Compare any two graphics cards:
VS

GeForce GTX 660 vs GeForce GTX 970

Intro

The GeForce GTX 660 has a GPU core clock speed of 980 MHz, and the 2048 MB of GDDR5 memory is set to run at 1502 MHz through a 192-bit bus. It also features 960 SPUs, 80 Texture Address Units, and 24 Raster Operation Units.

Compare all of that to the GeForce GTX 970, which has GPU core speed of 1050 MHz, and 4096 MB of GDDR5 RAM set to run at 1750 MHz through a 256-bit bus. It also is made up of 1664 SPUs, 104 TAUs, and 64 Raster Operation Units.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Benchmarks

These are real-world performance benchmarks that were submitted by Hardware Compare users. The scores seen here are the average of all benchmarks submitted for each respective test and hardware.

3DMark Fire Strike Graphics Score

GeForce GTX 970 10867 points
GeForce GTX 660 5063 points
Difference: 5804 (115%)

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GTX 660 140 Watts
GeForce GTX 970 145 Watts
Difference: 5 Watts (4%)

Memory Bandwidth

As far as performance goes, the GeForce GTX 970 should theoretically be quite a bit superior to the GeForce GTX 660 overall. (explain)

GeForce GTX 970 224000 MB/sec
GeForce GTX 660 144192 MB/sec
Difference: 79808 (55%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 970 should be much (about 39%) more effective at anisotropic filtering than the GeForce GTX 660. (explain)

GeForce GTX 970 109200 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GTX 660 78400 Mtexels/sec
Difference: 30800 (39%)

Pixel Rate

The GeForce GTX 970 should be a lot (more or less 186%) more effective at AA than the GeForce GTX 660, and capable of handling higher resolutions while still performing well. (explain)

GeForce GTX 970 67200 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GTX 660 23520 Mpixels/sec
Difference: 43680 (186%)

Please note that the above 'benchmarks' are all just theoretical - the results were calculated based on the card's specifications, and real-world performance may (and probably will) vary at least a bit.

Price Comparison

Display Prices

Hide Prices

GeForce GTX 660

Amazon.com

Check prices at:

GeForce GTX 970

Amazon.com

Check prices at:

Please note that the price comparisons are based on search keywords - sometimes it might show cards with very similar names that are not exactly the same as the one chosen in the comparison. We do try to filter out the wrong results as best we can, though.

Specifications

Display Specifications

Hide Specifications

Model GeForce GTX 660 GeForce GTX 970
Manufacturer nVidia nVidia
Year September 2012 September 2014
Code Name GK106 GM204-200
Memory 2048 MB 4096 MB
Core Speed 980 MHz 1050 MHz
Memory Speed 6008 MHz 7000 MHz
Power (Max TDP) 140 watts 145 watts
Bandwidth 144192 MB/sec 224000 MB/sec
Texel Rate 78400 Mtexels/sec 109200 Mtexels/sec
Pixel Rate 23520 Mpixels/sec 67200 Mpixels/sec
Unified Shaders 960 1664
Texture Mapping Units 80 104
Render Output Units 24 64
Bus Type GDDR5 GDDR5
Bus Width 192-bit 256-bit
Fab Process 28 nm 28 nm
Transistors 2540 million 5200 million
Bus PCIe 3.0 x16 PCIe 3.0 x16
DirectX Version DirectX 11.0 DirectX 11.2
OpenGL Version OpenGL 4.3 OpenGL 4.5

Memory Bandwidth: Memory bandwidth is the max amount of data (counted in megabytes per second) that can be moved across the external memory interface in one second. The number is calculated by multiplying the bus width by its memory speed. In the case of DDR memory, it must be multiplied by 2 again. If DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The better the bandwidth is, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, HDR and higher screen resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum number of texture map elements (texels) that are processed per second. This figure is worked out by multiplying the total texture units of the card by the core clock speed of the chip. The better the texel rate, the better the graphics card will be at texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels applied per second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the most pixels the video card can possibly write to its local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is worked out by multiplying the amount of Render Output Units by the clock speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also called Render Output Units) are responsible for outputting the pixels (image) to the screen. The actual pixel rate also depends on lots of other factors, especially the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the potential to reach the max fill rate.

Display Prices

Hide Prices

GeForce GTX 660

Amazon.com

Check prices at:

GeForce GTX 970

Amazon.com

Check prices at:

Please note that the price comparisons are based on search keywords - sometimes it might show cards with very similar names that are not exactly the same as the one chosen in the comparison. We do try to filter out the wrong results as best we can, though.

Comments

Be the first to leave a comment!

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *


*

WordPress Anti Spam by WP-SpamShield