GeForce GTX 1050 3GB vs Radeon HD 3870 1GB

Intro

Compare all of that to the Radeon HD 3870 1GB, which comes with a clock speed of 775 MHz and a GDDR4 memory frequency of 1125 MHz. It also features a 256-bit bus, and makes use of a 55 nm design. It is comprised of 320(64x5) SPUs, 16 TAUs, 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 1GB		106 Watts
	Difference: 31 Watts (41%)

Memory Bandwidth

In theory, the GeForce GTX 1050 3GB should perform a little bit faster than the Radeon HD 3870 1GB overall. (explain)

GeForce GTX 1050 3GB		86016 MB/sec
Radeon HD 3870 1GB		72000 MB/sec
	Difference: 14016 (19%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 1050 3GB will be quite a bit (more or less 439%) better at AF than the Radeon HD 3870 1GB. (explain)

GeForce GTX 1050 3GB		66816 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 3870 1GB		12400 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 54416 (439%)

Pixel Rate

If using high levels of AA is important to you, then the GeForce GTX 1050 3GB is the winner, and very much so. (explain)

GeForce GTX 1050 3GB		33408 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 3870 1GB		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: Memory bandwidth is the largest amount of information (measured in MB per second) that can be transferred over the external memory interface in a second. It's calculated by multiplying the interface width by its memory speed. If the card has DDR RAM, it should be multiplied by 2 again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The better the 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 number of texture map elements (texels) that are processed in one second. This is worked out by multiplying the total number of texture units by the core clock speed of the chip. The better this number, the better the card will be at 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 graphics card could possibly record to its local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is worked out by multiplying the amount of ROPs by the clock 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 fill 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 get to the max fill rate.