GeForce GT 1030 vs Radeon HD 3870 1GB

Intro

Compare that to the Radeon HD 3870 1GB, which uses a 55 nm design. AMD has clocked the core speed at 775 MHz. The GDDR4 RAM works at a frequency of 1125 MHz on this model. It features 320(64x5) SPUs along with 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 3870 1GB		106 Watts
	Difference: 76 Watts (253%)

Memory Bandwidth

The Radeon HD 3870 1GB should theoretically be much faster than the GeForce GT 1030 in general. (explain)

Radeon HD 3870 1GB		72000 MB/sec
GeForce GT 1030		49152 MB/sec
	Difference: 22848 (46%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GT 1030 will be much (more or less 226%) more effective at AF than the Radeon HD 3870 1GB. (explain)

GeForce GT 1030		40480 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 3870 1GB		12400 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 28080 (226%)

Pixel Rate

If running with high levels of AA 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 3870 1GB		12400 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 7840 (63%)

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 largest amount of data (counted in megabytes per second) that can be moved over the external memory interface within a second. It is calculated by multiplying the interface width by the speed of its memory. If it uses DDR RAM, it should be multiplied by 2 once again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The better the bandwidth is, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, High Dynamic Range and higher screen resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum number of texture map elements (texels) that can be processed in one second. This figure is calculated by multiplying the total texture units by the core clock speed of the chip. The higher the texel rate, the better the graphics 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 number of pixels that the graphics chip can possibly record to the local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is calculated by multiplying the number of colour ROPs 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 quite a few other factors, especially the memory bandwidth - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the potential to get to the maximum fill rate.