GeForce GTX 660 vs GeForce GTX 960

Intro

Compare those specifications to the GeForce GTX 960, which makes use of a 28 nm design. nVidia has set the core speed at 1127 MHz. The GDDR5 RAM runs at a speed of 1750 MHz on this specific model. It features 1024 SPUs as well as 64 TAUs and 32 Rasterization Operator Units.

Display Graphs

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Benchmarks

These are real-world performance benchmarks that were submitted by Hardware Compare users. The scores seen here are the average of all benchmarks submitted for each respective test and hardware.

3DMark Fire Strike Graphics Score

GeForce GTX 960		7627 points
GeForce GTX 660		5063 points
	Difference: 2564 (51%)

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GTX 960		120 Watts
GeForce GTX 660		140 Watts
	Difference: 20 Watts (17%)

Memory Bandwidth

As far as performance goes, the GeForce GTX 660 should theoretically be a lot better than the GeForce GTX 960 overall. (explain)

GeForce GTX 660		144192 MB/sec
GeForce GTX 960		112000 MB/sec
	Difference: 32192 (29%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 660 should be a little bit (approximately 9%) better at AF than the GeForce GTX 960. (explain)

GeForce GTX 660		78400 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GTX 960		72128 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 6272 (9%)

Pixel Rate

The GeForce GTX 960 should be much (more or less 53%) better at full screen anti-aliasing than the GeForce GTX 660, and also able to handle higher resolutions more effectively. (explain)

GeForce GTX 960		36064 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GTX 660		23520 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 12544 (53%)

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

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum number of pixels that the graphics chip can possibly record to its 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 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 fill rate is also dependant on many other factors, especially the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the ability to reach the max fill rate.