GeForce GTX 260 216SP 55 nm vs GeForce GTX 580 3GB

Intro

Compare all that to the GeForce GTX 580 3GB, which comes with GPU clock speed of 772 MHz, and 3072 MB of GDDR5 memory running at 1002 MHz through a 384-bit bus. It also 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 260 216SP 55 nm		171 Watts
GeForce GTX 580 3GB		244 Watts
	Difference: 73 Watts (43%)

Memory Bandwidth

Theoretically speaking, the GeForce GTX 580 3GB will be 72% quicker than the GeForce GTX 260 216SP 55 nm overall, because of its greater bandwidth. (explain)

GeForce GTX 580 3GB		192384 MB/sec
GeForce GTX 260 216SP 55 nm		111888 MB/sec
	Difference: 80496 (72%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 580 3GB should be just a bit (about 19%) more effective at AF than the GeForce GTX 260 216SP 55 nm. (explain)

GeForce GTX 580 3GB		49408 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GTX 260 216SP 55 nm		41472 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 7936 (19%)

Pixel Rate

The GeForce GTX 580 3GB will be quite a bit (more or less 130%) better at full screen anti-aliasing than the GeForce GTX 260 216SP 55 nm, and also able to handle higher resolutions more effectively. (explain)

GeForce GTX 580 3GB		37056 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GTX 260 216SP 55 nm		16128 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 20928 (130%)

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 largest amount of information (counted in megabytes per second) that can be transferred over the external memory interface in one second. The number is calculated by multiplying the interface width by its memory speed. If it uses DDR memory, it must be multiplied by 2 once again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The better the memory bandwidth, the faster 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 applied per second. This is worked out by multiplying the total amount of texture units by the core 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 most pixels the video card could possibly record to its local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is calculated by multiplying the amount of colour ROPs by the the core clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - aka Render Output Units) are responsible for filling the screen with pixels (the image). The actual pixel rate is also dependant on quite a few other factors, especially the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the ability to get to the maximum fill rate.