GeForce GTX 1050 3GB vs Radeon HD 3870 1GB

Intro

Compare those specs to the Radeon HD 3870 1GB, which makes use of a 55 nm design. AMD has set the core frequency at 775 MHz. The GDDR4 memory is set to run at a frequency of 1125 MHz on this card. It features 320(64x5) SPUs along with 16 TAUs and 16 Rasterization Operator Units.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GTX 1050 3GB		75 Watts
Radeon HD 3870 1GB		106 Watts
	Difference: 31 Watts (41%)

Memory Bandwidth

Theoretically speaking, the GeForce GTX 1050 3GB should be just a bit faster than the Radeon HD 3870 1GB in general. (explain)

GeForce GTX 1050 3GB		86016 MB/sec
Radeon HD 3870 1GB		72000 MB/sec
	Difference: 14016 (19%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 1050 3GB is quite a bit (approximately 439%) faster with regards to AF than the Radeon HD 3870 1GB. (explain)

GeForce GTX 1050 3GB		66816 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 3870 1GB		12400 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 54416 (439%)

Pixel Rate

The GeForce GTX 1050 3GB should be a lot (approximately 169%) better at anti-aliasing than the Radeon HD 3870 1GB, and should be capable of handling higher resolutions without slowing down too much. (explain)

GeForce GTX 1050 3GB		33408 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 3870 1GB		12400 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 21008 (169%)

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 maximum amount of information (in units of MB per second) that can be transported across the external memory interface in a second. It's worked out by multiplying the card's bus width by its memory clock speed. In the case of DDR type memory, it must 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, HDR and higher screen resolutions.

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

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the most pixels that the graphics card can possibly write to its local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is calculated by multiplying the number of Render Output Units by the the core speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - sometimes also referred to as Render Output Units) are responsible for filling the screen with pixels (the image). The actual pixel fill rate also depends on lots of other factors, especially the memory bandwidth - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the potential to reach the max fill rate.