GeForce GTX 970M vs Geforce GTX 680

Intro

Compare that to the Geforce GTX 680, which features GPU core speed of 1006 MHz, and 2048 MB of GDDR5 memory set to run at 1502 MHz through a 256-bit bus. It also features 1536 Stream Processors, 128 Texture Address Units, 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 680		7650 points
GeForce GTX 970M		7520 points
	Difference: 130 (2%)

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GTX 970M		75 Watts
Geforce GTX 680		195 Watts
	Difference: 120 Watts (160%)

Memory Bandwidth

Theoretically, the Geforce GTX 680 should perform quite a bit faster than the GeForce GTX 970M overall. (explain)

Geforce GTX 680		192256 MB/sec
GeForce GTX 970M		96000 MB/sec
	Difference: 96256 (100%)

Texel Rate

The Geforce GTX 680 should be a lot (approximately 74%) faster with regards to anisotropic filtering than the GeForce GTX 970M. (explain)

Geforce GTX 680		128768 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GTX 970M		73920 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 54848 (74%)

Pixel Rate

If running with high levels of AA is important to you, then the GeForce GTX 970M is the winner, and very much so. (explain)

GeForce GTX 970M		44352 Mpixels/sec
Geforce GTX 680		32192 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 12160 (38%)

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

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum number of texture map elements (texels) that can be processed per second. This is calculated by multiplying the total texture units by the core speed of the chip. The better this number, the better the video card will be at texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels in a second.

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