GeForce GTX 960 vs GeForce RTX 3050

Intro

Compare all of that to the GeForce RTX 3050, which comes with a clock frequency of 1552 MHz and a GDDR6 memory speed of 1750 MHz. It also features a 128-bit memory bus, and uses a 8 nm design. It is comprised of 2560 SPUs, 80 Texture Address Units, and 32 ROPs.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GTX 960		120 Watts
GeForce RTX 3050		130 Watts
	Difference: 10 Watts (8%)

Memory Bandwidth

As far as performance goes, the GeForce RTX 3050 should in theory be a lot better than the GeForce GTX 960 overall. (explain)

GeForce RTX 3050		229376 MB/sec
GeForce GTX 960		112000 MB/sec
	Difference: 117376 (105%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce RTX 3050 should be a lot (about 72%) more effective at texture filtering than the GeForce GTX 960. (explain)

GeForce RTX 3050		124160 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GTX 960		72128 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 52032 (72%)

Pixel Rate

If using lots of anti-aliasing is important to you, then the GeForce RTX 3050 is a better choice, by far. (explain)

GeForce RTX 3050		49664 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GTX 960		36064 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 13600 (38%)

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 max amount of information (in units of MB per second) that can be moved past the external memory interface within a second. The number is calculated by multiplying the card's bus width by its memory clock speed. 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 bandwidth is, 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 can be processed per second. This number is worked out by multiplying the total texture units of the card by the core speed of the chip. The better this number, the better the card will be at handling texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels processed per second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum number of pixels the graphics card could 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 Raster Operations Pipelines by the the core clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also called Render Output Units) are responsible for filling the screen with pixels (the image). The actual pixel output rate also depends on lots of other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the ability to get to the max fill rate.