GeForce GTX 1050 3GB vs Radeon HD 3470 256MB

Intro

Compare those specs to the Radeon HD 3470 256MB, which has a clock speed of 800 MHz and a DDR2 memory frequency of 950 MHz. It also makes use of a 128-bit memory bus, and uses a 55 nm design. It is comprised of 40(8x5) SPUs, 4 Texture Address Units, and 4 Raster Operation Units.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Memory Bandwidth

In theory, the GeForce GTX 1050 3GB is 183% quicker than the Radeon HD 3470 256MB overall, because of its higher bandwidth. (explain)

GeForce GTX 1050 3GB		86016 MB/sec
Radeon HD 3470 256MB		30400 MB/sec
	Difference: 55616 (183%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 1050 3GB should be quite a bit (approximately 1988%) faster with regards to texture filtering than the Radeon HD 3470 256MB. (explain)

GeForce GTX 1050 3GB		66816 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 3470 256MB		3200 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 63616 (1988%)

Pixel Rate

If running with lots of anti-aliasing is important to you, then the GeForce GTX 1050 3GB is a better choice, by a large margin. (explain)

GeForce GTX 1050 3GB		33408 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 3470 256MB		3200 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 30208 (944%)

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 largest amount of data (in units of megabytes per second) that can be transported across the external memory interface in one second. It's calculated by multiplying the bus width by its memory speed. If it uses DDR type RAM, the result should be multiplied by 2 once again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The higher 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 processed in one second. This number is worked out by multiplying the total number of texture units of the card by the core clock speed of the chip. The higher the texel rate, the better the video card will be at texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels in one second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum amount of pixels that the graphics chip can possibly write to its local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is worked out by multiplying the number of ROPs 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 is also dependant on quite a few other factors, especially the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the ability to get to the maximum fill rate.