GeForce GTX 1660 Ti vs GeForce RTX 3060

Intro

Compare those specs to the GeForce RTX 3060, which uses a 8 nm design. nVidia has set the core speed at 1320 MHz. The GDDR6 RAM works at a frequency of 1875 MHz on this particular model. It features 3584 SPUs along with 112 Texture Address Units and 48 ROPs.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GTX 1660 Ti		120 Watts
GeForce RTX 3060		170 Watts
	Difference: 50 Watts (42%)

Memory Bandwidth

In theory, the GeForce RTX 3060 should perform much faster than the GeForce GTX 1660 Ti in general. (explain)

GeForce RTX 3060		368640 MB/sec
GeForce GTX 1660 Ti		294912 MB/sec
	Difference: 73728 (25%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce RTX 3060 should be a bit (about 3%) faster with regards to texture filtering than the GeForce GTX 1660 Ti. (explain)

GeForce RTX 3060		147840 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GTX 1660 Ti		144000 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 3840 (3%)

Pixel Rate

If running with a high screen resolution is important to you, then the GeForce GTX 1660 Ti is a better choice, but only just. (explain)

GeForce GTX 1660 Ti		72000 Mpixels/sec
GeForce RTX 3060		63360 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 8640 (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: Memory bandwidth is the max amount of data (counted in MB per second) that can be transported past the external memory interface in one second. It is worked out by multiplying the card's interface width by its memory speed. If the card has DDR memory, the result should be multiplied by 2 once again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The higher the bandwidth is, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, HDR and higher screen resolutions.

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

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the most pixels the video card can possibly record to the local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is worked out by multiplying the amount of colour ROPs by the the card's clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also called Render Output Units) are responsible for filling the screen with pixels (the image). The actual pixel output rate is also dependant on many other factors, especially the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the potential to reach the maximum fill rate.