GeForce GTX 1060 vs GeForce GTX 960

Intro

Compare those specifications to the GeForce GTX 960, which uses a 28 nm design. nVidia has clocked the core frequency at 1127 MHz. The GDDR5 RAM is set to run at a frequency of 1750 MHz on this specific model. It features 1024 SPUs along with 64 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.

Zcash Mining Hash Rate

GeForce GTX 1060		311 Sol/s
GeForce GTX 960		154 Sol/s
	Difference: 157 (102%)

3DMark Fire Strike Graphics Score

GeForce GTX 1060		12359 points
GeForce GTX 960		7627 points
	Difference: 4732 (62%)

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Both cards have the same power consumption.

Memory Bandwidth

Theoretically speaking, the GeForce GTX 1060 will be 76% quicker than the GeForce GTX 960 in general, due to its greater bandwidth. (explain)

GeForce GTX 1060		196608 MB/sec
GeForce GTX 960		112000 MB/sec
	Difference: 84608 (76%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 1060 should be quite a bit (more or less 67%) faster with regards to texture filtering than the GeForce GTX 960. (explain)

GeForce GTX 1060		120480 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GTX 960		72128 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 48352 (67%)

Pixel Rate

The GeForce GTX 1060 will be much (about 100%) faster with regards to anti-aliasing than the GeForce GTX 960, and should be capable of handling higher screen resolutions without slowing down too much. (explain)

GeForce GTX 1060		72288 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GTX 960		36064 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 36224 (100%)

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 maximum amount of data (measured in MB per second) that can be transferred across the external memory interface in a second. The number is worked out by multiplying the card's bus width by its memory clock speed. If the card has DDR type RAM, it must be multiplied by 2 once again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The higher the memory bandwidth, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, HDR and high resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum texture map elements (texels) that are applied per second. This is worked out by multiplying the total amount of texture units of the card by the core clock speed of the chip. The higher 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 a second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum number of pixels that the graphics card can possibly record to the local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is worked out by multiplying the number of Raster Operations Pipelines by the the core speed of the card. 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 quite a few other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the potential to get to the max fill rate.