GeForce GT 1030 vs Radeon HD 3850 256MB

Intro

Compare that to the Radeon HD 3850 256MB, which comes with GPU core speed of 668 MHz, and 256 MB of GDDR3 memory set to run at 828 MHz through a 256-bit bus. It also features 320(64x5) Stream Processors, 16 Texture Address Units, 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 3850 256MB		75 Watts
	Difference: 45 Watts (150%)

Memory Bandwidth

Theoretically, the Radeon HD 3850 256MB should be a little bit faster than the GeForce GT 1030 overall. (explain)

Radeon HD 3850 256MB		52992 MB/sec
GeForce GT 1030		49152 MB/sec
	Difference: 3840 (8%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GT 1030 should be quite a bit (approximately 279%) more effective at texture filtering than the Radeon HD 3850 256MB. (explain)

GeForce GT 1030		40480 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 3850 256MB		10688 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 29792 (279%)

Pixel Rate

The GeForce GT 1030 should be much (approximately 89%) better at FSAA than the Radeon HD 3850 256MB, and also capable of handling higher resolutions without losing too much performance. (explain)

GeForce GT 1030		20240 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 3850 256MB		10688 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 9552 (89%)

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 largest amount of information (measured in megabytes per second) that can be transported over the external memory interface in one second. It is calculated by multiplying the bus width by its memory clock speed. If the card has DDR type memory, the result should be multiplied by 2 again. If DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The higher the card's memory bandwidth, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, High Dynamic Range and high resolutions.

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

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum amount of pixels the video card could possibly record to the local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is calculated by multiplying the amount of ROPs by the the core speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - aka Render Output Units) are responsible for filling the screen with pixels (the image). The actual pixel output rate is also dependant on quite a few other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the potential to reach the maximum fill rate.