GeForce GTX 260 vs GeForce GTX 580

Intro

Compare that to the GeForce GTX 580, which uses a 40 nm design. nVidia has clocked the core frequency at 772 MHz. The GDDR5 memory works at a frequency of 1002 MHz on this specific card. It features 512 SPUs as well as 64 TAUs and 48 ROPs.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GTX 260		182 Watts
GeForce GTX 580		244 Watts
	Difference: 62 Watts (34%)

Memory Bandwidth

Theoretically speaking, the GeForce GTX 580 should be a lot faster than the GeForce GTX 260 in general. (explain)

GeForce GTX 580		192384 MB/sec
GeForce GTX 260		111888 MB/sec
	Difference: 80496 (72%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 580 should be much (approximately 34%) faster with regards to anisotropic filtering than the GeForce GTX 260. (explain)

GeForce GTX 580		49408 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GTX 260		36864 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 12544 (34%)

Pixel Rate

If running with a high screen resolution is important to you, then the GeForce GTX 580 is superior to the GeForce GTX 260, and very much so. (explain)

GeForce GTX 580		37056 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GTX 260		16128 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 20928 (130%)

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 maximum amount of information (in units of megabytes per second) that can be transferred across the external memory interface within a second. It's worked out by multiplying the card's interface width by its memory speed. In the case of DDR type memory, the result should be multiplied by 2 again. If DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The higher the memory bandwidth, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, HDR and higher screen resolutions.

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

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum amount of pixels that the graphics card can possibly write to the local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is worked out by multiplying the amount of ROPs by the the card's clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - sometimes also referred to as Render Output Units) are responsible for outputting the pixels (image) to the screen. The actual pixel rate is also dependant on lots of other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the potential to reach the maximum fill rate.