GeForce GTX 1060 vs GeForce GTX 960

Intro

Compare those specs to the GeForce GTX 960, which uses a 28 nm design. nVidia has set the core frequency at 1127 MHz. The GDDR5 RAM is set to run at a frequency of 1750 MHz on this particular 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.

Zcash Mining Hash Rate

GeForce GTX 1060		311 Sol/s
GeForce GTX 960		154 Sol/s
	Difference: 157 (102%)

3DMark Fire Strike Graphics Score

GeForce GTX 1060		12359 points
GeForce GTX 960		7627 points
	Difference: 4732 (62%)

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Both cards have the same power consumption.

Memory Bandwidth

The GeForce GTX 1060 should in theory be much faster than the GeForce GTX 960 in general. (explain)

GeForce GTX 1060		196608 MB/sec
GeForce GTX 960		112000 MB/sec
	Difference: 84608 (76%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 1060 is quite a bit (more or less 67%) more effective at AF than the GeForce GTX 960. (explain)

GeForce GTX 1060		120480 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GTX 960		72128 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 48352 (67%)

Pixel Rate

If using a high screen resolution is important to you, then the GeForce GTX 1060 is a better choice, by a large margin. (explain)

GeForce GTX 1060		72288 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GTX 960		36064 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 36224 (100%)

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 megabytes per second) that can be transported over the external memory interface in a second. It's calculated by multiplying the card's bus width by its memory clock speed. If the card has DDR type memory, it should be multiplied by 2 again. If DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The better the card's memory bandwidth, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, High Dynamic Range and high resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum texture map elements (texels) that can be processed in one second. This is worked out by multiplying the total number of texture units of the card by the core speed of the chip. The better this number, the better the video card will be at texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels in one second.

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