GeForce GTX 1060 vs GeForce RTX 3060

Intro

Compare those specs to the GeForce RTX 3060, which has a core clock speed of 1320 MHz and a GDDR6 memory frequency of 1875 MHz. It also makes use of a 192-bit memory bus, and uses a 8 nm design. It is comprised of 3584 SPUs, 112 TAUs, and 48 Raster Operation Units.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GTX 1060		120 Watts
GeForce RTX 3060		170 Watts
	Difference: 50 Watts (42%)

Memory Bandwidth

Theoretically speaking, the GeForce RTX 3060 should be 88% quicker than the GeForce GTX 1060 overall, due to its higher bandwidth. (explain)

GeForce RTX 3060		368640 MB/sec
GeForce GTX 1060		196608 MB/sec
	Difference: 172032 (88%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce RTX 3060 is much (approximately 23%) better at AF than the GeForce GTX 1060. (explain)

GeForce RTX 3060		147840 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GTX 1060		120480 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 27360 (23%)

Pixel Rate

The GeForce GTX 1060 will be a little bit (more or less 14%) more effective at full screen anti-aliasing than the GeForce RTX 3060, and also will be able to handle higher resolutions without losing too much performance. (explain)

GeForce GTX 1060		72288 Mpixels/sec
GeForce RTX 3060		63360 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 8928 (14%)

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 data (measured in MB per second) that can be transferred over the external memory interface in a second. It's worked out by multiplying the card's bus width by its memory speed. In the case of DDR type RAM, it should be multiplied by 2 again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The higher the memory bandwidth, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, HDR and high resolutions.

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

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum number of pixels the graphics card could possibly write to its local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is calculated by multiplying the amount of Raster Operations Pipelines by the the core clock speed. 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 lots of other factors, especially the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the potential to get to the max fill rate.