NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1060 5 GB vs NVIDIA RTX A6000 Comparison

The NVIDIA RTX A6000 and the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1060 5 GB occupy opposite ends of the GPU spectrum, both in time and capability. The A6000 is a workstation-class Ampere part built for compute and professional visualization, while the GTX 1060 5 GB is a Pascal-era consumer card aimed at 1080p gaming. The database shows a decisive performance gap, but the comparison is still useful for understanding how far GPU technology has advanced and where each card retains relevance.

Head-to-Head Benchmarks

The recorded head-to-head data covers two compute-oriented tests: Geekbench OpenCL and Geekbench Vulkan. In both, the RTX A6000 delivers a dominant victory. In Geekbench OpenCL, the A6000 scores 193937 against 33397 for the GTX 1060 5 GB, which is a delta of 480.7%. That means the A6000 is roughly five times faster in raw compute throughput, a margin that reflects the massive difference in shading units, memory bandwidth, and architecture generation.

The Vulkan result is similarly lopsided. The A6000 posts 164462, while the GTX 1060 5 GB manages 33991, a delta of 383.8%. Vulkan is a lower-level API that can expose efficiency differences, and here the A6000's Ampere architecture, with its 10752 shading units, simply overwhelms the 1280 shading units of the Pascal card. The A6000 also benefits from 336 texture mapping units and 112 render output units, compared to 80 and 40 respectively on the GTX 1060 5 GB. These hardware resources translate directly into the benchmark scores.

The A6000 wins both head-to-head tests, giving it a 2-0 record. The GTX 1060 5 GB has no wins in this comparison. Looking at the broader database, the A6000's average benchmark score is 44075, while the GTX 1060 5 GB averages 33694. The A6000 sits in the 84th percentile of all GPUs tested, while the GTX 1060 5 GB is in the 78th percentile. That percentile gap is smaller than the raw score gap might suggest, which indicates that the GTX 1060 5 GB still holds its own against a wide range of other cards in the database, even if it is completely outclassed by the A6000.

The A6000's nearest rivals in the database are the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4090 Mobile, with an average score of 43667 and a delta of 0.9%, the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4070 Ti at 44795 with a delta of -1.6%, the NVIDIA Quadro M6000 at 43301 with a delta of 1.8%, and the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5050 Mobile at 43268 with a delta of 1.9%. This places the A6000 in the same performance tier as these modern and semi-modern cards, despite being a workstation product. The GTX 1060 5 GB's nearest rivals include the NVIDIA RTX A5000 at 33622 with a delta of 0.2%, the AMD Radeon RX 7700S at 33849 with a delta of -0.5%, the AMD Radeon HD 7950 at 33951 with a delta of -0.8%, and the AMD Radeon RX 480 at 33997 with a delta of -0.9%. This shows that the GTX 1060 5 GB is clustered with older and mid-range cards, which is expected for a product from 2017.

FAQ

Q: Which card has a higher average benchmark score?

A: The NVIDIA RTX A6000 has an average benchmark score of 44075, while the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1060 5 GB has an average score of 33694. The A6000 is ahead by a significant margin, though the exact percentage difference is not directly listed.

Q: How do the two cards compare in Geekbench OpenCL?

A: The RTX A6000 scores 193937, while the GTX 1060 5 GB scores 33397. This gives the A6000 a 480.7% advantage in that test.

Q: Does the GTX 1060 5 GB win any head-to-head benchmark?

A: No. The head-to-head data shows two tests, Geekbench OpenCL and Geekbench Vulkan, and the RTX A6000 wins both. The GTX 1060 5 GB has zero wins in this comparison.

Q: What is the difference in memory bandwidth between the two?

A: The RTX A6000 has a memory bandwidth of 768.0 GB/s, while the GTX 1060 5 GB has a bandwidth of 160.2 GB/s. The A6000's bandwidth is nearly five times higher, which aligns with its compute performance advantage.

Q: Are both cards still in production?

A: No. Both the RTX A6000 and the GTX 1060 5 GB are listed as end-of-life products in the database.

Q: What is the percentile ranking for each card?

A: The RTX A6000 is in the 84th percentile of all GPUs, while the GTX 1060 5 GB is in the 78th percentile. This means the A6000 outperforms a larger share of the database's tested GPUs.

The Verdict

The data is unambiguous: the NVIDIA RTX A6000 is the superior card in every measured benchmark. It wins both head-to-head tests, has a higher average score, and ranks higher in the overall percentile distribution. For anyone needing maximum compute throughput, particularly in OpenCL or Vulkan workloads, the A6000 is the clear choice. Its 480.7% lead in OpenCL and 383.8% lead in Vulkan over the GTX 1060 5 GB are not incremental improvements; they are generational leaps.

The GTX 1060 5 GB, however, should not be dismissed outright. Its average benchmark score of 33694 places it in the same neighborhood as the AMD Radeon RX 480, which is a well-regarded card from the same era. The GTX 1060 5 GB's 78th percentile ranking means it still beats a large fraction of the GPUs in the database. For legacy systems, older games, or light compute tasks, it remains functional. But the data shows no scenario in the head-to-head tests where it comes close to the A6000.

The A6000's nearest rivals, such as the RTX 4070 Ti and RTX 4090 Mobile, have average scores within 2% of its own. This suggests the A6000 is not just a workstation card with a niche appeal; it competes with top-tier consumer and mobile parts. The GTX 1060 5 GB, by contrast, sits alongside the RTX A5000 and RX 7700S, which are mid-range or older workstation and consumer cards. The verdict is straightforward: pick the A6000 for performance, pick the GTX 1060 5 GB only if the workload is minimal and the hardware is already on hand.

Specification Differences

The two cards differ in nearly every specification category. The RTX A6000 uses the GA102 chip on an 8 nm process from Samsung, while the GTX 1060 5 GB uses the GP106 chip on a 16 nm process from TSMC. The A6000 has 28,300 million transistors on a 628 mm² die, giving a transistor density of 45.1 million per mm². The GTX 1060 5 GB has 4,400 million transistors on a 200 mm² die, with a density of 22.0 million per mm². This means the A6000 has over six times the transistor count and a more than double the density.

Clock speeds tell a different story. The GTX 1060 5 GB has a base clock of 1506 MHz and a boost clock of 1709 MHz, while the A6000 has a lower base clock of 1410 MHz but a higher boost clock of 1800 MHz. The memory clocks are similar in base frequency, with the A6000 at 2000 MHz and the GTX 1060 5 GB at 2002 MHz, but the effective data rates differ massively: 16 Gbps for the A6000 versus 8 Gbps for the GTX 1060 5 GB. Memory size is 48 GB of GDDR6 on a 384-bit bus for the A6000, compared to 5 GB of GDDR5 on a 160-bit bus for the GTX 1060 5 GB. Bandwidth is 768.0 GB/s versus 160.2 GB/s.

Compute resources are heavily skewed toward the A6000. It has 10752 shading units, 336 TMUs, 112 ROPs, 84 RT cores, and 336 tensor cores. The GTX 1060 5 GB has 1280 shading units, 80 TMUs, and 40 ROPs, with no RT cores or tensor cores. The A6000's pixel rate is 201.6 GPixel/s and its texture rate is 604.8 GTexel/s, while the GTX 1060 5 GB manages 68.36 GPixel/s and 136.7 GTexel/s. FP32 throughput is 38.71 TFLOPS for the A6000 versus 4.375 TFLOPS for the GTX 1060 5 GB. FP16 performance is 38.71 TFLOPS at a 1:1 ratio for the A6000, while the GTX 1060 5 GB achieves only 68.36 GFLOPS at a 1:64 ratio, a staggeringly large gap for half-precision work.

Power requirements also differ. The A6000 has a TDP of 300 W and requires an 8-pin EPS connector with a suggested 700 W power supply. The GTX 1060 5 GB has a TDP of 120 W, uses a single 6-pin connector, and needs only a 300 W power supply. The A6000 uses PCIe 4.0 x16, while the GTX 1060 5 GB uses PCIe 3.0 x16. Display outputs are 4x DisplayPort 1.4a for the A6000, while the GTX 1060 5 GB offers 1x DVI, 1x HDMI 2.0, and 3x DisplayPort 1.4a. The A6000 supports DirectX 12 Ultimate (12_2), while the GTX 1060 5 GB is limited to DirectX 12 (12_1). Both support OpenGL 4.6 and Vulkan 1.4. Physically, the A6000 is 267 mm long and 112 mm tall, while the GTX 1060 5 GB is 250 mm long. The A6000 was released in October 2020, while the GTX 1060 5 GB came out in December 2017.

Architecture Differences

The architectural gap between the two cards is fundamental. The A6000 is built on the Ampere architecture, while the GTX 1060 5 GB uses Pascal. Ampere is a generation newer, and the process node difference reflects that: 8 nm versus 16 nm. The A6000's GA102 chip is a large, compute-focused design, whereas the GP106 chip in the GTX 1060 5 GB is a smaller, efficiency-oriented part from the GeForce 10-series.

The A6000 includes dedicated RT cores for ray tracing and tensor cores for AI workloads, features that are entirely absent from the GTX 1060 5 GB. This is a hard capability divide. The A6000 can handle hardware-accelerated ray tracing and tensor-based operations, while the GTX 1060 5 GB must rely on software or forgo those tasks entirely. The A6000 also supports DirectX 12 Ultimate, which includes features like ray tracing and variable rate shading, while the GTX 1060 5 GB is capped at DirectX 12 with the 12_1 feature level.

The memory architecture is another key difference. The A6000 uses GDDR6 with a 384-bit bus and 48 GB capacity, which is workstation-class memory provisioning. The GTX 1060 5 GB uses GDDR5 with a 160-bit bus and 5 GB capacity, which was adequate for 1080p gaming in 2017 but is limited for modern workloads. The A6000's FP16 performance at a 1:1 ratio with FP32 indicates it is designed for mixed-precision compute, while the GTX 1060 5 GB's 1:64 FP16 ratio shows it was never intended for half-precision work. The transistor density also tells a story: the A6000 packs 45.1 million transistors per mm², a sign of a dense, modern design, while the GTX 1060 5 GB's 22.0 million per mm² reflects an older, less compact process.

Where Each One Wins

The RTX A6000 wins in every compute scenario recorded in the database. Its OpenCL and Vulkan scores are multiples of the GTX 1060 5 GB's, and its average benchmark score is higher. For tasks like GPU compute, rendering, machine learning inference, or any workload that can use its tensor cores and 48 GB of memory, the A6000 is the only viable choice between the two. Its 84 RT cores and 336 tensor cores give it capabilities that the GTX 1060 5 GB simply cannot match. The A6000 is also better suited for multi-display professional setups, with four DisplayPort outputs, and its PCIe 4.0 interface allows for faster data transfer to the host system.

The GTX 1060 5 GB does not win any head-to-head test, but it has other strengths in the broader context. Its 120 W TDP and single 6-pin power connector make it far easier to install in older or lower-power systems. The 300 W suggested power supply is a fraction of the A6000's 700 W requirement. Its smaller physical footprint, at 250 mm in length, may fit in compact cases where the A6000's 267 mm length could be an issue. The GTX 1060 5 GB also has a higher base clock of 1506 MHz, which gives it a slight advantage in lightly threaded or clock-sensitive tasks, though the A6000's boost clock of 1800 MHz surpasses it. For 1080p gaming from its era, the GTX 1060 5 GB was a capable card, and its 78th percentile ranking indicates it still outperforms many GPUs in the database. However, the head-to-head data shows no scenario where it beats the A6000, so any win for the GTX 1060 5 GB would be limited to compatibility, power draw, or cost of acquisition, none of which are quantified in the benchmark results.