GeForce RTX 3050 vs Radeon RX 480 4GB

Intro

Compare that to the Radeon RX 480 4GB, which features a clock speed of 1120 MHz and a GDDR5 memory speed of 1750 MHz. It also uses a 256-bit memory bus, and makes use of a 14 nm design. It is made up of 2304 SPUs, 144 TAUs, and 32 Raster Operation Units.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce RTX 3050		130 Watts
Radeon RX 480 4GB		150 Watts
	Difference: 20 Watts (15%)

Memory Bandwidth

Both cards have exactly the same memory bandwidth, so theoretically they should have the same performance. (explain)

Texel Rate

The Radeon RX 480 4GB will be quite a bit (more or less 30%) more effective at AF than the GeForce RTX 3050. (explain)

Radeon RX 480 4GB		161280 Mtexels/sec
GeForce RTX 3050		124160 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 37120 (30%)

Pixel Rate

If running with lots of anti-aliasing is important to you, then the GeForce RTX 3050 is a better choice, and very much so. (explain)

GeForce RTX 3050		49664 Mpixels/sec
Radeon RX 480 4GB		35840 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 13824 (39%)

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 max amount of information (measured in MB per second) that can be moved across the external memory interface in one second. It is calculated by multiplying the card's bus width by its memory clock speed. In the case of DDR type RAM, it must be multiplied by 2 once again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. 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 number of texture map elements (texels) that can be processed per second. This number is calculated by multiplying the total number of texture units of the card by the core clock speed of the chip. The higher this number, 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 number of pixels that the graphics card can possibly record to the local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is worked out by multiplying the number of colour ROPs by the the core clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also called Render Output Units) are responsible for filling the screen with pixels (the image). The actual pixel output rate also depends on quite a few other factors, especially the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the ability to get to the maximum fill rate.