GeForce GTX 480 vs GeForce GTX 590

Intro

Compare all of that to the GeForce GTX 590, which features core clock speeds of 607 MHz on the GPU, and 855 MHz on the 1536 MB of GDDR5 memory. It features 512 SPUs as well as 64 Texture Address Units and 48 Rasterization Operator Units.

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 590		6680 points
GeForce GTX 480		3650 points
	Difference: 3030 (83%)

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GTX 480		250 Watts
GeForce GTX 590		365 Watts
	Difference: 115 Watts (46%)

Memory Bandwidth

Performance-wise, the GeForce GTX 590 should theoretically be a lot superior to the GeForce GTX 480 overall. (explain)

GeForce GTX 590		328320 MB/sec
GeForce GTX 480		177408 MB/sec
	Difference: 150912 (85%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 590 should be quite a bit (about 85%) better at anisotropic filtering than the GeForce GTX 480. (explain)

GeForce GTX 590		77696 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GTX 480		42000 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 35696 (85%)

Pixel Rate

The GeForce GTX 590 will be much (more or less 73%) faster with regards to FSAA than the GeForce GTX 480, and also will be capable of handling higher screen resolutions more effectively. (explain)

GeForce GTX 590		58272 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GTX 480		33600 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 24672 (73%)

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 (counted in MB per second) that can be transferred across the external memory interface in one second. It is worked out by multiplying the card's interface width by its memory speed. If the card has DDR RAM, it should be multiplied by 2 again. If DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The better the memory bandwidth, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, HDR and higher screen resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum number of texture map elements (texels) that can be applied per second. This figure is calculated by multiplying the total amount of texture units by the core speed of the chip. The higher this number, the better the card will be at texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels in one second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum number of pixels that the graphics card can possibly record 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 card's clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - aka Render Output Units) are responsible for outputting the pixels (image) to the screen. The actual pixel rate also depends on many other factors, especially the memory bandwidth - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the ability to get to the maximum fill rate.