GeForce GTX 580 3GB vs Radeon R7 M260X

Intro

Compare those specifications to the Radeon R7 M260X, which has GPU clock speed of 825 MHz, and 2048 MB of GDDR5 memory set to run at 1000 MHz through a 128-bit bus. It also is comprised of 384 SPUs, 24 TAUs, and 8 ROPs.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Memory Bandwidth

Theoretically, the GeForce GTX 580 3GB should perform much faster than the Radeon R7 M260X in general. (explain)

GeForce GTX 580 3GB		192384 MB/sec
Radeon R7 M260X		64000 MB/sec
	Difference: 128384 (201%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 580 3GB should be quite a bit (more or less 150%) more effective at AF than the Radeon R7 M260X. (explain)

GeForce GTX 580 3GB		49408 Mtexels/sec
Radeon R7 M260X		19800 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 29608 (150%)

Pixel Rate

If running with lots of anti-aliasing is important to you, then the GeForce GTX 580 3GB is the winner, and very much so. (explain)

GeForce GTX 580 3GB		37056 Mpixels/sec
Radeon R7 M260X		6600 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 30456 (461%)

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 largest amount of information (in units of megabytes per second) that can be transported past the external memory interface in a second. The number is worked out by multiplying the bus width by its memory speed. If the card has DDR memory, it must be multiplied by 2 again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. 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 number of texture map elements (texels) that are processed in one second. This number is calculated by multiplying the total number of texture units of the card by the core clock speed of the chip. The better the texel rate, the better the video card will be at handling texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels applied in a second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the most pixels the graphics card could possibly record to the local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is calculated by multiplying the number of Render Output Units by the clock speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also called Render Output Units) are responsible for drawing the pixels (image) on the screen. The actual pixel 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 maximum fill rate.