GeForce GTX 580 3GB vs Geforce GTX 690

Intro

Compare those specifications to the Geforce GTX 690, which makes use of a 28 nm design. nVidia has set the core speed at 915 MHz. The GDDR5 memory is set to run at a frequency of 1502 MHz on this specific card. It features 1536 SPUs as well as 128 Texture Address Units and 32 ROPs.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GTX 580 3GB		244 Watts
Geforce GTX 690		300 Watts
	Difference: 56 Watts (23%)

Memory Bandwidth

As far as performance goes, the Geforce GTX 690 should theoretically be quite a bit better than the GeForce GTX 580 3GB overall. (explain)

Geforce GTX 690		384512 MB/sec
GeForce GTX 580 3GB		192384 MB/sec
	Difference: 192128 (100%)

Texel Rate

The Geforce GTX 690 is much (more or less 374%) more effective at anisotropic filtering than the GeForce GTX 580 3GB. (explain)

Geforce GTX 690		234240 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GTX 580 3GB		49408 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 184832 (374%)

Pixel Rate

The Geforce GTX 690 is much (about 58%) faster with regards to FSAA than the GeForce GTX 580 3GB, and also capable of handling higher screen resolutions more effectively. (explain)

Geforce GTX 690		58560 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GTX 580 3GB		37056 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 21504 (58%)

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 max amount of information (in units of megabytes per second) that can be transported across the external memory interface within a second. The number is worked out by multiplying the bus width by the speed of its memory. In the case of DDR RAM, the result should be multiplied by 2 once again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The better the bandwidth is, 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 texture map elements (texels) that are applied per second. This is worked out by multiplying the total texture units of the card by the core clock 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 amount of pixels that the graphics chip could possibly write to its local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is calculated by multiplying the amount of ROPs by the the core speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also called Render Output Units) are responsible for filling the screen with pixels (the image). The actual pixel rate also depends on quite a few other factors, especially the memory bandwidth - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the potential to reach the max fill rate.