GeForce GTX 580 3GB vs Radeon R9 270X

Intro

Compare that to the Radeon R9 270X, which features a core clock frequency of 1000 MHz and a GDDR5 memory frequency of 1400 MHz. It also features a 256-bit bus, and uses a 28 nm design. It is comprised of 1280 SPUs, 80 TAUs, and 32 ROPs.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

Radeon R9 270X		180 Watts
GeForce GTX 580 3GB		244 Watts
	Difference: 64 Watts (36%)

Memory Bandwidth

The GeForce GTX 580 3GB should theoretically perform just a bit faster than the Radeon R9 270X in general. (explain)

GeForce GTX 580 3GB		192384 MB/sec
Radeon R9 270X		179200 MB/sec
	Difference: 13184 (7%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon R9 270X is a lot (about 62%) faster with regards to anisotropic filtering than the GeForce GTX 580 3GB. (explain)

Radeon R9 270X		80000 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GTX 580 3GB		49408 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 30592 (62%)

Pixel Rate

If running with a high screen resolution is important to you, then the GeForce GTX 580 3GB is the winner, but only just. (explain)

GeForce GTX 580 3GB		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 max amount of information (measured in MB per second) that can be moved across the external memory interface in one second. It's worked out by multiplying the bus width by its memory speed. If it uses DDR type RAM, the result should be multiplied by 2 again. If DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The higher the card's memory bandwidth, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, HDR and higher screen resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum amount of texture map elements (texels) that can be processed in one second. This is calculated by multiplying the total 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 chip can possibly record to the local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is calculated by multiplying the number of Raster Operations Pipelines 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 fill rate also depends on quite a few other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the ability to get to the maximum fill rate.