GeForce GT 1030 vs GeForce GTX 660

Intro

Compare those specs to the GeForce GTX 660, which uses a 28 nm design. nVidia has clocked the core frequency at 980 MHz. The GDDR5 memory works at a frequency of 1502 MHz on this particular card. It features 960 SPUs as well as 80 Texture Address Units and 24 Rasterization Operator Units.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GT 1030		30 Watts
GeForce GTX 660		140 Watts
	Difference: 110 Watts (367%)

Memory Bandwidth

The GeForce GTX 660, in theory, should perform much faster than the GeForce GT 1030 in general. (explain)

GeForce GTX 660		144192 MB/sec
GeForce GT 1030		49152 MB/sec
	Difference: 95040 (193%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 660 is quite a bit (more or less 94%) faster with regards to AF than the GeForce GT 1030. (explain)

GeForce GTX 660		78400 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GT 1030		40480 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 37920 (94%)

Pixel Rate

If running with lots of anti-aliasing is important to you, then the GeForce GTX 660 is a better choice, but it probably won't make a huge difference. (explain)

GeForce GTX 660		23520 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GT 1030		20240 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 3280 (16%)

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 information (counted in megabytes per second) that can be transferred over the external memory interface in one second. It is worked out by multiplying the interface width by its memory speed. If the card has DDR RAM, it must be multiplied by 2 again. If it uses 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 higher screen resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum number of texture map elements (texels) that can be applied per second. This is worked out by multiplying the total texture units by the core 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 a second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum number of pixels the graphics card can possibly write to its local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is calculated by multiplying the amount of Raster Operations Pipelines by the the card's clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - aka Render Output Units) are responsible for filling the screen with pixels (the image). The actual pixel rate is also dependant on many other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the potential to get to the max fill rate.