GeForce GTX 580 vs Radeon R9 270X

Intro

Compare that to the Radeon R9 270X, which comes with core speeds of 1000 MHz on the GPU, and 1400 MHz on the 2048 MB of GDDR5 RAM. It features 1280 SPUs as well as 80 TAUs and 32 ROPs.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Benchmarks

These are real-world performance benchmarks that were submitted by Hardware Compare users. The scores seen here are the average of all benchmarks submitted for each respective test and hardware.

3DMark Fire Strike Graphics Score

Radeon R9 270X		6590 points
GeForce GTX 580		4956 points
	Difference: 1634 (33%)

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

Radeon R9 270X		180 Watts
GeForce GTX 580		244 Watts
	Difference: 64 Watts (36%)

Memory Bandwidth

Theoretically speaking, the GeForce GTX 580 is 7% faster than the Radeon R9 270X overall, due to its higher bandwidth. (explain)

GeForce GTX 580		192384 MB/sec
Radeon R9 270X		179200 MB/sec
	Difference: 13184 (7%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon R9 270X is much (more or less 62%) more effective at anisotropic filtering than the GeForce GTX 580. (explain)

Radeon R9 270X		80000 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GTX 580		49408 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 30592 (62%)

Pixel Rate

The GeForce GTX 580 is a bit (more or less 16%) better at AA than the Radeon R9 270X, and also will be able to handle higher resolutions better. (explain)

GeForce GTX 580		37056 Mpixels/sec
Radeon R9 270X		32000 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 5056 (16%)

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 (counted in megabytes per second) that can be moved past the external memory interface within a second. The number is calculated by multiplying the interface width by its memory speed. In the case of DDR type RAM, the result should be multiplied by 2 once again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The better the memory bandwidth, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, High Dynamic Range and high resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum number of texture map elements (texels) that are processed in one second. This is calculated by multiplying the total texture units of the card by the core 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 one second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum number of pixels the graphics card can possibly record to its local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is worked out by multiplying the amount of ROPs by the clock speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - sometimes also referred to as Render Output Units) are responsible for filling the screen with pixels (the image). The actual pixel output rate also depends on many other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the potential to get to the max fill rate.