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GeForce GTX 970 vs GeForce GTX 980

Intro

The GeForce GTX 970 uses a 28 nm design. nVidia has set the core frequency at 1050 MHz. The GDDR5 RAM is set to run at a frequency of 1750 MHz on this particular model. It features 1664 SPUs as well as 104 TAUs and 64 Rasterization Operator Units.

Compare that to the GeForce GTX 980, which features core speeds of 1126 MHz on the GPU, and 1750 MHz on the 4096 MB of GDDR5 RAM. It features 2048 SPUs along with 128 TAUs and 64 ROPs.

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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 980 13552 points
GeForce GTX 970 10867 points
Difference: 2685 (25%)

Zcash Mining Hash Rate

GeForce GTX 980 408 Sol/s
GeForce GTX 970 262 Sol/s
Difference: 146 (56%)

Ethereum Mining Hash Rate

GeForce GTX 980 20 Mh/s
GeForce GTX 970 19 Mh/s
Difference: 1 (5%)

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GTX 970 145 Watts
GeForce GTX 980 165 Watts
Difference: 20 Watts (14%)

Memory Bandwidth

Both cards have exactly the same memory bandwidth, so theoretically they should have identical performance. (explain)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 980 will be quite a bit (more or less 32%) faster with regards to anisotropic filtering than the GeForce GTX 970. (explain)

GeForce GTX 980 144128 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GTX 970 109200 Mtexels/sec
Difference: 34928 (32%)

Pixel Rate

If using a high screen resolution is important to you, then the GeForce GTX 980 is a better choice, not by a very large margin though. (explain)

GeForce GTX 980 72064 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GTX 970 67200 Mpixels/sec
Difference: 4864 (7%)

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

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GeForce GTX 970

Amazon.com

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GeForce GTX 980

Amazon.com

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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

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Model GeForce GTX 970 GeForce GTX 980
Manufacturer nVidia nVidia
Year September 2014 September 2014
Code Name GM204-200 GM204-400
Memory 4096 MB 4096 MB
Core Speed 1050 MHz 1126 MHz
Memory Speed 7000 MHz 7000 MHz
Power (Max TDP) 145 watts 165 watts
Bandwidth 224000 MB/sec 224000 MB/sec
Texel Rate 109200 Mtexels/sec 144128 Mtexels/sec
Pixel Rate 67200 Mpixels/sec 72064 Mpixels/sec
Unified Shaders 1664 2048
Texture Mapping Units 104 128
Render Output Units 64 64
Bus Type GDDR5 GDDR5
Bus Width 256-bit 256-bit
Fab Process 28 nm 28 nm
Transistors 5200 million 5200 million
Bus PCIe 3.0 x16 PCIe 3.0 x16
DirectX Version DirectX 11.2 DirectX 11.2
OpenGL Version OpenGL 4.5 OpenGL 4.5

Memory Bandwidth: Bandwidth is the largest amount of data (counted in MB per second) that can be transported across the external memory interface in one second. It's worked out by multiplying the card's interface width by its memory clock speed. If the card has DDR type RAM, the result should be multiplied by 2 again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The better the bandwidth is, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, HDR and high resolutions.

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

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the most pixels that the graphics chip could possibly write to the local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is worked out by multiplying the number of Render Output Units 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, especially the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the potential to reach the max fill rate.

Display Prices

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GeForce GTX 970

Amazon.com

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GeForce GTX 980

Amazon.com

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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

5 Responses to “GeForce GTX 970 vs GeForce GTX 980”
ROFLBOY says:

980 shit value oc 970 cheap

KHAWAR ZAMAN says:

very good. but i love gigabyte 760 and gigabyte R9-280x

But it is less 384bit. 384bit graphics cards can run game smootly

Hisham Ramzan says:

Huge price difference for a small performance difference,
I say GTX 970 is the best choice

Justin Miller says:

It's not that the GTX 980 is over priced it's that the gtx 970 represents the better value and is under priced here. They really have a gem with the 970 for price to performance.

Ivan says:

Agree, 970 is the best for it's price. 960 and 950 have small memory bandwidth, so i don't pay attention for them.

Also Ge Force 9** are the last nVidia 's cards with Windows Xp drivers (using edited *.inf).

Speculators sell 980 for horse-sized price, and 970 (unpacked, new) is very hard to find at shops.

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