GeForce GTX 590 vs GeForce GTX 970

Intro

Compare that to the GeForce GTX 970, which makes use of a 28 nm design. nVidia has set the core frequency at 1050 MHz. The GDDR5 RAM runs at a speed of 1750 MHz on this specific model. It features 1664 SPUs as well as 104 TAUs and 64 ROPs.

Display Graphs

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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 590		6680 points
	Difference: 4187 (63%)

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GTX 970		145 Watts
GeForce GTX 590		365 Watts
	Difference: 220 Watts (152%)

Memory Bandwidth

In theory, the GeForce GTX 590 should be quite a bit faster than the GeForce GTX 970 overall. (explain)

GeForce GTX 590		328320 MB/sec
GeForce GTX 970		224000 MB/sec
	Difference: 104320 (47%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 970 is quite a bit (approximately 41%) more effective at AF than the GeForce GTX 590. (explain)

GeForce GTX 970		109200 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GTX 590		77696 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 31504 (41%)

Pixel Rate

The GeForce GTX 970 should be just a bit (more or less 15%) faster with regards to FSAA than the GeForce GTX 590, and also should be able to handle higher resolutions more effectively. (explain)

GeForce GTX 970		67200 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GTX 590		58272 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 8928 (15%)

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.

One or more cards in this comparison are multi-core. This means that their bandwidth, texel and pixel rates are theoretically doubled - this does not mean the card will actually perform twice as fast, but only that it should in theory be able to. Actual game benchmarks will give a more accurate idea of what it's capable of.

Price Comparison

Specifications

Memory Bandwidth: Bandwidth is the maximum amount of information (measured in megabytes per second) that can be transferred across the external memory interface in a second. The number is calculated by multiplying the bus width by the speed of its memory. In the case of DDR type RAM, it should be multiplied by 2 once again. If DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The higher the bandwidth is, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, High Dynamic Range and higher screen resolutions.

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

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum number of pixels that the graphics card could possibly record to the local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is worked out by multiplying the amount of Render Output Units by the clock speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also sometimes called Render Output Units) are responsible for filling the screen with pixels (the image). The actual pixel fill rate also depends on quite a few other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the potential to reach the max fill rate.