GeForce GTX 1050 3GB vs Radeon HD 7870 XT

Intro

Compare that to the Radeon HD 7870 XT, which comes with GPU clock speed of 925 MHz, and 2048 MB of GDDR5 memory set to run at 1500 MHz through a 256-bit bus. It also is comprised of 1536 SPUs, 96 TAUs, and 32 ROPs.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GTX 1050 3GB		75 Watts
Radeon HD 7870 XT		185 Watts
	Difference: 110 Watts (147%)

Memory Bandwidth

As far as performance goes, the Radeon HD 7870 XT should theoretically be a lot superior to the GeForce GTX 1050 3GB overall. (explain)

Radeon HD 7870 XT		192000 MB/sec
GeForce GTX 1050 3GB		86016 MB/sec
	Difference: 105984 (123%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon HD 7870 XT should be much (about 33%) faster with regards to AF than the GeForce GTX 1050 3GB. (explain)

Radeon HD 7870 XT		88800 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GTX 1050 3GB		66816 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 21984 (33%)

Pixel Rate

The GeForce GTX 1050 3GB is a small bit (more or less 13%) better at AA than the Radeon HD 7870 XT, and should be able to handle higher screen resolutions more effectively. (explain)

GeForce GTX 1050 3GB		33408 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 7870 XT		29600 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 3808 (13%)

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 (counted in MB per second) that can be transferred across the external memory interface within a second. The number is worked out by multiplying the card's bus width by the speed of its memory. In the case of DDR memory, it should be multiplied by 2 again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The higher the card's memory bandwidth, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, 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 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 this number, the better the video card will be at handling texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels applied in a second.

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