GeForce RTX 3060 vs Radeon HD 7850

Intro

Compare that to the Radeon HD 7850, which features a core clock frequency of 860 MHz and a GDDR5 memory frequency of 1200 MHz. It also features a 256-bit memory bus, and makes use of a 28 nm design. It is comprised of 1024 SPUs, 64 TAUs, and 32 ROPs.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

Radeon HD 7850		130 Watts
GeForce RTX 3060		170 Watts
	Difference: 40 Watts (31%)

Memory Bandwidth

In theory, the GeForce RTX 3060 is 140% quicker than the Radeon HD 7850 overall, because of its greater bandwidth. (explain)

GeForce RTX 3060		368640 MB/sec
Radeon HD 7850		153600 MB/sec
	Difference: 215040 (140%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce RTX 3060 is much (approximately 169%) faster with regards to texture filtering than the Radeon HD 7850. (explain)

GeForce RTX 3060		147840 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 7850		55040 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 92800 (169%)

Pixel Rate

If running with a high screen resolution is important to you, then the GeForce RTX 3060 is superior to the Radeon HD 7850, by far. (explain)

GeForce RTX 3060		63360 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 7850		27520 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 35840 (130%)

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 information (in units of MB per second) that can be moved across the external memory interface within a second. It is worked out by multiplying the card's bus width by its memory speed. In the case of DDR type memory, the result should be multiplied by 2 once again. If DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The higher the card's memory bandwidth, the better 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 number of texture map elements (texels) that are applied in one second. This number is calculated by multiplying the total texture units by the core speed of the chip. The higher the texel rate, the better the card will be at texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels processed in a second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum amount of pixels that the graphics card can possibly record to the local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is calculated by multiplying the amount of Render Output Units by the clock speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - aka Render Output Units) are responsible for filling the screen with pixels (the image). The actual pixel output rate also depends on lots of other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the ability to get to the maximum fill rate.