GeForce GTX 1060 vs Radeon HD 6970

Intro

Compare all that to the Radeon HD 6970, which comes with GPU clock speed of 880 MHz, and 2048 MB of GDDR5 memory set to run at 1375 MHz through a 256-bit bus. It also features 1536 Stream Processors, 96 TAUs, and 32 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
Radeon HD 6970		3470 points
	Difference: 8889 (256%)

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GTX 1060		120 Watts
Radeon HD 6970		250 Watts
	Difference: 130 Watts (108%)

Memory Bandwidth

Performance-wise, the GeForce GTX 1060 should in theory be just a bit superior to the Radeon HD 6970 overall. (explain)

GeForce GTX 1060		196608 MB/sec
Radeon HD 6970		176000 MB/sec
	Difference: 20608 (12%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 1060 is a lot (approximately 43%) more effective at texture filtering than the Radeon HD 6970. (explain)

GeForce GTX 1060		120480 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 6970		84480 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 36000 (43%)

Pixel Rate

The GeForce GTX 1060 will be a lot (about 157%) more effective at full screen anti-aliasing than the Radeon HD 6970, and will be capable of handling higher resolutions while still performing well. (explain)

GeForce GTX 1060		72288 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 6970		28160 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 44128 (157%)

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 (counted in MB per second) that can be transferred past the external memory interface within a second. The number is calculated by multiplying the interface width by its memory speed. If it uses DDR memory, it must be multiplied by 2 once again. If DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The better the bandwidth is, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, High Dynamic Range and higher screen resolutions.

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

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