GeForce GTX 1050 3GB vs Radeon HD 5870

Intro

Compare those specifications to the Radeon HD 5870, which uses a 40 nm design. AMD has set the core speed at 850 MHz. The GDDR5 memory works at a frequency of 1200 MHz on this model. It features 1600(320x5) SPUs as well as 80 Texture Address Units and 32 Rasterization Operator Units.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GTX 1050 3GB		75 Watts
Radeon HD 5870		188 Watts
	Difference: 113 Watts (151%)

Memory Bandwidth

Performance-wise, the Radeon HD 5870 should theoretically be much better than the GeForce GTX 1050 3GB overall. (explain)

Radeon HD 5870		153600 MB/sec
GeForce GTX 1050 3GB		86016 MB/sec
	Difference: 67584 (79%)

Texel Rate

The Radeon HD 5870 should be a bit (approximately 2%) better at AF than the GeForce GTX 1050 3GB. (explain)

Radeon HD 5870		68000 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GTX 1050 3GB		66816 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 1184 (2%)

Pixel Rate

The GeForce GTX 1050 3GB will be quite a bit (approximately 23%) more effective at full screen anti-aliasing than the Radeon HD 5870, and should be capable of handling higher resolutions better. (explain)

GeForce GTX 1050 3GB		33408 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 5870		27200 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 6208 (23%)

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 data (in units of megabytes per second) that can be moved past the external memory interface in one second. It is worked out by multiplying the card's bus width by its memory speed. In the case of DDR memory, the result should be multiplied by 2 again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The higher the 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 applied in one second. This is worked out by multiplying the total texture units of the card by the core speed of the chip. The higher the texel rate, the better the card will be at handling texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels in a second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum amount of pixels the video 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 amount of ROPs by the the core speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - sometimes also referred to as Render Output Units) are responsible for drawing the pixels (image) on the screen. The actual pixel output rate also depends on many other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the potential to reach the max fill rate.