GeForce GT 1030 vs Radeon HD 3850 256MB

Intro

Compare those specs to the Radeon HD 3850 256MB, which comes with a clock frequency of 668 MHz and a GDDR3 memory speed of 828 MHz. It also features a 256-bit bus, and makes use of a 55 nm design. It features 320(64x5) SPUs, 16 TAUs, and 16 ROPs.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GT 1030		30 Watts
Radeon HD 3850 256MB		75 Watts
	Difference: 45 Watts (150%)

Memory Bandwidth

In theory, the Radeon HD 3850 256MB will be 8% quicker than the GeForce GT 1030 overall, because of its greater data rate. (explain)

Radeon HD 3850 256MB		52992 MB/sec
GeForce GT 1030		49152 MB/sec
	Difference: 3840 (8%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GT 1030 will be quite a bit (approximately 279%) more effective at anisotropic filtering than the Radeon HD 3850 256MB. (explain)

GeForce GT 1030		40480 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 3850 256MB		10688 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 29792 (279%)

Pixel Rate

If using a high resolution is important to you, then the GeForce GT 1030 is superior to the Radeon HD 3850 256MB, and very much so. (explain)

GeForce GT 1030		20240 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 3850 256MB		10688 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 9552 (89%)

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 largest amount of data (in units of megabytes per second) that can be moved across the external memory interface within a second. It is calculated by multiplying the interface width by its memory clock speed. If it uses DDR memory, the result should be multiplied by 2 again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The better the card's 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 amount of texture map elements (texels) that are applied per second. This number is worked out by multiplying the total texture units by the core speed of the chip. The better the texel rate, the better the graphics card will be at texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels applied in a second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum number of pixels the graphics card can possibly record to its local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is calculated by multiplying the number of Raster Operations Pipelines by the the core speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also called Render Output Units) are responsible for outputting the pixels (image) to the screen. The actual pixel rate is also dependant on lots of other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the potential to reach the maximum fill rate.