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GeForce GTX 960 vs GeForce GTX 970

Intro

The GeForce GTX 960 comes with core clock speeds of 1127 MHz on the GPU, and 1750 MHz on the 2048 MB of GDDR5 memory. It features 1024 SPUs as well as 64 Texture Address Units and 32 ROPs.

Compare those specifications to the GeForce GTX 970, which makes use of a 28 nm design. nVidia has set the core speed at 1050 MHz. The GDDR5 RAM runs at a speed of 1750 MHz on this particular card. It features 1664 SPUs as well as 104 Texture Address Units and 64 Rasterization Operator Units.

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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 970 10867 points
GeForce GTX 960 7627 points
Difference: 3240 (42%)

Zcash Mining Hash Rate

GeForce GTX 970 262 Sol/s
GeForce GTX 960 154 Sol/s
Difference: 108 (70%)

Ethereum Mining Hash Rate

GeForce GTX 970 19 Mh/s
GeForce GTX 960 11 Mh/s
Difference: 8 (73%)

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GTX 960 120 Watts
GeForce GTX 970 145 Watts
Difference: 25 Watts (21%)

Memory Bandwidth

The GeForce GTX 970 should in theory perform much faster than the GeForce GTX 960 in general. (explain)

GeForce GTX 970 224000 MB/sec
GeForce GTX 960 112000 MB/sec
Difference: 112000 (100%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 970 is quite a bit (approximately 51%) more effective at texture filtering than the GeForce GTX 960. (explain)

GeForce GTX 970 109200 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GTX 960 72128 Mtexels/sec
Difference: 37072 (51%)

Pixel Rate

The GeForce GTX 970 is quite a bit (more or less 86%) better at anti-aliasing than the GeForce GTX 960, and capable of handling higher screen resolutions without slowing down too much. (explain)

GeForce GTX 970 67200 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GTX 960 36064 Mpixels/sec
Difference: 31136 (86%)

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 960

Amazon.com

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GeForce GTX 970

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 960 GeForce GTX 970
Manufacturer nVidia nVidia
Year January 2015 September 2014
Code Name GM206 GM204-200
Memory 2048 MB 4096 MB
Core Speed 1127 MHz 1050 MHz
Memory Speed 7000 MHz 7000 MHz
Power (Max TDP) 120 watts 145 watts
Bandwidth 112000 MB/sec 224000 MB/sec
Texel Rate 72128 Mtexels/sec 109200 Mtexels/sec
Pixel Rate 36064 Mpixels/sec 67200 Mpixels/sec
Unified Shaders 1024 1664
Texture Mapping Units 64 104
Render Output Units 32 64
Bus Type GDDR5 GDDR5
Bus Width 128-bit 256-bit
Fab Process 28 nm 28 nm
Transistors 2940 million 5200 million
Bus PCIe 3.0 x16 PCIe 3.0 x16
DirectX Version DirectX 12.0 DirectX 11.2
OpenGL Version OpenGL 4.5 OpenGL 4.5

Memory Bandwidth: Bandwidth is the max amount of information (measured in MB per second) that can be transported across the external memory interface in a second. The number is calculated by multiplying the interface width by its memory clock speed. 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 higher screen resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum texture map elements (texels) that can be applied in one second. This number is calculated by multiplying the total texture units of the card by the core clock speed of the chip. The better this number, the better the 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 number of pixels that the graphics card can possibly record to the local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is worked out by multiplying the amount of Render Output Units 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 fill rate is also dependant on lots of other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the ability to get to the max fill rate.

Display Prices

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GeForce GTX 960

Amazon.com

Check prices at:

GeForce GTX 970

Amazon.com

Check prices at:

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

2 Responses to “GeForce GTX 960 vs GeForce GTX 970”
Lonewolf says:

GTX 970 is a DX 12 card not DX 11.

Hisham Ramzan says:

GTX 970 is the best choice when comparing it with GTX 960 & GTX 980

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