GeForce GTX 580 3GB vs GeForce GTX 980

Intro

Compare those specs to the GeForce GTX 980, which comes with GPU core speed of 1126 MHz, and 4096 MB of GDDR5 memory running at 1750 MHz through a 256-bit bus. It also is made up of 2048 Stream Processors, 128 Texture Address Units, and 64 ROPs.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GTX 980		165 Watts
GeForce GTX 580 3GB		244 Watts
	Difference: 79 Watts (48%)

Memory Bandwidth

The GeForce GTX 980 should theoretically be a small bit faster than the GeForce GTX 580 3GB in general. (explain)

GeForce GTX 980		224000 MB/sec
GeForce GTX 580 3GB		192384 MB/sec
	Difference: 31616 (16%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 980 is a lot (about 192%) faster with regards to texture filtering than the GeForce GTX 580 3GB. (explain)

GeForce GTX 980		144128 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GTX 580 3GB		49408 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 94720 (192%)

Pixel Rate

The GeForce GTX 980 is quite a bit (about 94%) more effective at FSAA than the GeForce GTX 580 3GB, and able to handle higher screen resolutions better. (explain)

GeForce GTX 980		72064 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GTX 580 3GB		37056 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 35008 (94%)

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 (counted in MB per second) that can be transferred past the external memory interface in a second. The number is worked out by multiplying the card's bus width by its memory speed. If the card has DDR RAM, the result should be multiplied by 2 once again. If DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The higher the memory bandwidth, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, HDR and high resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum number of 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 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 one second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the most pixels that the graphics card can possibly write to the local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is calculated by multiplying the number of Render Output Units by the the core speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also called Render Output Units) are responsible for outputting the pixels (image) to the screen. The actual pixel output rate also depends on lots of other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the ability to get to the maximum fill rate.