GeForce GTX 1060 3GB vs GeForce GTX 980

Intro

Compare all that to the GeForce GTX 980, which makes use of a 28 nm design. nVidia has clocked the core speed at 1126 MHz. The GDDR5 RAM works at a speed of 1750 MHz on this particular card. It features 2048 SPUs along with 128 Texture Address Units and 64 ROPs.

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 980		408 Sol/s
GeForce GTX 1060 3GB		290 Sol/s
	Difference: 118 (41%)

Ethereum Mining Hash Rate

GeForce GTX 980		20 Mh/s
GeForce GTX 1060 3GB		19 Mh/s
	Difference: 1 (5%)

3DMark Fire Strike Graphics Score

GeForce GTX 980		13552 points
GeForce GTX 1060 3GB		12185 points
	Difference: 1367 (11%)

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GTX 1060 3GB		120 Watts
GeForce GTX 980		165 Watts
	Difference: 45 Watts (38%)

Memory Bandwidth

The GeForce GTX 980 should theoretically perform a little bit faster than the GeForce GTX 1060 3GB in general. (explain)

GeForce GTX 980		224000 MB/sec
GeForce GTX 1060 3GB		196608 MB/sec
	Difference: 27392 (14%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 980 is a lot (more or less 33%) more effective at texture filtering than the GeForce GTX 1060 3GB. (explain)

GeForce GTX 980		144128 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GTX 1060 3GB		108432 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 35696 (33%)

Pixel Rate

If using lots of anti-aliasing is important to you, then the GeForce GTX 1060 3GB is a better choice, but only just. (explain)

GeForce GTX 1060 3GB		72288 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GTX 980		72064 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 224 (0%)

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 maximum amount of information (counted in megabytes per second) that can be moved across the external memory interface in one second. The number is calculated by multiplying the card's bus width by its memory clock speed. In the case of DDR type RAM, it must be multiplied by 2 again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The higher 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 texture map elements (texels) that can be processed in one second. This figure is worked out by multiplying the total 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 texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels applied per second.

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