GeForce GT 1030 vs Radeon HD 4870 512MB

Intro

Compare all that to the Radeon HD 4870 512MB, which makes use of a 55 nm design. AMD has set the core frequency at 750 MHz. The GDDR5 memory runs at a frequency of 900 MHz on this particular model. It features 800(160x5) SPUs as well as 40 Texture Address Units 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 4870 512MB		150 Watts
	Difference: 120 Watts (400%)

Memory Bandwidth

In theory, the Radeon HD 4870 512MB should be 134% quicker than the GeForce GT 1030 overall, because of its greater data rate. (explain)

Radeon HD 4870 512MB		115200 MB/sec
GeForce GT 1030		49152 MB/sec
	Difference: 66048 (134%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GT 1030 will be quite a bit (more or less 35%) better at texture filtering than the Radeon HD 4870 512MB. (explain)

GeForce GT 1030		40480 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 4870 512MB		30000 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 10480 (35%)

Pixel Rate

The GeForce GT 1030 is quite a bit (about 69%) faster with regards to FSAA than the Radeon HD 4870 512MB, and should be capable of handling higher resolutions more effectively. (explain)

GeForce GT 1030		20240 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 4870 512MB		12000 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 8240 (69%)

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 (counted in MB per second) that can be transferred past the external memory interface in one second. The number is calculated by multiplying the card's interface width by the speed of its memory. In the case of DDR RAM, it should be multiplied by 2 again. If DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The better the memory bandwidth, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, HDR and high resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum texture map elements (texels) that can be applied in one second. This number is worked out by multiplying the total amount of texture units of the card by the core speed of the chip. The higher 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 video card could possibly write to its local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is worked out by multiplying the number of Render Output Units 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 fill rate also depends on many other factors, especially the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the potential to reach the maximum fill rate.