GeForce GTX 260 vs GeForce GTX 970

Intro

Compare those specs to the GeForce GTX 970, which uses a 28 nm design. nVidia has clocked the core frequency at 1050 MHz. The GDDR5 RAM works at a speed of 1750 MHz on this model. It features 1664 SPUs along with 104 Texture Address Units and 64 Rasterization Operator Units.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GTX 970		145 Watts
GeForce GTX 260		182 Watts
	Difference: 37 Watts (26%)

Memory Bandwidth

In theory, the GeForce GTX 970 should be quite a bit faster than the GeForce GTX 260 overall. (explain)

GeForce GTX 970		224000 MB/sec
GeForce GTX 260		111888 MB/sec
	Difference: 112112 (100%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 970 will be quite a bit (about 196%) more effective at anisotropic filtering than the GeForce GTX 260. (explain)

GeForce GTX 970		109200 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GTX 260		36864 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 72336 (196%)

Pixel Rate

If running with lots of anti-aliasing is important to you, then the GeForce GTX 970 is superior to the GeForce GTX 260, by a large margin. (explain)

GeForce GTX 970		67200 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GTX 260		16128 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 51072 (317%)

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 (counted in MB per second) that can be moved across the external memory interface within a second. It is calculated by multiplying the interface width by its memory speed. In the case of DDR type RAM, the result should be multiplied by 2 again. If DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The higher the bandwidth is, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, High Dynamic Range and high resolutions.

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

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