GeForce GTX 1060 vs GeForce GTX 480

Intro

Compare that to the GeForce GTX 480, which comes with a clock frequency of 700 MHz and a GDDR5 memory frequency of 924 MHz. It also features a 384-bit memory bus, and uses a 40 nm design. It features 480 SPUs, 60 TAUs, and 48 Raster Operation 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.

3DMark Fire Strike Graphics Score

GeForce GTX 1060		12359 points
GeForce GTX 480		3650 points
	Difference: 8709 (239%)

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GTX 1060		120 Watts
GeForce GTX 480		250 Watts
	Difference: 130 Watts (108%)

Memory Bandwidth

Performance-wise, the GeForce GTX 1060 should theoretically be a small bit better than the GeForce GTX 480 in general. (explain)

GeForce GTX 1060		196608 MB/sec
GeForce GTX 480		177408 MB/sec
	Difference: 19200 (11%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 1060 should be much (about 187%) better at AF than the GeForce GTX 480. (explain)

GeForce GTX 1060		120480 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GTX 480		42000 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 78480 (187%)

Pixel Rate

If using a high screen resolution is important to you, then the GeForce GTX 1060 is the winner, by a large margin. (explain)

GeForce GTX 1060		72288 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GTX 480		33600 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 38688 (115%)

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 transported across the external memory interface within a second. It's calculated by multiplying the interface width by the speed of its memory. If it uses DDR memory, the result should be multiplied by 2 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 AA, High Dynamic Range and high resolutions.

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

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum number of pixels that the graphics card can possibly write to the local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is worked out by multiplying the amount of Raster Operations Pipelines by the the core speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also sometimes called Render Output Units) are responsible for outputting the pixels (image) to the screen. The actual pixel fill rate is also dependant on lots of other factors, especially the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the ability to reach the max fill rate.