GeForce GTX 1060 vs GeForce GTX 970

Intro

Compare all that to the GeForce GTX 970, which features clock speeds of 1050 MHz on the GPU, and 1750 MHz on the 4096 MB of GDDR5 memory. It features 1664 SPUs along with 104 Texture Address Units and 64 Rasterization Operator Units.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

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 970		262 Sol/s
	Difference: 49 (19%)

3DMark Fire Strike Graphics Score

GeForce GTX 1060		12359 points
GeForce GTX 970		10867 points
	Difference: 1492 (14%)

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GTX 1060		120 Watts
GeForce GTX 970		145 Watts
	Difference: 25 Watts (21%)

Memory Bandwidth

In theory, the GeForce GTX 970 should be 14% faster than the GeForce GTX 1060 in general, due to its greater data rate. (explain)

GeForce GTX 970		224000 MB/sec
GeForce GTX 1060		196608 MB/sec
	Difference: 27392 (14%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 1060 should be a bit (more or less 10%) faster with regards to AF than the GeForce GTX 970. (explain)

GeForce GTX 1060		120480 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GTX 970		109200 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 11280 (10%)

Pixel Rate

The GeForce GTX 1060 is just a bit (about 8%) more effective at AA than the GeForce GTX 970, and able to handle higher resolutions without losing too much performance. (explain)

GeForce GTX 1060		72288 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GTX 970		67200 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 5088 (8%)

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 data (in units of megabytes per second) that can be transferred past the external memory interface within a second. It is worked out by multiplying the interface width by its memory clock speed. In the case of DDR type RAM, it must be multiplied by 2 again. If DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The better the card's memory bandwidth, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, HDR and high resolutions.

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

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the most pixels the graphics card could possibly record to the local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is calculated by multiplying the number of Render Output Units 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 quite a few other factors, especially the memory bandwidth - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the potential to reach the max fill rate.