GeForce GT 1030 vs Radeon HD 5870

Intro

Compare those specifications to the Radeon HD 5870, which has core speeds of 850 MHz on the GPU, and 1200 MHz on the 1024 MB of GDDR5 memory. It features 1600(320x5) SPUs as well as 80 TAUs and 32 Rasterization Operator Units.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GT 1030		30 Watts
Radeon HD 5870		188 Watts
	Difference: 158 Watts (527%)

Memory Bandwidth

Theoretically speaking, the Radeon HD 5870 should perform quite a bit faster than the GeForce GT 1030 in general. (explain)

Radeon HD 5870		153600 MB/sec
GeForce GT 1030		49152 MB/sec
	Difference: 104448 (213%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon HD 5870 will be much (more or less 68%) faster with regards to texture filtering than the GeForce GT 1030. (explain)

Radeon HD 5870		68000 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GT 1030		40480 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 27520 (68%)

Pixel Rate

If running with a high screen resolution is important to you, then the Radeon HD 5870 is a better choice, and very much so. (explain)

Radeon HD 5870		27200 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GT 1030		20240 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 6960 (34%)

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 transferred past the external memory interface within a second. It is calculated by multiplying the bus width by the speed of its memory. In the case of DDR type memory, it should be multiplied by 2 once again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The better the card's memory bandwidth, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, HDR and high resolutions.

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

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum amount of pixels the graphics 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 number of Render Output Units by the clock 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 lots of other factors, especially the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the ability to get to the maximum fill rate.