NVIDIA GeForce GTX 580 vs NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3050 OEM Comparison

The NVIDIA GeForce GTX 580, a Fermi 2.0-era flagship from 2010, and the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3050 OEM, an Ampere-based entry point from 2022, represent two distinct generations of graphics hardware. The benchmark data shows a decisive performance gap, with the RTX 3050 OEM delivering a single OpenCL score of 60,740 against the GTX 580’s 15,283, a delta of -74.8% in favor of the newer card. This head-to-head result places the GTX 580 in a unique position: while its raw score is dramatically lower, its percentile rank of 58 versus the RTX 3050 OEM’s 57 suggests that the older card still holds a comparable standing among all GPUs in the database, likely due to the diminishing returns of high-end legacy hardware against modern mid-range parts.

Head-to-Head Benchmarks

The sole direct comparison available is the Geekbench OpenCL test. In this benchmark, the RTX 3050 OEM scores 60,740, which is 45,457 points higher than the GTX 580's 15,283. This translates to a performance deficit of 74.8% for the GTX 580, meaning the RTX 3050 OEM is nearly four times faster in this compute-oriented workload. The margin is substantial enough to classify this as a landslide victory for the Ampere card, reflecting its modern architecture and higher execution throughput.

Looking at the broader rival landscape, the GTX 580’s score of 15,283 places it within 0.1% of the AMD Radeon 680M (15,270) and exactly matches the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2060 (15,290, deltaPct 0). This tight clustering indicates that, despite its age, the GTX 580’s compute performance in OpenCL is still competitive with integrated graphics and early Turing-era discrete cards. Conversely, the RTX 3050 OEM’s score of 60,740 is not directly listed in its nearestRivals table, but its average benchmark score of 15,199 is what drives its percentile ranking. The discrepancy between the RTX 3050 OEM’s peak OpenCL score (60,740) and its average (15,199) suggests that the OpenCL test is an outlier for this card, as other benchmarks in its suite (Passmark G3D at 11,857) pull the average down significantly.

When comparing the two cards directly via their nearestRivals data, the GTX 580’s average score of 15,283 is 0.6% higher than the RTX 3050 OEM’s average of 15,199. This is a critical nuance: in the aggregate across all benchmark tests, the GTX 580 actually edges out the RTX 3050 OEM by a hair, despite losing catastrophically in the single OpenCL test. This reversal highlights how benchmark selection dramatically alters the perceived performance hierarchy, with the older card’s consistency across legacy tests offsetting the newer card’s compute advantage.

Where Each One Wins

The RTX 3050 OEM wins the only direct head-to-head benchmark, the Geekbench OpenCL test, with a score of 60,740 versus 15,283. This win is absolute and reflects its superior FP32 throughput of 8.087 TFLOPS, which is over five times the GTX 580’s 1.581 TFLOPS. The newer card also benefits from a higher pixel rate (56.16 GPixel/s versus 24.70 GPixel/s) and texture rate (126.4 GTexel/s versus 49.41 GTexel/s), making it the clear choice for compute-heavy applications, modern game engines, and any workload that leverages DirectX 12 Ultimate features like ray tracing (18 RT cores) or DLSS (72 tensor cores).

The GTX 580, however, wins on the aggregate average benchmark score. With an average of 15,283, it surpasses the RTX 3050 OEM’s 15,199 by 0.6%. This is a narrow victory, but it suggests that in older API workloads (DirectX 11, OpenGL 4.6) and legacy titles, the GTX 580’s 384-bit memory bus and 48 ROPs provide a level of fill-rate performance that remains relevant. The GTX 580’s memory bandwidth of 192.4 GB/s, while lower than the RTX 3050 OEM’s 224.0 GB/s, is delivered over a wider bus, which can be advantageous in certain rasterization-heavy scenarios. For users running a pre-2015 game library or using OpenCL compute that is not optimized for Ampere’s execution model, the GTX 580’s consistency may offer a more stable experience, even if its peak performance is far lower.

Architecture Differences

The architectural chasm between these two GPUs is vast. The GTX 580 is built on the GF110 chip using TSMC’s 40 nm process, packing 3,000 million transistors into a 520 mm² die. This yields a transistor density of 5.8M per mm², a figure that seems primitive next to the RTX 3050 OEM’s GA106 chip on Samsung’s 8 nm node. The newer card crams 12,000 million transistors into just 276 mm², achieving a density of 43.5M per mm²—a 7.5x improvement in density. This allows the RTX 3050 OEM to house 2,304 shading units, 72 TMUs, and 32 ROPs, compared to the GTX 580’s 512 shading units, 64 TMUs, and 48 ROPs. The shader count difference is stark: the RTX 3050 OEM has 4.5x more execution units.

Memory architecture also diverges sharply. The GTX 580 uses 1536 MB of GDDR5 on a 384-bit bus, delivering 192.4 GB/s of bandwidth. The RTX 3050 OEM uses 8 GB of GDDR6 on a 128-bit bus, which achieves a higher 224.0 GB/s bandwidth due to faster effective clock speeds (14 Gbps versus 4 Gbps). The capacity jump from 1.5 GB to 8 GB is critical for modern textures and resolutions. The RTX 3050 OEM also introduces dedicated hardware absent from the GTX 580: 18 RT cores for real-time ray tracing and 72 tensor cores for AI-accelerated workloads, alongside support for DirectX 12 Ultimate (12_2) and Vulkan 1.4. The GTX 580 tops out at DirectX 12 (11_0) and lacks Vulkan support entirely, limiting its compatibility with contemporary APIs.

Power and interface differences further separate them. The RTX 3050 OEM has a TDP of 130 W and requires only a 300 W PSU, while the GTX 580 draws 244 W and recommends a 550 W PSU. The newer card uses a single 8-pin connector versus the GTX 580’s 6-pin plus 8-pin setup, and it leverages PCIe 4.0 x8, doubling the bandwidth of the GTX 580’s PCIe 2.0 x16. Display outputs also modernize: the RTX 3050 OEM offers HDMI 2.1 and three DisplayPort 1.4a connections, whereas the GTX 580 provides two DVI ports and one mini-HDMI 1.3a.

FAQ

Q: Which GPU has a higher average benchmark score?

A: The NVIDIA GeForce GTX 580, with an average score of 15,283, is 0.6% higher than the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3050 OEM’s 15,199.

Q: How much faster is the RTX 3050 OEM in the Geekbench OpenCL test?

A: The RTX 3050 OEM scores 60,740 versus the GTX 580’s 15,283, which is a 74.8% higher score in favor of the RTX 3050 OEM.

Q: Does the GTX 580 support ray tracing?

A: No. The GTX 580 has no RT cores, while the RTX 3050 OEM includes 18 RT cores for real-time ray tracing.

Q: What is the memory capacity difference?

A: The RTX 3050 OEM has 8 GB of GDDR6 memory, while the GTX 580 has 1536 MB (1.5 GB) of GDDR5 memory.

Q: Which card has a higher pixel fill rate?

A: The RTX 3050 OEM has a pixel rate of 56.16 GPixel/s, which is more than double the GTX 580’s 24.70 GPixel/s.

Q: Are both cards end-of-life?

A: Yes, both the GTX 580 and the RTX 3050 OEM have a production status of "End-of-life."

The Verdict

The data presents a paradoxical conclusion. In raw compute performance, the RTX 3050 OEM is overwhelmingly superior, delivering a 74.8% higher OpenCL score and offering modern features like ray tracing, tensor cores, and 8 GB of VRAM. Any user needing to run current games, utilize DirectX 12 Ultimate, or perform GPU-accelerated compute should choose the RTX 3050 OEM without hesitation. Its 8.087 TFLOPS FP32 throughput and 224.0 GB/s bandwidth make it a capable modern GPU, and its lower TDP (130 W versus 244 W) and smaller physical footprint (242 mm versus 267 mm) add practical advantages.

However, for a niche segment of users running legacy software, the GTX 580’s higher average benchmark score (15,283 versus 15,199) indicates it remains a functional piece of hardware. Its 384-bit memory bus and 48 ROPs could still provide solid performance in DirectX 11-era games, and its 58th percentile ranking versus the RTX 3050 OEM’s 57th shows it is not entirely obsolete in the database’s hierarchy. The GTX 580’s launch MSRP was 499 USD, a figure that reflects its former flagship status, but the absence of Vulkan support and limited DirectX 12 feature level (11_0) are hard limitations. The verdict is clear: the RTX 3050 OEM is the correct choice for virtually all modern workloads, while the GTX 580 is a historical artifact that only makes sense for retro-computing enthusiasts with a specific legacy software requirement.