GeForce GT 1030 vs GeForce GTX 660

Intro

Compare those specifications to the GeForce GTX 660, which comes with a core clock speed of 980 MHz and a GDDR5 memory frequency of 1502 MHz. It also makes use of a 192-bit memory bus, and makes use of a 28 nm design. It is comprised of 960 SPUs, 80 Texture Address Units, and 24 Raster Operation 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

As far as performance goes, the GeForce GTX 660 should in theory be a lot superior to the GeForce GT 1030 overall. (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 texture filtering 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 high levels of AA is important to you, then the GeForce GTX 660 is superior to the GeForce GT 1030, though not by far. (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: Bandwidth is the largest amount of information (in units of megabytes per second) that can be transferred across the external memory interface in one second. It's worked out by multiplying the bus width by its memory speed. If it uses DDR type RAM, the result should be multiplied by 2 again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The higher the memory bandwidth, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, HDR and higher screen resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum amount of texture map elements (texels) that are processed per second. This is calculated by multiplying the total amount of texture units by the core clock speed of the chip. The better this number, the better the video card will be at handling texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels in one second.

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