NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1060 6 GB vs AMD Radeon RX 6500 XT
Side-by-side benchmark comparison, specs, pricing, and value analysis.
Benchmark Comparison
Gaming figures are average frames per second, measured by Tom's Hardware GPU hierarchy. Geometric mean of 15 games, ultra settings, no upscaling. Ray tracing figures are DXR-enabled at 1440p. A dash means the card was not tested at that resolution. Productivity and Steel Nomad are synthetic scores on their own scales and are not comparable to the fps columns.
Specifications
| Spec | GeForce GTX 1060 6 GB | Radeon RX 6500 XT |
|---|---|---|
| VRAM | 6GB GDDR5 | 4GB GDDR6 |
| Memory Bandwidth | 192 GB/s | 144 GB/s |
| Shaders | 1280 | 1024 |
| Boost Clock | 1708 MHz | 2815 MHz |
| TDP | 120W | 107W |
| Architecture | Pascal | RDNA 2.0 |
| 3DMark Steel Nomad | 802 | 249 |
| Best Price | $299 | $199 |
| Value Score | 15/100 | 27/100 |
Verdict
The NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1060 6 GB is faster but costs more. The AMD Radeon RX 6500 XT offers better value for money. Your choice depends on budget vs. performance priority.
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1060 6 GB vs AMD Radeon RX 6500 XT: Which Should You Buy?
This is not a close race. The NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1060 6 GB delivers 23 fps at 1440p ultra to the AMD Radeon RX 6500 XT's 18 fps, a 28% gap. Only pick the slower card if it is dramatically cheaper or you need it for a lower resolution.
You pay a 50% premium for the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1060 6 GB ($299 against $199) to get 28% more frames. The extra frames do not keep up with the extra cost — the AMD Radeon RX 6500 XT is the better value here.
Two things beyond raw speed: the AMD Radeon RX 6500 XT is 6 years newer (2022 versus 2016), so it gets longer driver support and newer upscaling and frame generation features.