GeForce GTX 1060 3GB vs GeForce GTX 460 1GB

Intro

Compare those specifications to the GeForce GTX 460 1GB, which has GPU core speed of 675 MHz, and 1024 MB of GDDR5 RAM set to run at 900 MHz through a 256-bit bus. It also is comprised of 336 Stream Processors, 56 Texture Address Units, and 32 Raster Operation Units.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GTX 1060 3GB		120 Watts
GeForce GTX 460 1GB		160 Watts
	Difference: 40 Watts (33%)

Memory Bandwidth

Theoretically speaking, the GeForce GTX 1060 3GB should perform quite a bit faster than the GeForce GTX 460 1GB in general. (explain)

GeForce GTX 1060 3GB		196608 MB/sec
GeForce GTX 460 1GB		115200 MB/sec
	Difference: 81408 (71%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 1060 3GB will be a lot (more or less 187%) more effective at AF than the GeForce GTX 460 1GB. (explain)

GeForce GTX 1060 3GB		108432 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GTX 460 1GB		37800 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 70632 (187%)

Pixel Rate

If using a high screen resolution is important to you, then the GeForce GTX 1060 3GB is the winner, by a large margin. (explain)

GeForce GTX 1060 3GB		72288 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GTX 460 1GB		21600 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 50688 (235%)

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 transferred past the external memory interface in one second. The number is worked out by multiplying the interface width by its memory speed. If the card has DDR RAM, it must be multiplied by 2 once again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The better the card's memory bandwidth, 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 amount of texture map elements (texels) that can be processed in one second. This is calculated by multiplying the total texture units of the card by the core clock speed of the chip. The better the texel rate, the better the graphics card will be at handling texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels processed in one second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the most 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 ROPs by the the core speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also called Render Output Units) are responsible for outputting the pixels (image) to the screen. The actual pixel output rate is also dependant on lots of other factors, especially the memory bandwidth - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the potential to reach the maximum fill rate.