GeForce GTX 1050 3GB vs GeForce GTX 660

Intro

Compare all of that to the GeForce GTX 660, which has a clock frequency of 980 MHz and a GDDR5 memory frequency of 1502 MHz. It also features a 192-bit bus, and uses a 28 nm design. It features 960 SPUs, 80 Texture Address Units, and 24 Raster Operation Units.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GTX 1050 3GB		75 Watts
GeForce GTX 660		140 Watts
	Difference: 65 Watts (87%)

Memory Bandwidth

The GeForce GTX 660 should in theory be a lot faster than the GeForce GTX 1050 3GB in general. (explain)

GeForce GTX 660		144192 MB/sec
GeForce GTX 1050 3GB		86016 MB/sec
	Difference: 58176 (68%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 660 will be a little bit (more or less 17%) more effective at texture filtering than the GeForce GTX 1050 3GB. (explain)

GeForce GTX 660		78400 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GTX 1050 3GB		66816 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 11584 (17%)

Pixel Rate

If using a high screen resolution is important to you, then the GeForce GTX 1050 3GB is superior to the GeForce GTX 660, by far. (explain)

GeForce GTX 1050 3GB		33408 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GTX 660		23520 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 9888 (42%)

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 largest amount of data (counted in MB per second) that can be transferred across the external memory interface in one second. The number is calculated by multiplying the bus width by its memory clock speed. In the case of DDR type RAM, it should be multiplied by 2 once again. If DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The better the memory bandwidth, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, HDR and high resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum texture map elements (texels) that can be processed in one second. This is calculated by multiplying the total texture units of the card by the core 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 processed per second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum number of pixels the video card could possibly record to the local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is calculated by multiplying the amount of colour ROPs 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 also depends on quite a few other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the potential to get to the maximum fill rate.