GeForce GT 1030 vs Radeon HD 3850 1GB

Intro

Compare that to the Radeon HD 3850 1GB, which comes with GPU core speed of 668 MHz, and 1024 MB of GDDR3 memory set to run at 828 MHz through a 256-bit bus. It also is comprised of 320(64x5) Stream Processors, 16 TAUs, and 16 ROPs.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GT 1030		30 Watts
Radeon HD 3850 1GB		75 Watts
	Difference: 45 Watts (150%)

Memory Bandwidth

The Radeon HD 3850 1GB should in theory perform a bit faster than the GeForce GT 1030 in general. (explain)

Radeon HD 3850 1GB		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%) better at AF than the Radeon HD 3850 1GB. (explain)

GeForce GT 1030		40480 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 3850 1GB		10688 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 29792 (279%)

Pixel Rate

If using a high screen resolution is important to you, then the GeForce GT 1030 is a better choice, by a large margin. (explain)

GeForce GT 1030		20240 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 3850 1GB		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 maximum amount of data (measured in megabytes per second) that can be transported over the external memory interface within a second. It's worked out by multiplying the card's bus width by its memory speed. If it uses DDR type RAM, it must be multiplied by 2 again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The higher the 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 number of texture map elements (texels) that are applied per second. This is worked out by multiplying the total amount of texture units by the core clock speed of the chip. The higher this number, the better the 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 maximum amount of pixels the video card can possibly write to the local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is worked out by multiplying the amount of Raster Operations Pipelines by the the core clock speed. 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 output rate is also dependant on lots of other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the ability to get to the maximum fill rate.