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GeForce GTX 1080 vs GeForce RTX 3060

Intro

The GeForce GTX 1080 features a GPU clock speed of 1607 MHz, and the 8192 MB of GDDR5X memory runs at 1251 MHz through a 256-bit bus. It also is comprised of 2560 SPUs, 160 Texture Address Units, and 64 ROPs.

Compare those specs to the GeForce RTX 3060, which features a core clock speed of 1320 MHz and a GDDR6 memory speed of 1875 MHz. It also uses a 192-bit bus, and uses a 8 nm design. It features 3584 SPUs, 112 TAUs, and 48 ROPs.

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce RTX 3060		170 Watts
GeForce GTX 1080		180 Watts
	Difference: 10 Watts (6%)

Memory Bandwidth

The GeForce RTX 3060 should theoretically perform just a bit faster than the GeForce GTX 1080 in general. (explain)

GeForce RTX 3060		368640 MB/sec
GeForce GTX 1080		327680 MB/sec
	Difference: 40960 (13%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 1080 should be quite a bit (about 74%) faster with regards to AF than the GeForce RTX 3060. (explain)

GeForce GTX 1080		257120 Mtexels/sec
GeForce RTX 3060		147840 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 109280 (74%)

Pixel Rate

If using a high resolution is important to you, then the GeForce GTX 1080 is a better choice, and very much so. (explain)

GeForce GTX 1080		102848 Mpixels/sec
GeForce RTX 3060		63360 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 39488 (62%)

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

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GeForce GTX 1080

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GeForce RTX 3060

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Please note that the price comparisons are based on search keywords - sometimes it might show cards with very similar names that are not exactly the same as the one chosen in the comparison. We do try to filter out the wrong results as best we can, though.

Specifications

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Model	GeForce GTX 1080	GeForce RTX 3060
Manufacturer	nVidia	nVidia
Year	May 2016	February 2021
Code Name	GP104-400	GA106
Memory	8192 MB	(Unknown) MB
Core Speed	1607 MHz	1320 MHz
Memory Speed	10008 MHz	3750 GB/s
Power (Max TDP)	180 watts	170 watts
Bandwidth	327680 MB/sec	368640 MB/sec
Texel Rate	257120 Mtexels/sec	147840 Mtexels/sec
Pixel Rate	102848 Mpixels/sec	63360 Mpixels/sec
Unified Shaders	2560	3584
Texture Mapping Units	160	112
Render Output Units	64	48
Bus Type	GDDR5X	GDDR6
Bus Width	256-bit	192-bit
Fab Process	16 nm	8 nm
Transistors	7200 million	13250 million
Bus	PCIe 3.0 x16	PCIe 4.0 x16
DirectX Version	DirectX 12.0	DirectX 12
OpenGL Version	OpenGL 4.5	OpenGL 4.6

Memory Bandwidth: Memory bandwidth is the largest amount of data (in units of MB per second) that can be transferred across the external memory interface in a second. The number is worked out by multiplying the card's interface width by its memory speed. If it uses DDR memory, the result should be multiplied by 2 once again. If DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The higher the card's 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 amount of texture map elements (texels) that are applied in one second. This figure is calculated by multiplying the total texture units of the card 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 one second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum amount of pixels that the graphics chip could possibly write to the local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is calculated by multiplying the number of 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 is also dependant on lots of other factors, especially the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the potential to get to the max fill rate.

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