GeForce GTX 295 vs GeForce GTX 580 3GB

Intro

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

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GTX 580 3GB		244 Watts
GeForce GTX 295		289 Watts
	Difference: 45 Watts (18%)

Memory Bandwidth

As far as performance goes, the GeForce GTX 295 should theoretically be a little bit superior to the GeForce GTX 580 3GB overall. (explain)

GeForce GTX 295		223776 MB/sec
GeForce GTX 580 3GB		192384 MB/sec
	Difference: 31392 (16%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 295 is a lot (approximately 87%) better at AF than the GeForce GTX 580 3GB. (explain)

GeForce GTX 295		92160 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GTX 580 3GB		49408 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 42752 (87%)

Pixel Rate

The GeForce GTX 580 3GB is a bit (approximately 15%) better at FSAA than the GeForce GTX 295, and also will be capable of handling higher screen resolutions more effectively. (explain)

GeForce GTX 580 3GB		37056 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GTX 295		32256 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 4800 (15%)

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.

One or more cards in this comparison are multi-core. This means that their bandwidth, texel and pixel rates are theoretically doubled - this does not mean the card will actually perform twice as fast, but only that it should in theory be able to. Actual game benchmarks will give a more accurate idea of what it's capable of.

Price Comparison

Specifications

Memory Bandwidth: Memory bandwidth is the largest amount of data (counted in MB per second) that can be moved across the external memory interface in one second. It is worked out by multiplying the card's bus width by its memory speed. If the card has DDR RAM, the result should be multiplied by 2 again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The higher the bandwidth is, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, High Dynamic Range and high resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum texture map elements (texels) that are processed in one second. This is calculated by multiplying the total amount of texture units of the card by the core clock speed of the chip. The better this number, the better the card will be at handling 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 that the graphics chip could possibly record to its local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is worked out by multiplying the number of Render Output Units by the the card's clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - aka Render Output Units) are responsible for outputting the pixels (image) to the screen. The actual pixel rate also depends on quite a few other factors, especially the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the potential to get to the max fill rate.