GeForce GTX 580 3GB vs Radeon HD 3470 512MB

Intro

Compare those specifications to the Radeon HD 3470 512MB, which has a clock speed of 800 MHz and a GDDR3 memory frequency of 950 MHz. It also features a 128-bit memory bus, and makes use of a 55 nm design. It is comprised of 40(8x5) SPUs, 4 Texture Address Units, and 4 ROPs.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Memory Bandwidth

In theory, the GeForce GTX 580 3GB should be 533% quicker than the Radeon HD 3470 512MB in general, due to its higher data rate. (explain)

GeForce GTX 580 3GB		192384 MB/sec
Radeon HD 3470 512MB		30400 MB/sec
	Difference: 161984 (533%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 580 3GB is quite a bit (approximately 1444%) more effective at anisotropic filtering than the Radeon HD 3470 512MB. (explain)

GeForce GTX 580 3GB		49408 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 3470 512MB		3200 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 46208 (1444%)

Pixel Rate

The GeForce GTX 580 3GB will be much (approximately 1058%) better at AA than the Radeon HD 3470 512MB, and capable of handling higher screen resolutions better. (explain)

GeForce GTX 580 3GB		37056 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 3470 512MB		3200 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 33856 (1058%)

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 information (measured in MB per second) that can be transferred across the external memory interface in one second. It is calculated by multiplying the card's interface width by its memory speed. If the card has DDR memory, it must be multiplied by 2 again. If DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The higher the bandwidth is, the better 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 number of texture map elements (texels) that are applied per second. This figure is worked out by multiplying the total amount of texture units by the core speed of the chip. The higher this number, the better the card will be at handling texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels processed in one second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum amount of pixels the video card could possibly record to the local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is worked out by multiplying the amount of colour ROPs by the the core speed of the card. 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 of the card - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the potential to get to the max fill rate.