GeForce GTX 275 vs GeForce GTX 580 3GB

Intro

Compare all of that to the GeForce GTX 580 3GB, which comes with core clock speeds of 772 MHz on the GPU, and 1002 MHz on the 3072 MB of GDDR5 RAM. It features 512 SPUs as well as 64 TAUs and 48 ROPs.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GTX 275		219 Watts
GeForce GTX 580 3GB		244 Watts
	Difference: 25 Watts (11%)

Memory Bandwidth

In theory, the GeForce GTX 580 3GB is 51% quicker than the GeForce GTX 275 overall, due to its higher bandwidth. (explain)

GeForce GTX 580 3GB		192384 MB/sec
GeForce GTX 275		127008 MB/sec
	Difference: 65376 (51%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 275 should be a little bit (approximately 2%) better at AF than the GeForce GTX 580 3GB. (explain)

GeForce GTX 275		50640 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GTX 580 3GB		49408 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 1232 (2%)

Pixel Rate

The GeForce GTX 580 3GB should be quite a bit (approximately 109%) better at full screen anti-aliasing than the GeForce GTX 275, and will be able to handle higher screen resolutions more effectively. (explain)

GeForce GTX 580 3GB		37056 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GTX 275		17724 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 19332 (109%)

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 largest amount of data (in units of MB per second) that can be transferred over the external memory interface within a second. It is calculated by multiplying the bus width by the speed of its memory. If it uses DDR type memory, it must be multiplied by 2 once again. If DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The better the bandwidth is, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, HDR and high resolutions.

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

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum number of pixels the video card could possibly write to the local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is calculated by multiplying the number of colour ROPs by the clock speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also called Render Output Units) are responsible for filling the screen with pixels (the image). The actual pixel rate is also dependant on many other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the ability to get to the maximum fill rate.