GeForce GTX 285 1GB vs GeForce GTX 580 3GB

Intro

Compare all that to the GeForce GTX 580 3GB, which features GPU core speed of 772 MHz, and 3072 MB of GDDR5 memory set to run at 1002 MHz through a 384-bit bus. It also features 512 Stream Processors, 64 Texture Address Units, and 48 ROPs.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GTX 285 1GB		204 Watts
GeForce GTX 580 3GB		244 Watts
	Difference: 40 Watts (20%)

Memory Bandwidth

The GeForce GTX 580 3GB should in theory perform quite a bit faster than the GeForce GTX 285 1GB overall. (explain)

GeForce GTX 580 3GB		192384 MB/sec
GeForce GTX 285 1GB		158976 MB/sec
	Difference: 33408 (21%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 285 1GB will be a little bit (about 5%) better at AF than the GeForce GTX 580 3GB. (explain)

GeForce GTX 285 1GB		51840 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GTX 580 3GB		49408 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 2432 (5%)

Pixel Rate

The GeForce GTX 580 3GB should be quite a bit (more or less 79%) better at FSAA than the GeForce GTX 285 1GB, and should be capable of handling higher resolutions better. (explain)

GeForce GTX 580 3GB		37056 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GTX 285 1GB		20736 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 16320 (79%)

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 largest amount of information (in units of megabytes per second) that can be transferred over the external memory interface in a second. It is worked out by multiplying the card's bus width by its memory clock speed. If it uses DDR type memory, it must be multiplied by 2 again. If DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The better the memory bandwidth, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, High Dynamic Range and higher screen resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum amount of texture map elements (texels) that can be applied per second. This figure is calculated by multiplying the total amount of texture units of the card by the core speed of the chip. The higher the texel rate, the better the video card will be at handling texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels per second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum amount of pixels the video card can possibly write to its local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is worked out by multiplying the amount of ROPs by the clock speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also called Render Output Units) are responsible for drawing the pixels (image) on the screen. The actual pixel 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 ability to reach the maximum fill rate.