GeForce GTX 980 vs Radeon RX 580

Intro

Compare those specs to the Radeon RX 580, which makes use of a 14 nm design. AMD has clocked the core speed at 1257 MHz. The GDDR5 memory works at a frequency of 2000 MHz on this model. It features 2304 SPUs as well as 144 TAUs and 32 Rasterization Operator Units.

Display Graphs

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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 RX 580		13630 points
GeForce GTX 980		13552 points
	Difference: 78 (1%)

Ethereum Mining Hash Rate

Radeon RX 580		28 Mh/s
GeForce GTX 980		20 Mh/s
	Difference: 8 (40%)

Zcash Mining Hash Rate

GeForce GTX 980		408 Sol/s
Radeon RX 580		315 Sol/s
	Difference: 93 (30%)

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GTX 980		165 Watts
Radeon RX 580		185 Watts
	Difference: 20 Watts (12%)

Memory Bandwidth

Performance-wise, the Radeon RX 580 should theoretically be a small bit superior to the GeForce GTX 980 overall. (explain)

Radeon RX 580		262144 MB/sec
GeForce GTX 980		224000 MB/sec
	Difference: 38144 (17%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon RX 580 is a lot (more or less 26%) better at anisotropic filtering than the GeForce GTX 980. (explain)

Radeon RX 580		181008 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GTX 980		144128 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 36880 (26%)

Pixel Rate

If using a high resolution is important to you, then the GeForce GTX 980 is a better choice, by a large margin. (explain)

GeForce GTX 980		72064 Mpixels/sec
Radeon RX 580		40224 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 31840 (79%)

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 max amount of data (in units of megabytes per second) that can be transported over the external memory interface in one second. It is worked out by multiplying the bus width by its memory speed. If the card has DDR type RAM, it must be multiplied by 2 again. If DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The better the card's memory bandwidth, the faster 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 in one second. This figure is worked out by multiplying the total texture units by the core clock speed of the chip. The higher this number, the better the card will be at texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels applied in a second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum amount of pixels that the graphics chip can possibly record to its local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate 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 filling the screen with pixels (the image). The actual pixel output rate is also dependant on quite a few other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the ability to reach the max fill rate.