GeForce GTX 980 vs Geforce GTX 680

Intro

Compare those specifications to the Geforce GTX 680, which features a GPU core clock speed of 1006 MHz, and 2048 MB of GDDR5 RAM running at 1502 MHz through a 256-bit bus. It also is made up of 1536 Stream Processors, 128 TAUs, and 32 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 980		13552 points
Geforce GTX 680		7650 points
	Difference: 5902 (77%)

Grand Theft Auto V | 1920x1080 | Very High

GeForce GTX 980		63 FPS
Geforce GTX 680		38 FPS
	Difference: 25 (66%)

Ethereum Mining Hash Rate

GeForce GTX 980		20 Mh/s
Geforce GTX 680		16 Mh/s
	Difference: 4 (25%)

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GTX 980		165 Watts
Geforce GTX 680		195 Watts
	Difference: 30 Watts (18%)

Memory Bandwidth

Theoretically speaking, the GeForce GTX 980 is 17% faster than the Geforce GTX 680 overall, because of its greater bandwidth. (explain)

GeForce GTX 980		224000 MB/sec
Geforce GTX 680		192256 MB/sec
	Difference: 31744 (17%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 980 is a little bit (about 12%) faster with regards to AF than the Geforce GTX 680. (explain)

GeForce GTX 980		144128 Mtexels/sec
Geforce GTX 680		128768 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 15360 (12%)

Pixel Rate

If using lots of anti-aliasing is important to you, then the GeForce GTX 980 is the winner, by far. (explain)

GeForce GTX 980		72064 Mpixels/sec
Geforce GTX 680		32192 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 39872 (124%)

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 max amount of information (counted in megabytes per second) that can be transferred over the external memory interface within a second. It's worked out by multiplying the card's interface width by its memory speed. If it uses DDR type RAM, it should be multiplied by 2 once again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. 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 number of texture map elements (texels) that are processed in one second. This number is calculated by multiplying the total number of texture units of the card by the core speed of the chip. The higher the texel rate, the better the card will be at handling texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels processed in one second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum number of pixels the graphics card can possibly record to its local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is calculated by multiplying the number of ROPs by the the card's clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - sometimes also referred to as Render Output Units) are responsible for outputting the pixels (image) to the screen. The actual pixel output rate also depends on many other factors, especially the memory bandwidth - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the ability to reach the max fill rate.