GeForce GTX 470 vs GeForce GTX 980

Intro

Compare all that to the GeForce GTX 980, which uses a 28 nm design. nVidia has clocked the core speed at 1126 MHz. The GDDR5 memory runs at a speed of 1750 MHz on this model. It features 2048 SPUs along with 128 TAUs 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 980		13552 points
GeForce GTX 470		2937 points
	Difference: 10615 (361%)

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GTX 980		165 Watts
GeForce GTX 470		215 Watts
	Difference: 50 Watts (30%)

Memory Bandwidth

Performance-wise, the GeForce GTX 980 should theoretically be quite a bit better than the GeForce GTX 470 overall. (explain)

GeForce GTX 980		224000 MB/sec
GeForce GTX 470		133920 MB/sec
	Difference: 90080 (67%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 980 is quite a bit (about 324%) better at AF than the GeForce GTX 470. (explain)

GeForce GTX 980		144128 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GTX 470		33992 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 110136 (324%)

Pixel Rate

If running with a high resolution is important to you, then the GeForce GTX 980 is a better choice, and very much so. (explain)

GeForce GTX 980		72064 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GTX 470		24280 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 47784 (197%)

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 maximum amount of information (counted in megabytes per second) that can be transported across the external memory interface in a second. It is calculated by multiplying the bus width by its memory speed. In the case of DDR RAM, it should be multiplied by 2 again. If DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The higher the card's memory bandwidth, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, HDR and higher screen resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum texture map elements (texels) that can be processed per second. This 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 handling texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels processed per second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum number of pixels that the graphics chip can possibly record to the local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is calculated by multiplying the number of colour ROPs by the the core speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also sometimes called Render Output Units) are responsible for filling the screen with pixels (the image). The actual pixel output rate also depends on quite a few other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the potential to get to the maximum fill rate.