GeForce GTX 1050 3GB vs Radeon HD 3870 512MB

Intro

Compare all of that to the Radeon HD 3870 512MB, which comes with a clock frequency of 775 MHz and a GDDR3 memory speed of 900 MHz. It also features a 256-bit bus, and uses a 55 nm design. It is comprised of 320(64x5) SPUs, 16 Texture Address Units, and 16 Raster Operation Units.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GTX 1050 3GB		75 Watts
Radeon HD 3870 512MB		106 Watts
	Difference: 31 Watts (41%)

Memory Bandwidth

As far as performance goes, the GeForce GTX 1050 3GB should in theory be quite a bit superior to the Radeon HD 3870 512MB overall. (explain)

GeForce GTX 1050 3GB		86016 MB/sec
Radeon HD 3870 512MB		57600 MB/sec
	Difference: 28416 (49%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 1050 3GB should be quite a bit (more or less 439%) faster with regards to anisotropic filtering than the Radeon HD 3870 512MB. (explain)

GeForce GTX 1050 3GB		66816 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 3870 512MB		12400 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 54416 (439%)

Pixel Rate

If using lots of anti-aliasing is important to you, then the GeForce GTX 1050 3GB is the winner, by far. (explain)

GeForce GTX 1050 3GB		33408 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 3870 512MB		12400 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 21008 (169%)

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 (counted in MB per second) that can be transported across the external memory interface in one second. The number is calculated by multiplying the card's bus width by the speed of its memory. If it uses DDR memory, the result should be multiplied by 2 again. If DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The better the card's memory bandwidth, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, HDR and high resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum number of texture map elements (texels) that can be processed in one second. This figure is calculated by multiplying the total amount of texture units by the core speed of the chip. The higher the texel rate, the better the graphics card will be at texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels per second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum number of pixels the video card can possibly write to its local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is calculated by multiplying the amount of ROPs by the the core clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - aka Render Output Units) are responsible for drawing the pixels (image) on the screen. The actual pixel output rate is also dependant on many other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the potential to get to the max fill rate.