other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the potential to get to the max fill rate.