GeForce GT 1030 vs Radeon HD 3870 512MB

Intro

Compare those specs to the Radeon HD 3870 512MB, which has a GPU core clock speed of 775 MHz, and 512 MB of GDDR3 memory set to run at 900 MHz through a 256-bit bus. It also is comprised of 320(64x5) Stream Processors, 16 TAUs, and 16 Raster Operation Units.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GT 1030		30 Watts
Radeon HD 3870 512MB		106 Watts
	Difference: 76 Watts (253%)

Memory Bandwidth

The Radeon HD 3870 512MB should in theory perform a little bit faster than the GeForce GT 1030 in general. (explain)

Radeon HD 3870 512MB		57600 MB/sec
GeForce GT 1030		49152 MB/sec
	Difference: 8448 (17%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GT 1030 is quite a bit (more or less 226%) more effective at AF than the Radeon HD 3870 512MB. (explain)

GeForce GT 1030		40480 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 3870 512MB		12400 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 28080 (226%)

Pixel Rate

The GeForce GT 1030 is a lot (more or less 63%) more effective at AA than the Radeon HD 3870 512MB, and also should be capable of handling higher resolutions better. (explain)

GeForce GT 1030		20240 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 3870 512MB		12400 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 7840 (63%)

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 over the external memory interface in one second. The number is worked out by multiplying the card's interface width by the speed of its memory. If it uses DDR RAM, the result should be multiplied by 2 again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The better the card's memory bandwidth, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, 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 number is calculated 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 per second.

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