Can the GTX 970 hold up against the newer GTX 1060 and still let us enjoy games at a reasonable resolution and frames per second? Will the Maxwell architecture prevail or will the new Pascal GPU take the prize in this competition? There is only one way to find out: benchmark results.
GeForce GTX 970 vs GTX 1060
Let the 970 vs 1060 battle begin and see which card wins in performance!
First of all, let’s see the difference in each graphics card and where each excels. We will start with the older one, the GTX 970.
While the GTX 970 was no high-end GTX 980 back in its time, it will still provide a good gaming performance in many demanding games at high resolutions and stable FPS. The GTX 970 is a middle range card that has a 2013 old hardware and brings a 4GB GDDR5 memory – where half of a gigabyte is set apart for a slow section and leaving the other 3.5 GB to do the hard work. Plus, it’s quiet, it uses less power than other graphics cards and does an impressive job when you overclock it.
Now on to the GTX 1060, we get to see a beefy graphics card that can keep up with demanding games, offering for some a whopping 100+ FPS. It indeed is a little more expensive, as it comes with the Pascal architecture which is newer than Maxwell. However, the new design brings fewer cores, and the performance is not as high as we would wish, but it still offers great gaming experience and can even support VR games, unlike the GTX 970.
Looking at the two cards, we would say the difference is not that big, so if you have a GTX 970, you might want to look for something beefier than the 1060 if you want to improve. However, you must also take into consideration the rest of the hardware that you already have.
Benchmark Tests Comparison: GTX 970 vs GTX 1060
The benchmark tests also show a slight improvement from the GTX 970 to the 1060. In 1080p resolution, on high/ultra/ultra high options, both cards had good results:
Assassins Creed: Odyssey – 41.9 FPS (GTX 1060), 37.1 FPS (GTX 970)
Grand Theft Auto V – 56 FPS (GTX 1060), 46.3 FPS (GTX 970)
Hitman – 48.1 (GTX 1060), 41.5 (GTX 970)
Meanwhile, the overclocked cards showed similar differences, with the OC-ed GTX 970 getting ever closer to the OC-ed GTX 1060:
Assassin’s Creed Unity – 58.2 (GTX 1060), 65.2 (1060 OC); 51.3 (GTX 970), 59.5 (970 OC)
The Witcher 3 – 68.4 (GTX 1060), 75.8 (1060 OC); 60.7 (GTX 970), 69.1 (970 OC)
In conclusion, the older 970 still stands against the newer GTX 1060, thanks to its Maxwell architecture that allows better results in overclocking. Nonetheless, the 1060 brings slightly better results, consumes less power and supports VR games.
Juana loves to cover the tech and gaming industry, she always stays on the first row of CES conference and reports live from there.
