GeForce GTX 1060 3 GB GP104 vs GTX 970M

Primary details

GPU architecture, market segment, value for money and other general parameters compared.

Place in the ranking	351	not rated
Place by popularity	not in top-100	not in top-100
Power efficiency	12.68	no data
Architecture	Maxwell 2.0 (2014−2019)	Pascal (2016−2021)
GPU code name	GM204	GP104
Market segment	Laptop	Desktop
Release date	7 October 2014 (10 years ago)	25 December 2016 (7 years ago)
Launch price (MSRP)	$2,560.89	$199

Cost-effectiveness evaluation

Performance to price ratio. The higher, the better.

Detailed specifications

General parameters such as number of shaders, GPU core base clock and boost clock speeds, manufacturing process, texturing and calculation speed. Note that power consumption of some graphics cards can well exceed their nominal TDP, especially when overclocked.

Pipelines / CUDA cores	1280	1152
Core clock speed	924 MHz	1506 MHz
Boost clock speed	1038 MHz	1708 MHz
Number of transistors	5,200 million	7,200 million
Manufacturing process technology	28 nm	16 nm
Power consumption (TDP)	unknown	120 Watt
Texture fill rate	83.04	123.0
Floating-point processing power	2.657 TFLOPS	3.935 TFLOPS
ROPs	48	48
TMUs	80	72

Form factor & compatibility

Information on compatibility with other computer components. Useful when choosing a future computer configuration or upgrading an existing one. For desktop graphics cards it's interface and bus (motherboard compatibility), additional power connectors (power supply compatibility).

Laptop size	large	no data
Bus support	PCI Express 3.0	no data
Interface	MXM-B (3.0)	PCIe 3.0 x16
Length	no data	250 mm
Width	no data	2-slot
Supplementary power connectors	None	1x 6-pin
SLI options	+	-

VRAM capacity and type

Parameters of VRAM installed: its type, size, bus, clock and resulting bandwidth. Integrated GPUs have no dedicated video RAM and use a shared part of system RAM.

Memory type	GDDR5	GDDR5
Maximum RAM amount	3 GB	3 GB
Memory bus width	192 Bit	192 Bit
Memory clock speed	2500 MHz	2002 MHz
Memory bandwidth	120 GB/s	192.2 GB/s
Shared memory	-	-

Connectivity and outputs

Types and number of video connectors present on the reviewed GPUs. As a rule, data in this section is precise only for desktop reference ones (so-called Founders Edition for NVIDIA chips). OEM manufacturers may change the number and type of output ports, while for notebook cards availability of certain video outputs ports depends on the laptop model rather than on the card itself.

Display Connectors	No outputs	1x DVI, 1x HDMI, 3x DisplayPort
VGA аnalog display support	+	no data
DisplayPort Multimode (DP++) support	+	no data
HDMI	+	+
G-SYNC support	+	-

Supported technologies

Supported technological solutions. This information will prove useful if you need some particular technology for your purposes.

GameStream	+	-
GeForce ShadowPlay	+	-
GPU Boost	2.0	no data
GameWorks	+	-
H.264, VC1, MPEG2 1080p video decoder	+	-
Optimus	+	-
BatteryBoost	+	-
Ansel	+	no data

API compatibility

List of supported 3D and general-purpose computing APIs, including their specific versions.

DirectX	12 (12_1)	12 (12_1)
Shader Model	6.4	6.4
OpenGL	4.5	4.6
OpenCL	1.1	1.2
Vulkan	1.1.126	1.2.131
CUDA	+	6.1

Pros & cons summary

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Recency	7 October 2014	25 December 2016
Chip lithography	28 nm	16 nm

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