GeForce GTX 1050 3GB vs Radeon HD 3850 256MB

Intro

Compare all that to the Radeon HD 3850 256MB, which makes use of a 55 nm design. AMD has clocked the core frequency at 668 MHz. The GDDR3 RAM works at a frequency of 828 MHz on this specific card. It features 320(64x5) SPUs along with 16 TAUs and 16 ROPs.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Both cards have the same power consumption.

Memory Bandwidth

Performance-wise, the GeForce GTX 1050 3GB should in theory be much better than the Radeon HD 3850 256MB overall. (explain)

GeForce GTX 1050 3GB		86016 MB/sec
Radeon HD 3850 256MB		52992 MB/sec
	Difference: 33024 (62%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 1050 3GB will be a lot (more or less 525%) faster with regards to AF than the Radeon HD 3850 256MB. (explain)

GeForce GTX 1050 3GB		66816 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 3850 256MB		10688 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 56128 (525%)

Pixel Rate

If running with high levels of AA is important to you, then the GeForce GTX 1050 3GB is a better choice, by far. (explain)

GeForce GTX 1050 3GB		33408 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 3850 256MB		10688 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 22720 (213%)

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 megabytes per second) that can be transported across the external memory interface in a second. It's calculated by multiplying the interface width by its memory speed. If the card has DDR RAM, the result should be multiplied by 2 once again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The better the memory bandwidth, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, High Dynamic Range and high resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum texture map elements (texels) that are applied in one second. This is calculated by multiplying the total amount of texture units of the card by the core speed of the chip. The better this number, the better the video card will be at handling texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels processed in one second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum number of pixels that the graphics card could possibly write to its local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is calculated by multiplying the amount of Raster Operations Pipelines 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 is also dependant on many other factors, especially the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the potential to reach the max fill rate.