Compare any two graphics cards:

GeForce GTX 460 2GB vs GeForce GTX 970M

Intro

The GeForce GTX 460 2GB has core clock speeds of 675 MHz on the GPU, and 900 MHz on the 2048 MB of GDDR5 RAM. It features 336 SPUs as well as 56 Texture Address Units and 32 ROPs.

Compare all of that 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 RAM. It features 1280 SPUs along with 80 Texture Address Units and 48 Rasterization Operator Units.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

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

As far as performance goes, the GeForce GTX 460 2GB should theoretically be just a bit better than the GeForce GTX 970M in general. (explain)

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

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 970M should be quite a bit (about 96%) better at anisotropic 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 should be quite a bit (about 105%) more effective at anti-aliasing than the GeForce GTX 460 2GB, and will be capable of handling higher screen resolutions while still performing well. (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

Display Prices

Hide Prices

GeForce GTX 460 2GB

Amazon.com

Check prices at:

GeForce GTX 970M

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.

Specifications

Display Specifications

Hide Specifications

Model	GeForce GTX 460 2GB	GeForce GTX 970M
Manufacturer	nVidia	nVidia
Year	July 2010	October 7 2014
Code Name	GF104	GM204
Memory	2048 MB	3072 MB
Core Speed	675 MHz	924 MHz
Memory Speed	3600 MHz	4000 MHz
Power (Max TDP)	160 watts	75 watts
Bandwidth	115200 MB/sec	96000 MB/sec
Texel Rate	37800 Mtexels/sec	73920 Mtexels/sec
Pixel Rate	21600 Mpixels/sec	44352 Mpixels/sec
Unified Shaders	336	1280
Texture Mapping Units	56	80
Render Output Units	32	48
Bus Type	GDDR5	GDDR5
Bus Width	256-bit	192-bit
Fab Process	40 nm	28 nm
Transistors	1950 million	(Unknown) million
Bus	PCIe x16	PCIe 3.0 x16
DirectX Version	DirectX 11	DirectX 12
OpenGL Version	OpenGL 4.1	OpenGL 4.5

Memory Bandwidth: Memory bandwidth is the maximum amount of information (in units of MB per second) that can be transferred past the external memory interface in a second. It's worked out by multiplying the card's interface width by the speed of its memory. In the case of DDR type memory, it should be multiplied by 2 again. If DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The better 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 number of texture map elements (texels) that are processed per second. This figure is calculated by multiplying the total number of texture units by the core clock speed of the chip. The better the texel rate, the better the video card will be at texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels processed per second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the most pixels the graphics card could possibly write to its local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is worked out by multiplying the amount of Render Output Units by the the card's clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also sometimes called Render Output Units) are responsible for drawing the pixels (image) on the screen. The actual pixel rate is also dependant on lots of other factors, especially the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the potential to reach the maximum fill rate.

Display Prices

Hide Prices