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NVIDIA GeForce GTX 980 vs AMD Radeon RX 580 8GB

The NVIDIA GeForce GTX 980 and AMD Radeon RX 580 8GB sit within a few percent of each other on our index. Treat them as equivalent in raw performance and decide on price, power draw and — for graphics cards — video memory instead.

SpecificationNVIDIA GeForce GTX 980AMD Radeon RX 580 8GB
ManufacturerNVIDIAAMD
ArchitectureMaxwellGCN 4 (Polaris)
Relative performance index72 (better)70
Video memory4 GB8 GB (better)
Memory typeGDDR5GDDR5
Memory bus256-bit256-bit
Release year20142017 (better)
Board power165 W (better)185 W
Suggested PSU500 W500 W
Hardware ray tracingNoNo
Upscaling supportNot recordedFSR 3
DirectX1212

Green marks the stronger figure for that row only — for power draw and PSU requirement, lower is treated as better. Performance indexes are CanMyPcPlay estimates; read how they are derived.

Which should you pick?

  • Check video memory, not just speed. A faster card with less VRAM can perform worse in recent titles at high texture settings.
  • Check power and clearance. Confirm your PSU and case can take the card — the build checker does this.
  • Upscaling support differs. DLSS is NVIDIA-only; FSR and XeSS run more broadly.