GeForce GTX 1060 vs Radeon HD 6970

Intro

Compare that to the Radeon HD 6970, which features a core clock frequency of 880 MHz and a GDDR5 memory speed of 1375 MHz. It also uses a 256-bit bus, and uses a 40 nm design. It features 1536 SPUs, 96 TAUs, and 32 Raster Operation Units.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Benchmarks

These are real-world performance benchmarks that were submitted by Hardware Compare users. The scores seen here are the average of all benchmarks submitted for each respective test and hardware.

3DMark Fire Strike Graphics Score

GeForce GTX 1060		12359 points
Radeon HD 6970		3470 points
	Difference: 8889 (256%)

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GTX 1060		120 Watts
Radeon HD 6970		250 Watts
	Difference: 130 Watts (108%)

Memory Bandwidth

In theory, the GeForce GTX 1060 will be 12% quicker than the Radeon HD 6970 overall, because of its higher bandwidth. (explain)

GeForce GTX 1060		196608 MB/sec
Radeon HD 6970		176000 MB/sec
	Difference: 20608 (12%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 1060 is a lot (more or less 43%) more effective at AF than the Radeon HD 6970. (explain)

GeForce GTX 1060		120480 Mtexels/sec
Radeon HD 6970		84480 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 36000 (43%)

Pixel Rate

If using a high screen resolution is important to you, then the GeForce GTX 1060 is superior to the Radeon HD 6970, by a large margin. (explain)

GeForce GTX 1060		72288 Mpixels/sec
Radeon HD 6970		28160 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 44128 (157%)

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 megabytes per second) that can be moved across the external memory interface in a second. It's worked out by multiplying the interface width by the speed of its memory. If the card has DDR type memory, the result should be multiplied by 2 once again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The better the card's memory bandwidth, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, High Dynamic Range and higher screen resolutions.

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

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum amount of pixels the video card can possibly record to its local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is calculated by multiplying the number of Raster Operations Pipelines by the the core speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - sometimes also referred to as 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, especially the memory bandwidth - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the ability to get to the maximum fill rate.