GeForce GTX 580 3GB vs Radeon HD 6990

Intro

Compare those specifications to the Radeon HD 6990, which uses a 40 nm design. AMD has set the core frequency at 830 MHz. The GDDR5 RAM runs at a frequency of 1250 MHz on this particular card. It features 1536 SPUs as well as 96 TAUs and 32 Rasterization Operator Units.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GTX 580 3GB		244 Watts
Radeon HD 6990		375 Watts
	Difference: 131 Watts (54%)

Memory Bandwidth

Performance-wise, the Radeon HD 6990 should theoretically be a lot better than the GeForce GTX 580 3GB in general. (explain)

Radeon HD 6990		320000 MB/sec
GeForce GTX 580 3GB		192384 MB/sec
	Difference: 127616 (66%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon HD 6990 will be a lot (approximately 223%) better at AF than the GeForce GTX 580 3GB. (explain)

Radeon HD 6990		159360 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GTX 580 3GB		49408 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 109952 (223%)

Pixel Rate

The Radeon HD 6990 should be a lot (approximately 43%) faster with regards to full screen anti-aliasing than the GeForce GTX 580 3GB, and should be able to handle higher resolutions better. (explain)

Radeon HD 6990		53120 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GTX 580 3GB		37056 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 16064 (43%)

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 maximum amount of information (counted in MB per second) that can be transported over the external memory interface within a second. The number is calculated by multiplying the bus width by the speed of its memory. In the case of DDR type memory, it should be multiplied by 2 again. If DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The better the card's memory bandwidth, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, High Dynamic Range and higher screen resolutions.

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

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum amount of pixels the video card can possibly write to its local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is worked out by multiplying the number of ROPs by the clock speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also sometimes called Render Output Units) are responsible for drawing the pixels (image) on the screen. The actual pixel rate is also dependant on many other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the ability to get to the max fill rate.