GeForce GT 320 vs GeForce GTX 580 3GB

Intro

Compare all that to the GeForce GTX 580 3GB, which has core clock speeds of 772 MHz on the GPU, and 1002 MHz on the 3072 MB of GDDR5 memory. It features 512 SPUs along with 64 Texture Address Units and 48 ROPs.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GT 320		43 Watts
GeForce GTX 580 3GB		244 Watts
	Difference: 201 Watts (467%)

Memory Bandwidth

Theoretically speaking, the GeForce GTX 580 3GB should perform much faster than the GeForce GT 320 in general. (explain)

GeForce GTX 580 3GB		192384 MB/sec
GeForce GT 320		25280 MB/sec
	Difference: 167104 (661%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 580 3GB is much (approximately 281%) more effective at texture filtering than the GeForce GT 320. (explain)

GeForce GTX 580 3GB		49408 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GT 320		12960 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 36448 (281%)

Pixel Rate

If using a high screen resolution is important to you, then the GeForce GTX 580 3GB is superior to the GeForce GT 320, and very much so. (explain)

GeForce GTX 580 3GB		37056 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GT 320		4320 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 32736 (758%)

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 maximum amount of information (measured in MB per second) that can be transferred across the external memory interface in a second. It's worked out by multiplying the bus width by the speed of its memory. In the case of DDR memory, the result should be multiplied by 2 again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The higher the card's memory bandwidth, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, HDR and higher screen resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum amount of texture map elements (texels) that are applied in one second. This is worked out by multiplying the total texture units by the core clock speed of the chip. The better the texel rate, the better the video card will be at handling 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 the graphics card can possibly record to its local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is calculated by multiplying the amount of Render Output Units by the clock speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also sometimes called Render Output Units) are responsible for filling the screen with pixels (the image). The actual pixel output rate also depends on quite a few other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the ability to get to the max fill rate.