GeForce GT 1030 vs Radeon HD 7870 XT

Intro

Compare all that to the Radeon HD 7870 XT, which has GPU core speed of 925 MHz, and 2048 MB of GDDR5 RAM running at 1500 MHz through a 256-bit bus. It also is comprised of 1536 Stream Processors, 96 TAUs, and 32 ROPs.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GT 1030		30 Watts
Radeon HD 7870 XT		185 Watts
	Difference: 155 Watts (517%)

Memory Bandwidth

Theoretically speaking, the Radeon HD 7870 XT should be 291% quicker than the GeForce GT 1030 in general, due to its greater data rate. (explain)

Radeon HD 7870 XT		192000 MB/sec
GeForce GT 1030		49152 MB/sec
	Difference: 142848 (291%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon HD 7870 XT should be quite a bit (more or less 119%) better at AF than the GeForce GT 1030. (explain)

Radeon HD 7870 XT		88800 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GT 1030		40480 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 48320 (119%)

Pixel Rate

The Radeon HD 7870 XT is quite a bit (about 46%) better at AA than the GeForce GT 1030, and able to handle higher resolutions while still performing well. (explain)

Radeon HD 7870 XT		29600 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GT 1030		20240 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 9360 (46%)

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 megabytes per second) that can be transferred past the external memory interface in one second. It's calculated by multiplying the card's interface width by its memory speed. If it uses DDR RAM, it should be multiplied by 2 again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The better the memory bandwidth, the faster 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 processed in one second. This is worked out by multiplying the total amount of texture units by the core speed of the chip. The higher this number, 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 maximum amount of pixels the graphics 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 amount of colour ROPs by the the core clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also called Render Output Units) are responsible for filling the screen with pixels (the image). The actual pixel output rate also depends on lots of other factors, especially the memory bandwidth - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the ability to get to the maximum fill rate.