GeForce GTX 1080 vs GeForce GTX 580 3GB

Intro

Compare those specs to the GeForce GTX 580 3GB, which uses a 40 nm design. nVidia has clocked the core speed at 772 MHz. The GDDR5 memory runs at a frequency of 1002 MHz on this specific model. It features 512 SPUs as well as 64 Texture Address Units and 48 ROPs.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GTX 1080		180 Watts
GeForce GTX 580 3GB		244 Watts
	Difference: 64 Watts (36%)

Memory Bandwidth

In theory, the GeForce GTX 1080 is 70% quicker than the GeForce GTX 580 3GB overall, because of its higher data rate. (explain)

GeForce GTX 1080		327680 MB/sec
GeForce GTX 580 3GB		192384 MB/sec
	Difference: 135296 (70%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 1080 will be quite a bit (more or less 420%) faster with regards to AF than the GeForce GTX 580 3GB. (explain)

GeForce GTX 1080		257120 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GTX 580 3GB		49408 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 207712 (420%)

Pixel Rate

If using a high screen resolution is important to you, then the GeForce GTX 1080 is the winner, and very much so. (explain)

GeForce GTX 1080		102848 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GTX 580 3GB		37056 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 65792 (178%)

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 (counted in megabytes per second) that can be moved across the external memory interface within a second. The number is calculated by multiplying the interface width by the speed of its memory. If the card has DDR type RAM, the result should be multiplied by 2 again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The better the memory bandwidth, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, HDR and high resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum amount of texture map elements (texels) that can be 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 better the texel rate, the better the video card will be at texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels processed per second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the most pixels that the graphics chip can possibly record to the local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is calculated by multiplying the number of colour ROPs by the the card's clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also sometimes called Render Output Units) are responsible for outputting the pixels (image) to the screen. The actual pixel rate also depends on many other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the ability to get to the maximum fill rate.