GeForce GT 1030 vs Radeon HD 3850 X2

Intro

Compare all that to the Radeon HD 3850 X2, which comes with GPU clock speed of 668 MHz, and 512 MB of GDDR3 RAM running at 828 MHz through a 256-bit bus. It also features 320(64x5) Stream Processors, 16 TAUs, and 16 Raster Operation Units.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Memory Bandwidth

Theoretically speaking, the Radeon HD 3850 X2 will be 116% quicker than the GeForce GT 1030 in general, due to its higher data rate. (explain)

Radeon HD 3850 X2		105984 MB/sec
GeForce GT 1030		49152 MB/sec
	Difference: 56832 (116%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GT 1030 should be a lot (about 89%) better at texture filtering than the Radeon HD 3850 X2. (explain)

GeForce GT 1030		40480 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 3850 X2		21376 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 19104 (89%)

Pixel Rate

The Radeon HD 3850 X2 will be a bit (about 6%) better at FSAA than the GeForce GT 1030, and able to handle higher resolutions without losing too much performance. (explain)

Radeon HD 3850 X2		21376 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GT 1030		20240 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 1136 (6%)

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 transferred over the external memory interface in one second. It is calculated by multiplying the card's interface width by its memory clock speed. In the case of DDR memory, the result should be multiplied by 2 again. If DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The higher the card's memory bandwidth, 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 number of texture map elements (texels) that can be processed in one second. This is calculated by multiplying the total texture units by the core speed of the chip. The better the texel rate, the better the 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 number of pixels the video card can possibly write to the local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is calculated by multiplying the number of ROPs by the the core speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also sometimes called Render Output Units) are responsible for filling the screen with pixels (the image). The actual pixel output rate is also dependant on quite a few other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the potential to reach the max fill rate.