GeForce GTX 580 vs Radeon HD 5770

Intro

Compare those specs to the Radeon HD 5770, which makes use of a 40 nm design. AMD has clocked the core frequency at 850 MHz. The GDDR5 memory is set to run at a frequency of 1200 MHz on this specific card. It features 800(160x5) SPUs along with 40 TAUs and 16 ROPs.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

Radeon HD 5770		108 Watts
GeForce GTX 580		244 Watts
	Difference: 136 Watts (126%)

Memory Bandwidth

In theory, the GeForce GTX 580 should be a lot faster than the Radeon HD 5770 overall. (explain)

GeForce GTX 580		192384 MB/sec
Radeon HD 5770		76800 MB/sec
	Difference: 115584 (151%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 580 is a lot (about 45%) better at texture filtering than the Radeon HD 5770. (explain)

GeForce GTX 580		49408 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 5770		34000 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 15408 (45%)

Pixel Rate

The GeForce GTX 580 will be much (about 172%) faster with regards to anti-aliasing than the Radeon HD 5770, and also able to handle higher screen resolutions without slowing down too much. (explain)

GeForce GTX 580		37056 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 5770		13600 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 23456 (172%)

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 information (in units of MB per second) that can be transported past the external memory interface within a second. It's calculated by multiplying the card's bus width by the speed of its memory. In the case of DDR memory, it should be multiplied by 2 again. If it uses 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 higher screen resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum texture map elements (texels) that can be applied per second. This is calculated by multiplying the total number of texture units by the core speed of the chip. The higher the texel rate, the better the card will be at texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels applied in one second.

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