GeForce GTX 460 (OEM) vs GeForce GTX 580 3GB

Intro

Compare all of that to the GeForce GTX 580 3GB, which uses a 40 nm design. nVidia has set the core speed at 772 MHz. The GDDR5 memory runs at a frequency of 1002 MHz on this specific model. It features 512 SPUs as well as 64 Texture Address Units and 48 Rasterization Operator Units.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GTX 460 (OEM)		150 Watts
GeForce GTX 580 3GB		244 Watts
	Difference: 94 Watts (63%)

Memory Bandwidth

The GeForce GTX 580 3GB should in theory perform a lot faster than the GeForce GTX 460 (OEM) overall. (explain)

GeForce GTX 580 3GB		192384 MB/sec
GeForce GTX 460 (OEM)		108800 MB/sec
	Difference: 83584 (77%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 580 3GB should be much (more or less 36%) faster with regards to texture filtering than the GeForce GTX 460 (OEM). (explain)

GeForce GTX 580 3GB		49408 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GTX 460 (OEM)		36400 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 13008 (36%)

Pixel Rate

The GeForce GTX 580 3GB is a lot (about 78%) more effective at full screen anti-aliasing than the GeForce GTX 460 (OEM), and capable of handling higher screen resolutions without losing too much performance. (explain)

GeForce GTX 580 3GB		37056 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GTX 460 (OEM)		20800 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 16256 (78%)

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 megabytes per second) that can be transferred past the external memory interface in a second. The number is worked out by multiplying the bus width by the speed of its memory. In the case of DDR memory, it should be multiplied by 2 once again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The better the card's memory bandwidth, the better 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 applied in one second. This figure 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 graphics card will be at texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels in a second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum number of pixels the video card could possibly write to its local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is calculated by multiplying the number of colour ROPs by the the core clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also sometimes called Render Output Units) are responsible for drawing the pixels (image) on the screen. The actual pixel fill rate also depends on quite a few other factors, especially the memory bandwidth - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the potential to get to the max fill rate.