GeForce GT 1030 vs Radeon HD 3850 512MB

Intro

Compare that to the Radeon HD 3850 512MB, which comes with GPU clock speed of 668 MHz, and 512 MB of GDDR3 memory running at 828 MHz through a 256-bit bus. It also is comprised of 320(64x5) SPUs, 16 TAUs, and 16 Raster Operation Units.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GT 1030		30 Watts
Radeon HD 3850 512MB		75 Watts
	Difference: 45 Watts (150%)

Memory Bandwidth

As far as performance goes, the Radeon HD 3850 512MB should theoretically be a bit better than the GeForce GT 1030 overall. (explain)

Radeon HD 3850 512MB		52992 MB/sec
GeForce GT 1030		49152 MB/sec
	Difference: 3840 (8%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GT 1030 should be quite a bit (more or less 279%) faster with regards to anisotropic filtering than the Radeon HD 3850 512MB. (explain)

GeForce GT 1030		40480 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 3850 512MB		10688 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 29792 (279%)

Pixel Rate

The GeForce GT 1030 will be quite a bit (about 89%) better at FSAA than the Radeon HD 3850 512MB, and also should be able to handle higher resolutions without slowing down too much. (explain)

GeForce GT 1030		20240 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 3850 512MB		10688 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 9552 (89%)

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 data (in units of MB per second) that can be moved past the external memory interface in one second. The number is worked out by multiplying the card's interface width by the speed of its memory. If it uses DDR type RAM, it must be multiplied by 2 once again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The better the card's memory bandwidth, the better 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 are applied per second. This is worked out by multiplying the total texture units of the card by the core speed of the chip. The higher this number, the better the video card will be at texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels applied per second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the most pixels the video card can possibly record to the local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is calculated 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 filling the screen with pixels (the image). The actual pixel fill rate also depends on many other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the potential to get to the max fill rate.