GeForce GTX 1060 vs Radeon HD 7970

Intro

Compare all of that to the Radeon HD 7970, which has a core clock frequency of 925 MHz and a GDDR5 memory speed of 1375 MHz. It also makes use of a 384-bit memory bus, and makes use of a 28 nm design. It is comprised of 2048 SPUs, 128 TAUs, and 32 ROPs.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

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 1060		12359 points
Radeon HD 7970		8225 points
	Difference: 4134 (50%)

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GTX 1060		120 Watts
Radeon HD 7970		250 Watts
	Difference: 130 Watts (108%)

Memory Bandwidth

In theory, the Radeon HD 7970 should be much faster than the GeForce GTX 1060 in general. (explain)

Radeon HD 7970		264000 MB/sec
GeForce GTX 1060		196608 MB/sec
	Difference: 67392 (34%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 1060 should be a bit (approximately 2%) faster with regards to texture filtering than the Radeon HD 7970. (explain)

GeForce GTX 1060		120480 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 7970		118400 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 2080 (2%)

Pixel Rate

If running with high levels of AA is important to you, then the GeForce GTX 1060 is the winner, by far. (explain)

GeForce GTX 1060		72288 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 7970		29600 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 42688 (144%)

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 maximum amount of data (counted in megabytes per second) that can be transported across the external memory interface within a second. It is worked out by multiplying the bus width by its memory speed. If the card has DDR type RAM, it should be multiplied by 2 once 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, High Dynamic Range and higher screen resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum texture map elements (texels) that are applied in one second. This is calculated by multiplying the total texture units by the core clock speed of the chip. The higher 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 that the graphics card can possibly write to its local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is worked out by multiplying the number of ROPs by the the card's clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - sometimes also referred to as 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 potential to reach the maximum fill rate.