GeForce GTX 1050 3GB vs Radeon HD 5870

Intro

Compare that to the Radeon HD 5870, which uses a 40 nm design. AMD has clocked the core frequency at 850 MHz. The GDDR5 memory runs at a frequency of 1200 MHz on this specific card. It features 1600(320x5) SPUs along with 80 TAUs and 32 ROPs.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GTX 1050 3GB		75 Watts
Radeon HD 5870		188 Watts
	Difference: 113 Watts (151%)

Memory Bandwidth

Theoretically speaking, the Radeon HD 5870 should be 79% quicker than the GeForce GTX 1050 3GB in general, because of its higher bandwidth. (explain)

Radeon HD 5870		153600 MB/sec
GeForce GTX 1050 3GB		86016 MB/sec
	Difference: 67584 (79%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon HD 5870 should be a small bit (about 2%) better at anisotropic filtering than the GeForce GTX 1050 3GB. (explain)

Radeon HD 5870		68000 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GTX 1050 3GB		66816 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 1184 (2%)

Pixel Rate

The GeForce GTX 1050 3GB should be much (about 23%) better at FSAA than the Radeon HD 5870, and will be able to handle higher resolutions without slowing down too much. (explain)

GeForce GTX 1050 3GB		33408 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 5870		27200 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 6208 (23%)

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: Bandwidth is the maximum amount of data (counted in MB per second) that can be transported over the external memory interface in a second. The number is worked out by multiplying the interface width by the speed of its memory. If the card has DDR type memory, it should be multiplied by 2 again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The higher 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 amount of texture map elements (texels) that can be processed per second. This is calculated by multiplying the total texture units of the card by the core clock 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 processed in a second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum number of pixels that the graphics chip can possibly write to its local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is calculated by multiplying the amount of Render Output Units by the the core clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also sometimes called Render Output Units) are responsible for drawing the pixels (image) on the screen. The actual pixel rate is also dependant on quite a few other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the ability to get to the max fill rate.