GeForce GTX 1060 3GB vs Radeon HD 6870

Intro

Compare those specs to the Radeon HD 6870, which features a core clock speed of 900 MHz and a GDDR5 memory frequency of 1050 MHz. It also makes use of a 256-bit bus, and makes use of a 40 nm design. It is made up of 1120 SPUs, 56 Texture Address Units, and 32 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.

3DMark Fire Strike Graphics Score

GeForce GTX 1060 3GB		12185 points
Radeon HD 6870		2870 points
	Difference: 9315 (325%)

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GTX 1060 3GB		120 Watts
Radeon HD 6870		151 Watts
	Difference: 31 Watts (26%)

Memory Bandwidth

The GeForce GTX 1060 3GB should theoretically perform much faster than the Radeon HD 6870 in general. (explain)

GeForce GTX 1060 3GB		196608 MB/sec
Radeon HD 6870		134400 MB/sec
	Difference: 62208 (46%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 1060 3GB will be a lot (approximately 115%) faster with regards to texture filtering than the Radeon HD 6870. (explain)

GeForce GTX 1060 3GB		108432 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 6870		50400 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 58032 (115%)

Pixel Rate

The GeForce GTX 1060 3GB is much (approximately 151%) better at AA than the Radeon HD 6870, and capable of handling higher screen resolutions without slowing down too much. (explain)

GeForce GTX 1060 3GB		72288 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 6870		28800 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 43488 (151%)

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 max amount of information (measured in megabytes per second) that can be transferred over the external memory interface in one second. It is calculated by multiplying the card's bus width by its memory clock speed. If it uses DDR type memory, it must be multiplied by 2 again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The better the card's memory bandwidth, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, HDR and high resolutions.

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

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the most pixels that the graphics chip can possibly write to its local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is worked out by multiplying the number of ROPs by the the card's clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also sometimes called Render Output Units) are responsible for filling the screen with pixels (the image). The actual pixel fill rate also depends on many other factors, especially the memory bandwidth - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the ability to reach the maximum fill rate.