GeForce GTX 285 1GB vs GeForce GTX 580 3GB

Intro

Compare all that to the GeForce GTX 580 3GB, which makes use of a 40 nm design. nVidia has set the core speed at 772 MHz. The GDDR5 memory is set to run at a speed of 1002 MHz on this specific model. It features 512 SPUs as well as 64 Texture Address Units and 48 Rasterization Operator Units.

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

Performance-wise, the GeForce GTX 580 3GB should theoretically be a lot superior to 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 small bit (about 5%) better at anisotropic filtering 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

If running with high levels of AA is important to you, then the GeForce GTX 580 3GB is superior to the GeForce GTX 285 1GB, by far. (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: Memory bandwidth is the maximum amount of data (in units of MB per second) that can be moved over the external memory interface in one second. The number is calculated by multiplying the interface width by its memory clock speed. If the card has DDR type memory, it should be multiplied by 2 once again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The better the bandwidth is, the better 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 are processed per second. This number is calculated by multiplying the total texture units by the core speed of the chip. The better the texel rate, the better the card will be at 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 card could possibly write to the local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is worked out by multiplying the number of Render Output Units by the the core speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - aka Render Output Units) are responsible for outputting the pixels (image) to the screen. The actual pixel fill rate also depends on lots of other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the potential to reach the max fill rate.