GeForce GTX 1060 3GB vs GeForce GTX 960

Intro

Compare all that to the GeForce GTX 960, which comes with a core clock frequency of 1127 MHz and a GDDR5 memory speed of 1750 MHz. It also uses a 128-bit bus, and uses a 28 nm design. It features 1024 SPUs, 64 TAUs, and 32 ROPs.

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 3GB		290 Sol/s
GeForce GTX 960		154 Sol/s
	Difference: 136 (88%)

Ethereum Mining Hash Rate

GeForce GTX 1060 3GB		19 Mh/s
GeForce GTX 960		11 Mh/s
	Difference: 8 (73%)

3DMark Fire Strike Graphics Score

GeForce GTX 1060 3GB		12185 points
GeForce GTX 960		7627 points
	Difference: 4558 (60%)

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Both cards have the same power consumption.

Memory Bandwidth

In theory, the GeForce GTX 1060 3GB should perform quite a bit faster than the GeForce GTX 960 overall. (explain)

GeForce GTX 1060 3GB		196608 MB/sec
GeForce GTX 960		112000 MB/sec
	Difference: 84608 (76%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 1060 3GB should be a lot (about 50%) better at texture filtering than the GeForce GTX 960. (explain)

GeForce GTX 1060 3GB		108432 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GTX 960		72128 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 36304 (50%)

Pixel Rate

The GeForce GTX 1060 3GB will be quite a bit (about 100%) more effective at full screen anti-aliasing than the GeForce GTX 960, and capable of handling higher resolutions without slowing down too much. (explain)

GeForce GTX 1060 3GB		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: Memory bandwidth is the largest amount of data (in units of megabytes per second) that can be moved past the external memory interface in one second. It's calculated by multiplying the bus width by its memory clock speed. If it uses DDR type RAM, it should be multiplied by 2 again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The higher the bandwidth is, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, HDR and higher screen resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum texture map elements (texels) that are applied in one second. This number is calculated by multiplying the total texture units of the card by the core speed of the chip. The higher the texel rate, the better the graphics 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 amount of pixels that the graphics card can possibly write to the local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is calculated by multiplying the number of colour ROPs 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 is also dependant on quite a few other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the potential to get to the maximum fill rate.