GeForce GTX 970 vs GeForce RTX 3060

Intro

Compare all that to the GeForce RTX 3060, which features GPU clock speed of 1320 MHz, and (Unknown) MB of GDDR6 memory set to run at 1875 MHz through a 192-bit bus. It also is made up of 3584 Stream Processors, 112 Texture Address Units, and 48 ROPs.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GTX 970		145 Watts
GeForce RTX 3060		170 Watts
	Difference: 25 Watts (17%)

Memory Bandwidth

In theory, the GeForce RTX 3060 will be 65% quicker than the GeForce GTX 970 overall, because of its greater data rate. (explain)

GeForce RTX 3060		368640 MB/sec
GeForce GTX 970		224000 MB/sec
	Difference: 144640 (65%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce RTX 3060 is a lot (approximately 35%) more effective at texture filtering than the GeForce GTX 970. (explain)

GeForce RTX 3060		147840 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GTX 970		109200 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 38640 (35%)

Pixel Rate

If using a high screen resolution is important to you, then the GeForce GTX 970 is the winner, though only just barely. (explain)

GeForce GTX 970		67200 Mpixels/sec
GeForce RTX 3060		63360 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 3840 (6%)

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 MB per second) that can be transferred over the external memory interface within a second. It is worked out by multiplying the card's interface width by the speed of its memory. In the case of DDR type memory, the result should be multiplied by 2 again. If DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The higher the card's memory bandwidth, the faster 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 in one second. This number is worked out by multiplying the total amount of texture units of the card by the core speed of the chip. The higher 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 maximum amount of pixels the video card could possibly write to its local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is worked out by multiplying the number of ROPs by the the core clock speed. 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 many other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the ability to reach the max fill rate.