GeForce GT 1030 vs Radeon HD 7870

Intro

Compare that to the Radeon HD 7870, which features a core clock frequency of 1000 MHz and a GDDR5 memory speed of 1200 MHz. It also features a 256-bit memory bus, and makes use of a 28 nm design. It is comprised of 1280 SPUs, 80 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		175 Watts
	Difference: 145 Watts (483%)

Memory Bandwidth

As far as performance goes, the Radeon HD 7870 should in theory be quite a bit superior to the GeForce GT 1030 in general. (explain)

Radeon HD 7870		153600 MB/sec
GeForce GT 1030		49152 MB/sec
	Difference: 104448 (213%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon HD 7870 should be quite a bit (more or less 98%) better at texture filtering than the GeForce GT 1030. (explain)

Radeon HD 7870		80000 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GT 1030		40480 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 39520 (98%)

Pixel Rate

The Radeon HD 7870 should be quite a bit (about 58%) better at FSAA than the GeForce GT 1030, and also able to handle higher screen resolutions while still performing well. (explain)

Radeon HD 7870		32000 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GT 1030		20240 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 11760 (58%)

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 (measured in megabytes per second) that can be moved over the external memory interface in one second. It's calculated by multiplying the interface width by the speed of its memory. In the case of DDR memory, the result should be multiplied by 2 again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The higher the memory bandwidth, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, High Dynamic Range and high resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum amount of texture map elements (texels) that are processed per second. This number is calculated by multiplying the total amount of texture units by the core 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 in one second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the most pixels the graphics card could possibly record to its local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is worked out by multiplying the amount of colour ROPs by the the core clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - aka Render Output Units) are responsible for filling the screen with pixels (the image). The actual pixel output rate also depends on many other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the potential to reach the max fill rate.