GeForce GTX 580 3GB vs Radeon HD 7950

Intro

Compare that to the Radeon HD 7950, which features a core clock speed of 800 MHz and a GDDR5 memory frequency of 1250 MHz. It also makes use of a 384-bit bus, and makes use of a 28 nm design. It is made up of 1792 SPUs, 112 Texture Address Units, and 32 Raster Operation Units.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

Radeon HD 7950		200 Watts
GeForce GTX 580 3GB		244 Watts
	Difference: 44 Watts (22%)

Memory Bandwidth

Performance-wise, the Radeon HD 7950 should in theory be much better than the GeForce GTX 580 3GB in general. (explain)

Radeon HD 7950		240000 MB/sec
GeForce GTX 580 3GB		192384 MB/sec
	Difference: 47616 (25%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon HD 7950 will be much (approximately 81%) better at AF than the GeForce GTX 580 3GB. (explain)

Radeon HD 7950		89600 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GTX 580 3GB		49408 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 40192 (81%)

Pixel Rate

If using a high screen resolution is important to you, then the GeForce GTX 580 3GB is a better choice, and very much so. (explain)

GeForce GTX 580 3GB		37056 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 7950		25600 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 11456 (45%)

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 max amount of data (counted in megabytes per second) that can be moved over the external memory interface within a second. The number is worked out by multiplying the interface width by its memory clock speed. In the case of DDR type memory, the result should be multiplied by 2 once again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The better 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 number of texture map elements (texels) that are applied per second. This is calculated by multiplying the total number of texture units of the card by the core clock speed of the chip. The better this number, the better the video 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 chip could possibly record to the local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is worked out by multiplying the amount of ROPs by the the core speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - aka 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 - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the potential to reach the maximum fill rate.