GeForce GTX 580 3GB vs Radeon R7 240

Intro

Compare those specs to the Radeon R7 240, which comes with a clock speed of 730 MHz and a DDR3 memory speed of 900 MHz. It also features a 128-bit bus, and makes use of a 28 nm design. It features 320 SPUs, 20 Texture Address Units, and 8 ROPs.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

Radeon R7 240		30 Watts
GeForce GTX 580 3GB		244 Watts
	Difference: 214 Watts (713%)

Memory Bandwidth

Theoretically speaking, the GeForce GTX 580 3GB should be 568% quicker than the Radeon R7 240 overall, because of its greater bandwidth. (explain)

GeForce GTX 580 3GB		192384 MB/sec
Radeon R7 240		28800 MB/sec
	Difference: 163584 (568%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 580 3GB should be much (more or less 238%) more effective at anisotropic filtering than the Radeon R7 240. (explain)

GeForce GTX 580 3GB		49408 Mtexels/sec
Radeon R7 240		14600 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 34808 (238%)

Pixel Rate

If using a high resolution is important to you, then the GeForce GTX 580 3GB is superior to the Radeon R7 240, by a large margin. (explain)

GeForce GTX 580 3GB		37056 Mpixels/sec
Radeon R7 240		5840 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 31216 (535%)

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 max amount of data (in units of MB per second) that can be moved past the external memory interface within a second. It's worked out by multiplying the interface width by the speed of its memory. In the case of DDR type RAM, it must be multiplied by 2 once again. If DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The higher the memory bandwidth, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, HDR and higher screen resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum amount of texture map elements (texels) that can be applied in one second. This figure is worked out by multiplying the total amount of texture units of the card by the core speed of the chip. The better this number, 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 that the graphics chip can possibly record to the local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is worked out by multiplying the number of Raster Operations Pipelines 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 output rate also depends on lots of other factors, especially the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the potential to reach the maximum fill rate.