GeForce GTX 1060 3GB vs GeForce GTX 280

Intro

Compare those specifications to the GeForce GTX 280, which makes use of a 65 nm design. nVidia has set the core frequency at 602 MHz. The GDDR3 RAM works at a frequency of 1107 MHz on this particular card. It features 240 SPUs along with 80 Texture Address Units and 32 Rasterization Operator Units.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GTX 1060 3GB		120 Watts
GeForce GTX 280		236 Watts
	Difference: 116 Watts (97%)

Memory Bandwidth

Theoretically, the GeForce GTX 1060 3GB should be much faster than the GeForce GTX 280 in general. (explain)

GeForce GTX 1060 3GB		196608 MB/sec
GeForce GTX 280		141696 MB/sec
	Difference: 54912 (39%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 1060 3GB will be a lot (approximately 125%) more effective at anisotropic filtering than the GeForce GTX 280. (explain)

GeForce GTX 1060 3GB		108432 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GTX 280		48160 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 60272 (125%)

Pixel Rate

If running with a high screen resolution is important to you, then the GeForce GTX 1060 3GB is superior to the GeForce GTX 280, by a large margin. (explain)

GeForce GTX 1060 3GB		72288 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GTX 280		19264 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 53024 (275%)

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 information (in units of megabytes per second) that can be transferred across the external memory interface in one second. The number is worked out by multiplying the interface width by its memory speed. If the card has DDR type memory, it must be multiplied by 2 again. If DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The higher the memory bandwidth, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, High Dynamic Range and high resolutions.

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

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum amount of pixels the video card could possibly record to the local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is calculated by multiplying the amount of Render Output Units 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 rate is also dependant on quite a few other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the potential to reach the max fill rate.