GeForce GTX 580 3GB vs Radeon HD 6790

Intro

Compare those specs to the Radeon HD 6790, which features clock speeds of 840 MHz on the GPU, and 1050 MHz on the 1024 MB of GDDR5 memory. It features 800 SPUs as well as 40 Texture Address Units and 16 Rasterization Operator Units.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

Radeon HD 6790		150 Watts
GeForce GTX 580 3GB		244 Watts
	Difference: 94 Watts (63%)

Memory Bandwidth

The GeForce GTX 580 3GB should theoretically perform a lot faster than the Radeon HD 6790 overall. (explain)

GeForce GTX 580 3GB		192384 MB/sec
Radeon HD 6790		134400 MB/sec
	Difference: 57984 (43%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 580 3GB is a lot (approximately 47%) faster with regards to texture filtering than the Radeon HD 6790. (explain)

GeForce GTX 580 3GB		49408 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 6790		33600 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 15808 (47%)

Pixel Rate

The GeForce GTX 580 3GB is a lot (approximately 176%) better at full screen anti-aliasing than the Radeon HD 6790, and also will be capable of handling higher resolutions better. (explain)

GeForce GTX 580 3GB		37056 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 6790		13440 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 23616 (176%)

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 information (measured in megabytes per second) that can be transferred over the external memory interface in one second. It is worked out by multiplying the card's interface width by its memory clock speed. If it uses DDR memory, it must be multiplied by 2 once again. If DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The better the memory bandwidth, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, High Dynamic Range and higher screen resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum number of texture map elements (texels) that can be processed in one second. This figure is worked out by multiplying the total texture units of the card by the core clock speed of the chip. The better this number, the better the 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 that the graphics chip can possibly write to the local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is calculated by multiplying the amount of Raster Operations Pipelines by the clock 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 lots of other factors, especially the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the ability to get to the max fill rate.