GeForce GTX 1060 vs GeForce GTX 260

Intro

Compare those specs to the GeForce GTX 260, which has GPU clock speed of 576 MHz, and 896 MB of GDDR3 RAM set to run at 999 MHz through a 448-bit bus. It also features 192 Stream Processors, 64 TAUs, and 28 ROPs.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GTX 1060		120 Watts
GeForce GTX 260		182 Watts
	Difference: 62 Watts (52%)

Memory Bandwidth

The GeForce GTX 1060, in theory, should perform quite a bit faster than the GeForce GTX 260 in general. (explain)

GeForce GTX 1060		196608 MB/sec
GeForce GTX 260		111888 MB/sec
	Difference: 84720 (76%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 1060 will be quite a bit (about 227%) faster with regards to anisotropic filtering than the GeForce GTX 260. (explain)

GeForce GTX 1060		120480 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GTX 260		36864 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 83616 (227%)

Pixel Rate

If using high levels of AA is important to you, then the GeForce GTX 1060 is the winner, and very much so. (explain)

GeForce GTX 1060		72288 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GTX 260		16128 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 56160 (348%)

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 maximum amount of information (in units of megabytes per second) that can be moved past the external memory interface in one second. The number is calculated by multiplying the interface width by the speed of its memory. If the card has DDR type memory, the result should be multiplied by 2 again. If 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 amount of texture map elements (texels) that are applied per second. This number is calculated by multiplying the total amount of texture units of the card by the core speed of the chip. The better the texel rate, the better the video 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 most pixels the graphics card could 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 Render Output Units by the clock speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also called Render Output Units) are responsible for drawing the pixels (image) on the screen. The actual pixel rate is also dependant on lots of other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the potential to reach the max fill rate.