GeForce GTX 580 3GB vs Radeon RX 480 4GB

Intro

Compare all of that to the Radeon RX 480 4GB, which makes use of a 14 nm design. AMD has clocked the core speed at 1120 MHz. The GDDR5 memory is set to run at a speed of 1750 MHz on this specific model. It features 2304 SPUs along with 144 Texture Address Units and 32 ROPs.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

Radeon RX 480 4GB		150 Watts
GeForce GTX 580 3GB		244 Watts
	Difference: 94 Watts (63%)

Memory Bandwidth

Theoretically speaking, the Radeon RX 480 4GB should be 19% quicker than the GeForce GTX 580 3GB overall, because of its higher data rate. (explain)

Radeon RX 480 4GB		229376 MB/sec
GeForce GTX 580 3GB		192384 MB/sec
	Difference: 36992 (19%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon RX 480 4GB should be a lot (about 226%) better at anisotropic filtering than the GeForce GTX 580 3GB. (explain)

Radeon RX 480 4GB		161280 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GTX 580 3GB		49408 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 111872 (226%)

Pixel Rate

If using a high resolution is important to you, then the GeForce GTX 580 3GB is superior to the Radeon RX 480 4GB, though only just barely. (explain)

GeForce GTX 580 3GB		37056 Mpixels/sec
Radeon RX 480 4GB		35840 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 1216 (3%)

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 data (measured in MB per second) that can be transported over the external memory interface in a second. The number is calculated by multiplying the card's interface width by its memory speed. If the card has DDR type RAM, it must be multiplied by 2 once again. If DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The better the memory bandwidth, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, High Dynamic Range and high resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum amount of texture map elements (texels) that are processed in one second. This figure is worked out by multiplying the total number of texture units by the core speed of the chip. The better 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 most pixels the graphics card can possibly record to the local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is worked out by multiplying the amount of colour ROPs by the the core 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 output rate is also dependant on quite a few other factors, especially the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the potential to reach the max fill rate.