GeForce GTX 580 vs Radeon R9 270X

Intro

Compare all that to the Radeon R9 270X, which features a GPU core clock speed of 1000 MHz, and 2048 MB of GDDR5 memory running at 1400 MHz through a 256-bit bus. It also is made up of 1280 SPUs, 80 TAUs, and 32 Raster Operation 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

Radeon R9 270X		6590 points
GeForce GTX 580		4956 points
	Difference: 1634 (33%)

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

Radeon R9 270X		180 Watts
GeForce GTX 580		244 Watts
	Difference: 64 Watts (36%)

Memory Bandwidth

Theoretically speaking, the GeForce GTX 580 is 7% quicker than the Radeon R9 270X overall, because of its greater data rate. (explain)

GeForce GTX 580		192384 MB/sec
Radeon R9 270X		179200 MB/sec
	Difference: 13184 (7%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon R9 270X should be quite a bit (about 62%) more effective at AF than the GeForce GTX 580. (explain)

Radeon R9 270X		80000 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GTX 580		49408 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 30592 (62%)

Pixel Rate

If using a high screen resolution is important to you, then the GeForce GTX 580 is a better choice, but not by far. (explain)

GeForce GTX 580		37056 Mpixels/sec
Radeon R9 270X		32000 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 5056 (16%)

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 maximum amount of data (measured in megabytes per second) that can be moved across the external memory interface in one second. The number is worked out by multiplying the interface width by its memory clock speed. If the card has DDR memory, it should be multiplied by 2 once again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The higher the bandwidth is, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, HDR and higher screen resolutions.

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

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum amount of pixels that the graphics card could possibly record to its local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is worked out by multiplying the amount of Render Output Units by the the card's clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also sometimes called Render Output Units) are responsible for filling the screen with pixels (the image). The actual pixel fill rate also depends on many other factors, especially the memory bandwidth - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the ability to reach the max fill rate.