GeForce GTX 460 vs GeForce GTX 970

Intro

Compare those specifications to the GeForce GTX 970, which has GPU core speed of 1050 MHz, and 4096 MB of GDDR5 memory set to run at 1750 MHz through a 256-bit bus. It also is comprised of 1664 SPUs, 104 Texture Address Units, 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 460		2557 points
	Difference: 8310 (325%)

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GTX 970		145 Watts
GeForce GTX 460		150 Watts
	Difference: 5 Watts (3%)

Memory Bandwidth

The GeForce GTX 970 should theoretically be quite a bit faster than the GeForce GTX 460 overall. (explain)

GeForce GTX 970		224000 MB/sec
GeForce GTX 460		86400 MB/sec
	Difference: 137600 (159%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 970 will be a lot (approximately 189%) better at AF than the GeForce GTX 460. (explain)

GeForce GTX 970		109200 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GTX 460		37800 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 71400 (189%)

Pixel Rate

The GeForce GTX 970 will be much (about 315%) better at anti-aliasing than the GeForce GTX 460, and also capable of handling higher resolutions better. (explain)

GeForce GTX 970		67200 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GTX 460		16200 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 51000 (315%)

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

Specifications

Memory Bandwidth: Memory bandwidth is the largest amount of data (measured in megabytes per second) that can be transported over the external memory interface in a second. It is worked out by multiplying the interface width by its memory clock speed. If the card has DDR type RAM, it must be multiplied by 2 again. If DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The higher the bandwidth is, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, High Dynamic Range and higher screen resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum amount of texture map elements (texels) that are applied in one second. This figure is calculated by multiplying the total number of texture units of the card by the core 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 processed in a second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum number of pixels the graphics card could possibly record to the local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is calculated by multiplying the amount of colour ROPs by the the card's clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also called Render Output Units) are responsible for drawing the pixels (image) on the screen. The actual pixel fill rate is also dependant on quite a few other factors, especially the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the ability to reach the max fill rate.