GeForce GTX 550 Ti vs GeForce GTX 970M

Intro

Compare all that to the GeForce GTX 970M, which features core speeds of 924 MHz on the GPU, and 1000 MHz on the 3072 MB of GDDR5 RAM. It features 1280 SPUs as well as 80 TAUs and 48 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 970M		7520 points
GeForce GTX 550 Ti		1897 points
	Difference: 5623 (296%)

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GTX 970M		75 Watts
GeForce GTX 550 Ti		116 Watts
	Difference: 41 Watts (55%)

Memory Bandwidth

In theory, the GeForce GTX 550 Ti should be 3% quicker than the GeForce GTX 970M overall, because of its greater bandwidth. (explain)

GeForce GTX 550 Ti		98496 MB/sec
GeForce GTX 970M		96000 MB/sec
	Difference: 2496 (3%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 970M should be much (more or less 157%) better at AF than the GeForce GTX 550 Ti. (explain)

GeForce GTX 970M		73920 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GTX 550 Ti		28800 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 45120 (157%)

Pixel Rate

The GeForce GTX 970M is much (approximately 105%) more effective at full screen anti-aliasing than the GeForce GTX 550 Ti, and should be able to handle higher resolutions while still performing well. (explain)

GeForce GTX 970M		44352 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GTX 550 Ti		21600 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 22752 (105%)

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 maximum amount of information (measured in megabytes per second) that can be moved past the external memory interface in one second. It is worked out by multiplying the interface width by the speed of its memory. If it uses DDR memory, it should be multiplied by 2 again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The better the memory bandwidth, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, HDR and high resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum number of texture map elements (texels) that are processed per second. This is worked out 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 video card will be at texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels processed in one second.

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