GeForce GTX 460 2GB vs GeForce GTX 970M

Intro

Compare those specifications to the GeForce GTX 970M, which features core clock speeds of 924 MHz on the GPU, and 1000 MHz on the 3072 MB of GDDR5 memory. It features 1280 SPUs along with 80 Texture Address Units and 48 Rasterization Operator Units.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GTX 970M		75 Watts
GeForce GTX 460 2GB		160 Watts
	Difference: 85 Watts (113%)

Memory Bandwidth

The GeForce GTX 460 2GB should in theory be just a bit faster than the GeForce GTX 970M overall. (explain)

GeForce GTX 460 2GB		115200 MB/sec
GeForce GTX 970M		96000 MB/sec
	Difference: 19200 (20%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 970M will be quite a bit (approximately 96%) more effective at texture filtering than the GeForce GTX 460 2GB. (explain)

GeForce GTX 970M		73920 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GTX 460 2GB		37800 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 36120 (96%)

Pixel Rate

The GeForce GTX 970M will be much (approximately 105%) more effective at FSAA than the GeForce GTX 460 2GB, and also will be able to handle higher resolutions more effectively. (explain)

GeForce GTX 970M		44352 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GTX 460 2GB		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: Bandwidth is the maximum amount of information (counted in MB per second) that can be transferred across the external memory interface within a second. The number is worked out by multiplying the card's interface width by its memory clock speed. If it uses DDR memory, it must be multiplied by 2 again. If DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The higher the bandwidth is, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, High Dynamic Range 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 this number, the better the graphics card will be at texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels per second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the most pixels the graphics card can possibly record to its local memory in one 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 sometimes called 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 bandwidth is, the lower the ability to reach the maximum fill rate.