GeForce GTX 970M vs GeForce GTX 980

Intro

Compare those specs to the GeForce GTX 980, which makes use of a 28 nm design. nVidia has set the core speed at 1126 MHz. The GDDR5 memory runs at a speed of 1750 MHz on this specific model. It features 2048 SPUs as well as 128 Texture Address Units and 64 Rasterization Operator Units.

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 970M		7520 points
	Difference: 6032 (80%)

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GTX 970M		75 Watts
GeForce GTX 980		165 Watts
	Difference: 90 Watts (120%)

Memory Bandwidth

In theory, the GeForce GTX 980 should be much faster than the GeForce GTX 970M overall. (explain)

GeForce GTX 980		224000 MB/sec
GeForce GTX 970M		96000 MB/sec
	Difference: 128000 (133%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 980 should be a lot (more or less 95%) more effective at texture filtering than the GeForce GTX 970M. (explain)

GeForce GTX 980		144128 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GTX 970M		73920 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 70208 (95%)

Pixel Rate

If using high levels of AA is important to you, then the GeForce GTX 980 is the winner, by far. (explain)

GeForce GTX 980		72064 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GTX 970M		44352 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 27712 (62%)

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: Memory bandwidth is the max amount of information (in units of MB per second) that can be transported past the external memory interface in one second. It's calculated by multiplying the card's interface width by the speed of its memory. If the card has DDR type memory, it must be multiplied by 2 once again. If DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The higher the card's memory bandwidth, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, HDR and high resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum number of texture map elements (texels) that can be processed in one second. This number is worked out by multiplying the total number of texture units of the card by the core clock speed of the chip. The better the texel rate, the better the 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 amount of pixels the graphics card could possibly record to the local memory in a 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 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 rate is also dependant on lots of other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the potential to reach the max fill rate.