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GeForce GTX 480 vs GeForce GTX 580 3GB

Intro

The GeForce GTX 480 uses a 40 nm design. nVidia has clocked the core speed at 700 MHz. The GDDR5 RAM runs at a frequency of 924 MHz on this card. It features 480 SPUs along with 60 Texture Address Units and 48 Rasterization Operator Units.

Compare those specs to the GeForce GTX 580 3GB, which comes with a clock frequency of 772 MHz and a GDDR5 memory frequency of 1002 MHz. It also uses a 384-bit bus, and makes use of a 40 nm design. It is comprised of 512 SPUs, 64 Texture Address Units, and 48 Raster Operation Units.

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GTX 580 3GB 244 Watts
GeForce GTX 480 250 Watts
Difference: 6 Watts (2%)

Memory Bandwidth

Theoretically, the GeForce GTX 580 3GB should be a small bit faster than the GeForce GTX 480 overall. (explain)

GeForce GTX 580 3GB 192384 MB/sec
GeForce GTX 480 177408 MB/sec
Difference: 14976 (8%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 580 3GB should be just a bit (about 18%) faster with regards to texture filtering than the GeForce GTX 480. (explain)

GeForce GTX 580 3GB 49408 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GTX 480 42000 Mtexels/sec
Difference: 7408 (18%)

Pixel Rate

The GeForce GTX 580 3GB should be a little bit (more or less 10%) more effective at anti-aliasing than the GeForce GTX 480, and also should be capable of handling higher resolutions better. (explain)

GeForce GTX 580 3GB 37056 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GTX 480 33600 Mpixels/sec
Difference: 3456 (10%)

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

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GeForce GTX 480

Amazon.com

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GeForce GTX 580 3GB

Amazon.com

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Please note that the price comparisons are based on search keywords - sometimes it might show cards with very similar names that are not exactly the same as the one chosen in the comparison. We do try to filter out the wrong results as best we can, though.

Specifications

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Model GeForce GTX 480 GeForce GTX 580 3GB
Manufacturer nVidia nVidia
Year March 2010 November 2010
Code Name GF100 GF110
Memory 1536 MB 3072 MB
Core Speed 700 MHz 772 MHz
Memory Speed 3696 MHz 4008 MHz
Power (Max TDP) 250 watts 244 watts
Bandwidth 177408 MB/sec 192384 MB/sec
Texel Rate 42000 Mtexels/sec 49408 Mtexels/sec
Pixel Rate 33600 Mpixels/sec 37056 Mpixels/sec
Unified Shaders 480 512
Texture Mapping Units 60 64
Render Output Units 48 48
Bus Type GDDR5 GDDR5
Bus Width 384-bit 384-bit
Fab Process 40 nm 40 nm
Transistors 3000 million 3000 million
Bus PCIe x16 PCIe x16
DirectX Version DirectX 11 DirectX 11
OpenGL Version OpenGL 4.1 OpenGL 4.1

Memory Bandwidth: Bandwidth is the max amount of information (in units of megabytes per second) that can be moved over the external memory interface within a second. It's worked out by multiplying the interface width by its memory clock speed. If the card has DDR RAM, it must be multiplied by 2 once again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The higher the bandwidth is, 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 are processed in one second. This number is worked out by multiplying the total amount of texture units of the card by the core speed of the chip. The higher this number, 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 the graphics card can possibly record to the local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is worked out by multiplying the number of colour ROPs by the clock speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - sometimes also referred to as Render Output Units) are responsible for filling the screen with pixels (the image). The actual pixel rate also depends on quite a few other factors, especially the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the ability to get to the max fill rate.

Display Prices

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GeForce GTX 480

Amazon.com

Check prices at:

GeForce GTX 580 3GB

Amazon.com

Check prices at:

Please note that the price comparisons are based on search keywords - sometimes it might show cards with very similar names that are not exactly the same as the one chosen in the comparison. We do try to filter out the wrong results as best we can, though.

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