GeForce GTX 1060 3GB vs Radeon HD 6870

Intro

Compare those specifications to the Radeon HD 6870, which uses a 40 nm design. AMD has set the core speed at 900 MHz. The GDDR5 RAM works at a speed of 1050 MHz on this particular card. It features 1120 SPUs as well as 56 Texture Address Units and 32 Rasterization Operator Units.

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.

3DMark Fire Strike Graphics Score

GeForce GTX 1060 3GB		12185 points
Radeon HD 6870		2870 points
	Difference: 9315 (325%)

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GTX 1060 3GB		120 Watts
Radeon HD 6870		151 Watts
	Difference: 31 Watts (26%)

Memory Bandwidth

Theoretically speaking, the GeForce GTX 1060 3GB is 46% faster than the Radeon HD 6870 in general, due to its higher bandwidth. (explain)

GeForce GTX 1060 3GB		196608 MB/sec
Radeon HD 6870		134400 MB/sec
	Difference: 62208 (46%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 1060 3GB should be quite a bit (about 115%) better at texture filtering than the Radeon HD 6870. (explain)

GeForce GTX 1060 3GB		108432 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 6870		50400 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 58032 (115%)

Pixel Rate

The GeForce GTX 1060 3GB is quite a bit (about 151%) faster with regards to anti-aliasing than the Radeon HD 6870, and should be capable of handling higher screen resolutions without losing too much performance. (explain)

GeForce GTX 1060 3GB		72288 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 6870		28800 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 43488 (151%)

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 largest amount of data (measured in megabytes per second) that can be transferred past the external memory interface in a second. It is calculated by multiplying the card's interface width by its memory speed. If it uses DDR type RAM, it should be multiplied by 2 again. If DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The higher the card's memory bandwidth, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, High Dynamic Range and high resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum number of texture map elements (texels) that are applied per second. This figure is worked out by multiplying the total number of texture units of the card by the core speed of the chip. The better the texel rate, the better the card will be at handling texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels applied in a second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the most pixels that the graphics card can possibly record to its local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is calculated by multiplying the amount of Render Output Units by the the core clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also sometimes called Render Output Units) are responsible for outputting the pixels (image) to the screen. The actual pixel fill rate is also dependant on quite a few other factors, especially the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the ability to reach the maximum fill rate.