GeForce GTX 580 vs GeForce GTX 590

Intro

Compare all of that to the GeForce GTX 590, which features a GPU core clock speed of 607 MHz, and 1536 MB of GDDR5 memory set to run at 855 MHz through a 384-bit bus. It also features 512 SPUs, 64 TAUs, and 48 ROPs.

Display Graphs

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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 590		6680 points
GeForce GTX 580		4956 points
	Difference: 1724 (35%)

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GTX 580		244 Watts
GeForce GTX 590		365 Watts
	Difference: 121 Watts (50%)

Memory Bandwidth

The GeForce GTX 590 should in theory be quite a bit faster than the GeForce GTX 580 in general. (explain)

GeForce GTX 590		328320 MB/sec
GeForce GTX 580		192384 MB/sec
	Difference: 135936 (71%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 590 should be a lot (about 57%) better at AF than the GeForce GTX 580. (explain)

GeForce GTX 590		77696 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GTX 580		49408 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 28288 (57%)

Pixel Rate

The GeForce GTX 590 is quite a bit (more or less 57%) better at full screen anti-aliasing than the GeForce GTX 580, and also will be capable of handling higher screen resolutions without losing too much performance. (explain)

GeForce GTX 590		58272 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GTX 580		37056 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 21216 (57%)

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: Memory bandwidth is the largest amount of data (measured in MB per second) that can be transferred over the external memory interface in a second. The number is calculated by multiplying the bus width by its memory clock speed. If it uses DDR memory, it should be multiplied by 2 again. If DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The higher the memory bandwidth, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, High Dynamic Range and high resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum number of texture map elements (texels) that can be processed per second. This figure is worked out by multiplying the total texture units by the core speed of the chip. The better the texel rate, the better the video card will be at handling texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels processed in a second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum amount of pixels the graphics card can possibly write to the local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is worked out by multiplying the number of ROPs by the the core clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also sometimes called 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, most notably the memory bandwidth - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the potential to reach the maximum fill rate.