GeForce GTX 580 vs Radeon RX 480 4GB

Intro

Compare those specs to the Radeon RX 480 4GB, which has a GPU core clock speed of 1120 MHz, and 4096 MB of GDDR5 memory running at 1750 MHz through a 256-bit bus. It also is made up of 2304 Stream Processors, 144 TAUs, and 32 ROPs.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

Radeon RX 480 4GB		150 Watts
GeForce GTX 580		244 Watts
	Difference: 94 Watts (63%)

Memory Bandwidth

The Radeon RX 480 4GB, in theory, should be just a bit faster than the GeForce GTX 580 in general. (explain)

Radeon RX 480 4GB		229376 MB/sec
GeForce GTX 580		192384 MB/sec
	Difference: 36992 (19%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon RX 480 4GB will be quite a bit (approximately 226%) more effective at texture filtering than the GeForce GTX 580. (explain)

Radeon RX 480 4GB		161280 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GTX 580		49408 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 111872 (226%)

Pixel Rate

If using a high screen resolution is important to you, then the GeForce GTX 580 is a better choice, though only just barely. (explain)

GeForce GTX 580		37056 Mpixels/sec
Radeon RX 480 4GB		35840 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 1216 (3%)

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 maximum amount of data (in units of MB per second) that can be transported over 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 RAM, it should be multiplied by 2 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 anti-aliasing, HDR and high resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum amount of texture map elements (texels) that are applied per second. This number 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 video card will be at texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels processed in a second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum amount of pixels that the graphics card could possibly record to its local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is calculated by multiplying the number of ROPs by the the card's clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - sometimes also referred to as Render Output Units) are responsible for drawing the pixels (image) on the screen. The actual pixel fill rate is also dependant on quite a few other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the potential to reach the max fill rate.