GeForce GTX 1050 3GB vs Radeon HD 3850 256MB

Intro

Compare all that to the Radeon HD 3850 256MB, which uses a 55 nm design. AMD has clocked the core speed at 668 MHz. The GDDR3 RAM runs at a frequency of 828 MHz on this specific model. It features 320(64x5) SPUs along with 16 TAUs and 16 ROPs.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Both cards have the same power consumption.

Memory Bandwidth

The GeForce GTX 1050 3GB should theoretically be quite a bit faster than the Radeon HD 3850 256MB overall. (explain)

GeForce GTX 1050 3GB		86016 MB/sec
Radeon HD 3850 256MB		52992 MB/sec
	Difference: 33024 (62%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 1050 3GB will be quite a bit (about 525%) better at AF than the Radeon HD 3850 256MB. (explain)

GeForce GTX 1050 3GB		66816 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 3850 256MB		10688 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 56128 (525%)

Pixel Rate

If using high levels of AA 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 3850 256MB		10688 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 22720 (213%)

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 information (in units of MB per second) that can be moved past the external memory interface in a second. The number is worked out by multiplying the bus width by the speed of its memory. If the card has DDR type memory, the result should be multiplied by 2 again. If DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The higher 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 per second. This figure is calculated by multiplying the total number of texture units 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 processed per second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the most pixels the video card can possibly record to its local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is calculated by multiplying the number 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 output rate is also dependant on quite a few other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the ability to reach the max fill rate.