GeForce GT 1030 vs Radeon HD 4870 X2

Intro

Compare that to the Radeon HD 4870 X2, which features a core clock speed of 750 MHz and a GDDR5 memory frequency of 900 MHz. It also uses a 256-bit bus, and makes use of a 55 nm design. It features 800(160x5) SPUs, 40 TAUs, and 16 Raster Operation Units.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GT 1030		30 Watts
Radeon HD 4870 X2		350 Watts
	Difference: 320 Watts (1067%)

Memory Bandwidth

Theoretically speaking, the Radeon HD 4870 X2 is 369% quicker than the GeForce GT 1030 overall, due to its greater data rate. (explain)

Radeon HD 4870 X2		230400 MB/sec
GeForce GT 1030		49152 MB/sec
	Difference: 181248 (369%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon HD 4870 X2 is a lot (approximately 48%) better at AF than the GeForce GT 1030. (explain)

Radeon HD 4870 X2		60000 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GT 1030		40480 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 19520 (48%)

Pixel Rate

If using lots of anti-aliasing is important to you, then the Radeon HD 4870 X2 is a better choice, though not by far. (explain)

Radeon HD 4870 X2		24000 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GT 1030		20240 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 3760 (19%)

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.

One or more cards in this comparison are multi-core. This means that their bandwidth, texel and pixel rates are theoretically doubled - this does not mean the card will actually perform twice as fast, but only that it should in theory be able to. Actual game benchmarks will give a more accurate idea of what it's capable of.

Price Comparison

Specifications

Memory Bandwidth: Bandwidth is the max amount of data (counted in MB per second) that can be moved over the external memory interface in a second. It is calculated by multiplying the bus width by the speed of its memory. In the case of DDR RAM, it must be multiplied by 2 again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The better the memory bandwidth, the faster 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 texture map elements (texels) that can be processed per second. This figure is worked out by multiplying the total texture units by the core clock speed of the chip. The higher the texel rate, the better the video card will be at handling texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels applied per second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum amount of pixels the graphics card can possibly record to its local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is worked out by multiplying the amount of colour ROPs by the the card's clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also sometimes called Render Output Units) are responsible for outputting the pixels (image) to the screen. The actual pixel fill rate is also dependant on lots of other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the ability to reach the maximum fill rate.