Comparing NVIDIA GeForce GTX 970 vs. 1060 3GB
Below you can compare the latest GPU-s across multiple benchmarks. Explore detailed graphs, performance scores, and rankings to quickly find the model that best suits your workflow and creative needs.
Verdict
The GTX 970 is 2% faster than the GTX 1060 3GB
Averaged over 2 rendering benchmarks, the GTX 970 leads in 1 of them. The biggest gap is in V-Ray, where the GTX 970 scores 6% higher.
Scores marked with * are estimated from the other benchmarks we have for that device.
Price and value
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Ranking by benchmarks
OctaneBench 2025
Cinebench 2024
V-Ray benchmark
Blender benchmark
Specifications
| Model | GeForce GTX 970 | GeForce GTX 1060 3GB |
|---|---|---|
| Manufacturer | nVidia | nVidia |
| Year | September 2014 | August 2016 |
| Code Name | GM204-200 | GP106-300 |
| Memory | 4096 MB | 3072 MB |
| Core Speed | 1050 MHz | 1506 MHz |
| Memory Speed | 7000 MHz | 8000 MHz |
| Power (Max TDP) | 145 watts | 120 watts |
| Bandwidth | 224000 MB/sec | 196608 MB/sec |
| Texel Rate | 109200 Mtexels/sec | 108432 Mtexels/sec |
| Pixel Rate | 67200 Mpixels/sec | 72288 Mpixels/sec |
| Unified Shaders | 1664 | 1152 |
| Texture Mapping Units | 104 | 72 |
| Render Output Units | 64 | 48 |
| Bus Type | GDDR5 | GDDR5 |
| Bus Width | 256-bit | 192-bit |
| Fab Process | 28 nm | 16 nm |
| Transistors | 5200 million | 4400 million |
| Bus | PCIe 3.0 x16 | PCIe 3.0 x16 |
| DirectX Version | DirectX 11.2 | DirectX 12.0 |
| OpenGL Version | OpenGL 4.5 | OpenGL 4.5 |
Methodology
Our data above is compiled from multiple sources:
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Our own benchmarks: We conduct extensive testing with the GPU and CPU models we use on the farm. Over the past 10 years we have tested over 1,000 GPUs and 500 CPUs.
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Model scores: Once we have two or more benchmarks for a device we can perform some machine learning computations to estimate a realistic score in any of the other benchmarks we list. These are always marked with an asterisk (*), and while usually accurate shouldn't be taken as the complete truth.
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Public benchmark data: We may supplement our dataset with scores from public OctaneBench, V-Ray Benchmark and Blender Benchmark websites. We cannot test every device available ourselves, so this gives us a nice alternative to get You the results you are looking for.
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