GeForce GTX 1060 3GB vs GeForce GTX 970

Intro

Compare all of that to the GeForce GTX 970, which comes with GPU clock speed of 1050 MHz, and 4096 MB of GDDR5 memory set to run at 1750 MHz through a 256-bit bus. It also is comprised of 1664 SPUs, 104 Texture Address Units, and 64 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 970		262 Sol/s
	Difference: 28 (11%)

Ethereum Mining Hash Rate

GeForce GTX 1060 3GB		19 Mh/s
GeForce GTX 970		19 Mh/s
	Difference: 0 (0%)

3DMark Fire Strike Graphics Score

GeForce GTX 1060 3GB		12185 points
GeForce GTX 970		10867 points
	Difference: 1318 (12%)

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GTX 1060 3GB		120 Watts
GeForce GTX 970		145 Watts
	Difference: 25 Watts (21%)

Memory Bandwidth

The GeForce GTX 970, in theory, should perform a little bit faster than the GeForce GTX 1060 3GB in general. (explain)

GeForce GTX 970		224000 MB/sec
GeForce GTX 1060 3GB		196608 MB/sec
	Difference: 27392 (14%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 970 will be just a bit (more or less 1%) better at anisotropic filtering than the GeForce GTX 1060 3GB. (explain)

GeForce GTX 970		109200 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GTX 1060 3GB		108432 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 768 (1%)

Pixel Rate

If running with high levels of AA is important to you, then the GeForce GTX 1060 3GB is a better choice, not by a very large margin though. (explain)

GeForce GTX 1060 3GB		72288 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GTX 970		67200 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 5088 (8%)

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 data (counted in MB per second) that can be transferred over the external memory interface in one second. It's worked out by multiplying the card's bus width by its memory clock speed. In the case of DDR memory, it must be multiplied by 2 again. If DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The higher the memory bandwidth, the better 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 number of texture map elements (texels) that can be processed per second. This figure is calculated by multiplying the total number of texture units of the card 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 processed in one second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum amount of pixels that the graphics chip can possibly write to the local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is worked out 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 filling the screen with pixels (the image). The actual pixel output rate is also dependant on lots of other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the ability to reach the maximum fill rate.