GeForce GTS 150 vs GeForce GTX 970

Intro

Compare that to the GeForce GTX 970, which features a core clock frequency of 1050 MHz and a GDDR5 memory frequency of 1750 MHz. It also features a 256-bit bus, and uses a 28 nm design. It is comprised of 1664 SPUs, 104 Texture Address Units, and 64 Raster Operation Units.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GTS 150		141 Watts
GeForce GTX 970		145 Watts
	Difference: 4 Watts (3%)

Memory Bandwidth

Theoretically speaking, the GeForce GTX 970 will be 600% quicker than the GeForce GTS 150 overall, due to its greater data rate. (explain)

GeForce GTX 970		224000 MB/sec
GeForce GTS 150		32000 MB/sec
	Difference: 192000 (600%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 970 is quite a bit (about 131%) better at anisotropic filtering than the GeForce GTS 150. (explain)

GeForce GTX 970		109200 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GTS 150		47360 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 61840 (131%)

Pixel Rate

The GeForce GTX 970 should be much (more or less 468%) more effective at FSAA than the GeForce GTS 150, and will be capable of handling higher screen resolutions more effectively. (explain)

GeForce GTX 970		67200 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GTS 150		11840 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 55360 (468%)

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: Bandwidth is the largest amount of information (in units of megabytes per second) that can be transferred past the external memory interface in a second. The number is worked out by multiplying the card's bus width by the speed of its memory. In the case of DDR type RAM, it must be multiplied by 2 again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The higher the bandwidth is, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, HDR and high resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum amount of texture map elements (texels) that can be processed per second. This figure is worked out by multiplying the total amount of 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 in one second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the most pixels the video card can possibly record to the local memory in one 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 - aka Render Output Units) are responsible for outputting the pixels (image) to the screen. The actual pixel output rate is also dependant on quite a few other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the ability to get to the max fill rate.