NVIDIA GeForce GTX 970 vs NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1060 3GB
The NVIDIA GeForce GTX 970 and NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1060 3GB sit within a few percent of each other on our index. Treat them as equivalent in raw performance and decide on price, power draw and — for graphics cards — video memory instead.
| Specification | NVIDIA GeForce GTX 970 | NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1060 3GB |
|---|---|---|
| Manufacturer | NVIDIA | NVIDIA |
| Architecture | Maxwell | Pascal |
| Relative performance index | 62 (better) | 60 |
| Video memory | 4 GB (better) | 3 GB |
| Memory type | GDDR5 | GDDR5 |
| Memory bus | 256-bit (better) | 192-bit |
| Release year | 2014 | 2016 (better) |
| Board power | 145 W | 120 W (better) |
| Suggested PSU | 500 W | 400 W (better) |
| Hardware ray tracing | No | No |
| Upscaling support | Not recorded | FSR 3 |
| DirectX | 12 | 12 |
Green marks the stronger figure for that row only — for power draw and PSU requirement, lower is treated as better. Performance indexes are CanMyPcPlay estimates; read how they are derived.
Which should you pick?
- Check video memory, not just speed. A faster card with less VRAM can perform worse in recent titles at high texture settings.
- Check power and clearance. Confirm your PSU and case can take the card — the build checker does this.
- Upscaling support differs. DLSS is NVIDIA-only; FSR and XeSS run more broadly.
Other comparisons
- NVIDIA GeForce GTX 970 vs NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1650
- NVIDIA GeForce GTX 970 vs NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1060 6GB
- NVIDIA GeForce GTX 970 vs NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1660 SUPER
- NVIDIA GeForce GTX 970 vs NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3050 8GB
- NVIDIA GeForce GTX 970 vs AMD Radeon RX 580 8GB
- NVIDIA GeForce GTX 970 vs NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1660 Ti