GeForce GTX 580 3GB vs Geforce GTX 690

Intro

Compare those specifications to the Geforce GTX 690, which uses a 28 nm design. nVidia has clocked the core speed at 915 MHz. The GDDR5 memory runs at a speed of 1502 MHz on this card. It features 1536 SPUs as well as 128 TAUs and 32 ROPs.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GTX 580 3GB		244 Watts
Geforce GTX 690		300 Watts
	Difference: 56 Watts (23%)

Memory Bandwidth

Theoretically speaking, the Geforce GTX 690 should be much faster than the GeForce GTX 580 3GB overall. (explain)

Geforce GTX 690		384512 MB/sec
GeForce GTX 580 3GB		192384 MB/sec
	Difference: 192128 (100%)

Texel Rate

The Geforce GTX 690 should be quite a bit (more or less 374%) faster with regards to texture filtering than the GeForce GTX 580 3GB. (explain)

Geforce GTX 690		234240 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GTX 580 3GB		49408 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 184832 (374%)

Pixel Rate

The Geforce GTX 690 should be quite a bit (approximately 58%) better at anti-aliasing than the GeForce GTX 580 3GB, and also capable of handling higher resolutions better. (explain)

Geforce GTX 690		58560 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GTX 580 3GB		37056 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 21504 (58%)

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.

One or more cards in this comparison are multi-core. This means that their bandwidth, texel and pixel rates are theoretically doubled - this does not mean the card will actually perform twice as fast, but only that it should in theory be able to. Actual game benchmarks will give a more accurate idea of what it's capable of.

Price Comparison

Specifications

Memory Bandwidth: Bandwidth is the max amount of data (in units of MB per second) that can be moved across the external memory interface in a second. The number is worked out by multiplying the bus width by the speed of its memory. If the card has DDR type RAM, the result should be multiplied by 2 again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The higher the card's memory bandwidth, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, High Dynamic Range and high resolutions.

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

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