NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1060 3 GB vs NVIDIA RTX PRO 6000 Blackwell Comparison

Where Each One Wins

The recorded data splits these two NVIDIA cards into completely separate usage arenas, with no direct head-to-head benchmark overlap in the database. The GeForce GTX 1060 3 GB has three benchmark entries, all from the Geekbench suite: Metal, OpenCL, and Vulkan. Its average benchmark score sits at 19,334, and it lands in the 64th percentile of all GPUs tracked. That percentile places it above the midpoint of the database, and its nearest rivals confirm a tightly clustered performance band. The AMD Radeon RX 7900 XTX is only 0.4% ahead, the NVIDIA TITAN Xp is 0.8% behind, the GeForce GTX 780 is 0.9% behind, and the Tesla K20m is 1.3% behind. This is a card whose measured results cluster with hardware from multiple generations, which suggests its synthetic compute workloads remain competitive despite its age.

The RTX PRO 6000 Blackwell takes a different route. Its only recorded benchmark is 3DMark Steel Nomad DX12, where it scores 16,408. Its average benchmark score is identical at 16,408, and it sits in the 59th percentile of all GPUs. Its nearest rivals are the AMD Radeon PRO W7500 at parity, the AMD Radeon RX 5700 XT 0.3% ahead, the AMD Radeon Pro 5600M 0.4% ahead, and the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5090 D V2 0.6% ahead. The delta values here are all within one percentage point, meaning the database places this workstation card in a very narrow performance envelope for that particular DX12 stress test. The GTX 1060 3 GB wins on breadth of benchmark coverage, while the RTX PRO 6000 Blackwell wins on raw architectural ceiling, but the database does not provide a shared workload where the two can be compared directly.

The use-case split is clear from the data alone. The GTX 1060 3 GB shows up in cross-API compute tests, while the RTX PRO 6000 Blackwell appears in a modern DX12 test. The older card's percentile rank is higher, but the newer card's specifications suggest a completely different performance class. The data does not support a claim that one beats the other in any shared test, because no shared test exists in the database.

Architecture Differences

The architectural gap between these two is generational and massive. The GeForce GTX 1060 3 GB uses the GP106 chip on the Pascal architecture, built on a 16 nm process at TSMC. It packs 4,400 million transistors on a 200 mm² die, giving a transistor density of 22.0M per mm². The RTX PRO 6000 Blackwell uses the GB202 chip on the Blackwell 2.0 architecture, also fabricated by TSMC but on a 5 nm node. Its transistor count is 92,200 million on a 750 mm² die, with a density of 122.9M per mm². That is roughly a 21x increase in transistor count and a 5.6x increase in density, all within a die that is 3.75x larger by area.

The compute resources diverge sharply. The GTX 1060 3 GB has 1,152 shading units, 72 texture mapping units, and 48 ROPs. It has no ray tracing cores and no tensor cores. The RTX PRO 6000 Blackwell has 24,064 shading units, 752 TMUs, and 192 ROPs. It also adds 188 ray tracing cores and 752 tensor cores, features that simply do not exist on the Pascal part. The FP32 throughput tells the story numerically: the GTX 1060 3 GB delivers 3.935 TFLOPS, while the RTX PRO 6000 Blackwell delivers 126.0 TFLOPS. That is a 32x difference in raw single-precision compute. The FP16 comparison is even starker: the GTX 1060 3 GB manages 61.49 GFLOPS at a 1:64 ratio, while the RTX PRO 6000 Blackwell delivers 126.0 TFLOPS at 1:1. The newer card has full-rate FP16, while the older card treats FP16 as a heavily divided afterthought.

Memory architecture is another chasm. The GTX 1060 3 GB uses 3 GB of GDDR5 on a 192-bit bus, yielding 192.2 GB/s of bandwidth. The RTX PRO 6000 Blackwell uses 96 GB of GDDR7 on a 512-bit bus, yielding 1.79 TB/s. That is 32x the capacity and roughly 9.3x the bandwidth. The pixel rate goes from 81.98 GPixel/s to 502.5 GPixel/s, and the texture rate goes from 123.0 GTexel/s to 1,968.0 GTexel/s. Every single measured throughput metric favors the Blackwell card by a factor of at least 6x or more.

Head-to-Head Benchmarks

The database contains no entries in the head-to-head benchmark array, and both cards have zero wins each way. The analysis must rely on the separate benchmark lists to reconstruct what each card can do. The GTX 1060 3 GB's Geekbench scores are internally consistent with its nearest rival cluster. Its Vulkan score of 17,475 and OpenCL score of 27,001 bracket the Vulkan result meaningfully different workload scaling. The Metal score of 13,527 shows the lowest of the three tests. Its average benchmark score of 19,334 sits just 0.4% below the RX 7900 XTX average of 19,410, and 0.8% above the TITAN Xp average of 19,177. The RTX PRO 6000 Blackwell's single 3DMark Steel Nomad score of 16,408 matches its nearest rival average of 16,408 exactly, with delta values ranging from 0.6% behind to 0.4% ahead.

The biggest wins, in terms of absolute score differences, all go to the RTX PRO 6000 Blackwell when compared to its rivals, but not to the GTX 1060 3 GB. The RTX 5090 D V2 is 0.6% ahead with an average score of 16,504, the RX 5700 XT is 16,361 is 0.3% ahead, and the Pro 5600M is 16,351 at 0.3% ahead. None of the GTX 1060 3 GB rivals exceed a 1.3% delta from its own average. The largest single delta for the Pascal card is 1.3% against the Tesla K20m, meaning the GTX 1060 3 GB is at most 1.3% faster than a single-point swing in its cluster. The Blackwell card's largest delta is only 0.6% against the RTX 5090 D V2, meaning it trails by 0.6% at most. Neither card shows a win larger than 1.3% in any direction in the database.

Specification Differences

The two cards differ on nearly every specification field where both have recorded data. The base clock differs by a modest amount, 1,506 MHz for the GTX 1060 3 GB versus 1,590 MHz for the RTX PRO 6000 Blackwell, a 84 MHz advantage. The boost clock shows a larger gap, 1,708 MHz versus 2,617 MHz. Memory clock speeds differ, 2002 MHz at 8 Gbps effective versus 64.2 Gbps effective at 1750 MHz 28 Gbps effective, wait the pack states the GTX 1060 3 GB memory at 2002 MHz 8 Gbps effective and RTX PRO 6000 Blackwell memory at 1750 MHz 28 Gbps effective. The bus interface moves from PCIe 3.0 x16 to PCIe 5.0 x16. Display outputs shift from 1x DVI, 1x HDMI 2.0, 3x DisplayPort 1.4a to 4x DisplayPort 2.1b. TDP jumps from 120 W to 600 W, the power connector from 1x 6-pin to 1x 16-pin, and the suggested PSU from 300 W to 1000 W. The slot width stays dual-slot. The GTX 1060 3 GB length is 250 mm, 9.8 inches, while the RTX PRO 6000 Blackwell length is 304 mm, 12 inches, height 137 mm, 5.4 inches, width 40 mm, 4.0 inches. The API support changes from DirectX 12, OpenGL 4.6, Vulkan 1.4 to DirectX 12 Ultimate, OpenGL 4.6, Vulkan 1.4. The production status changes from end-of-life to active. The release date in the database is 2016-08-17 for the GTX 1060 3 GB and 2025-03-17 for the RTX PRO 6000 Blackwell. The predecessor and successor fields differ, and the launch MSRP for the GTX 1060 3 GB is 199 USD, while the RTX PRO 6000 Blackwell launch MSRP is 8,565 USD.

FAQ

Q: Which GPU has the higher average benchmark score?

A: The GeForce GTX 1060 3 GB has the higher average benchmark score at 19,334, compared to the RTX PRO 6000 Blackwell at 16,408.

Q: Which GPU has more shading units?

A: The RTX PRO 6000 Blackwell has 24,064 shading units, while the GeForce GTX 1060 3 GB has 1,152.

Q: Does the GTX 1060 3 GB support ray tracing?

A: No, the GTX 1060 3 GB has no ray tracing cores in its specification; the RTX PRO 6000 Blackwell has 188.

Q: What is the memory bandwidth difference?

A: The GTX 1060 3 GB provides 192.2 GB/s, while the RTX PRO 6000 Blackwell provides 1.79 TB/s.

Q: Which card has a higher percentile rank in the database?

A: The GTX 1060 3 GB ranks in the 64th percentile of all GPUs, while the RTX PRO 6000 Blackwell ranks in the 59th percentile.

Q: Are there any shared benchmarks between the two?

A: No, the head-to-head benchmark array is empty, and the two cards appear in separate benchmark tests in the database.

The Verdict

The data supports a simple conclusion for each audience. The GeForce GTX 1060 3 GB is a Pascal-era card whose benchmark scores remain competitive with a cluster of much newer and older hardware. Its nearest rival average scores are all within 1.3% of its own, and its percentile rank of 64 is higher than the Blackwell card's 59. It is an end-of-life product with a 3 GB frame buffer and a 192-bit bus, and its 3.935 TFLOPS FP32 throughput places it in a completely different performance class from the RTX PRO 6000 Blackwell. Anyone looking at the database for a legacy compute card with broad benchmark coverage could select the GTX 1060 3 GB.

The RTX PRO 6000 Blackwell is a different beast entirely. Its 126.0 TFLOPS FP32, 96 GB of GDDR7, 1.79 TB/s bandwidth, ray tracing cores, and tensor cores all point to workstation-class workloads. Its 3DMark Steel Nomad score places it within 0.6% of the RTX 5090 D V2, but its percentile rank is lower than the much older GTX 1060 3 GB. The data does not show the Blackwell card winning any shared benchmark, because no shared benchmark exists. The RTX 5090 D V2 is its closest competitor in the recorded data, and the RTX PRO 6000 Blackwell trails it by 0.6%.

The verdict from the recorded measurements is that the GTX 1060 3 GB wins on database percentile and average score, while the RTX PRO 6000 Blackwell wins on every specification that matters for modern rendering and compute. The GTX 1060 3 GB is the card for someone comparing legacy compute results across Metal, OpenCL, and Vulkan. The RTX PRO 6000 Blackwell is the card for anyone who needs the architectural features and sustained throughput for DX12-era workloads. The database simply does not give either card a win over the other in a direct test.