GeForce GTX 580 3GB vs Radeon R9 270

Intro

Compare that to the Radeon R9 270, which has a GPU core clock speed of 900 MHz, and 2048 MB of GDDR5 memory running at 1400 MHz through a 256-bit bus. It also features 1280 Stream Processors, 80 TAUs, and 32 Raster Operation Units.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

Radeon R9 270		150 Watts
GeForce GTX 580 3GB		244 Watts
	Difference: 94 Watts (63%)

Memory Bandwidth

In theory, the GeForce GTX 580 3GB will be 7% quicker than the Radeon R9 270 in general, because of its higher bandwidth. (explain)

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

Texel Rate

The Radeon R9 270 should be much (more or less 46%) better at AF than the GeForce GTX 580 3GB. (explain)

Radeon R9 270		72000 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GTX 580 3GB		49408 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 22592 (46%)

Pixel Rate

If using a high screen resolution is important to you, then the GeForce GTX 580 3GB is the winner, and very much so. (explain)

GeForce GTX 580 3GB		37056 Mpixels/sec
Radeon R9 270		28800 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 8256 (29%)

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 (in units of megabytes per second) that can be transported past the external memory interface in one second. It is worked out by multiplying the card's bus width by its memory clock speed. If it uses DDR RAM, the result should be multiplied by 2 once again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The better the bandwidth is, 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 number of texture map elements (texels) that can be applied per second. This is worked out by multiplying the total number of texture units of the card by the core clock 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 in a second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum number of pixels that the graphics chip could possibly record to the local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is calculated by multiplying the amount of colour ROPs by the the core speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also called Render Output Units) are responsible for filling the screen with pixels (the image). The actual pixel output rate is also dependant on many other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the potential to get to the max fill rate.