GeForce GTX 580 3GB vs Radeon HD 6790

Intro

Compare that to the Radeon HD 6790, which uses a 40 nm design. AMD has set the core frequency at 840 MHz. The GDDR5 RAM works at a frequency of 1050 MHz on this particular model. It features 800 SPUs along with 40 TAUs and 16 ROPs.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

Radeon HD 6790		150 Watts
GeForce GTX 580 3GB		244 Watts
	Difference: 94 Watts (63%)

Memory Bandwidth

In theory, the GeForce GTX 580 3GB should be 43% faster than the Radeon HD 6790 in general, because of its greater data rate. (explain)

GeForce GTX 580 3GB		192384 MB/sec
Radeon HD 6790		134400 MB/sec
	Difference: 57984 (43%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 580 3GB will be much (about 47%) more effective at AF than the Radeon HD 6790. (explain)

GeForce GTX 580 3GB		49408 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 6790		33600 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 15808 (47%)

Pixel Rate

The GeForce GTX 580 3GB will be much (approximately 176%) better at full screen anti-aliasing than the Radeon HD 6790, and capable of handling higher resolutions without losing too much performance. (explain)

GeForce GTX 580 3GB		37056 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 6790		13440 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 23616 (176%)

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 maximum amount of data (counted in MB per second) that can be transported across the external memory interface in a second. It is worked out by multiplying the card's bus width by the speed of its memory. If it uses DDR type RAM, it should be multiplied by 2 again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The higher the memory bandwidth, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, High Dynamic Range and higher screen resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum texture map elements (texels) that are applied per 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 the texel rate, the better the graphics card will be at texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels applied in a second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum number of pixels that the graphics card could possibly write to its local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is worked out by multiplying the number of colour ROPs by the the card's clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also called Render Output Units) are responsible for drawing the pixels (image) on the screen. The actual pixel output rate is also dependant on lots of other factors, especially the memory bandwidth - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the potential to get to the max fill rate.