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GeForce GTX 260 216SP 55 nm vs GeForce GTX 970M

Intro

The GeForce GTX 260 216SP 55 nm features a clock speed of 576 MHz and a GDDR3 memory frequency of 999 MHz. It also features a 448-bit bus, and makes use of a 55 nm design. It features 216 SPUs, 72 Texture Address Units, and 28 Raster Operation Units.

Compare those specifications to the GeForce GTX 970M, which features 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.

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GTX 970M		75 Watts
GeForce GTX 260 216SP 55 nm		171 Watts
	Difference: 96 Watts (128%)

Memory Bandwidth

The GeForce GTX 260 216SP 55 nm, in theory, should be just a bit faster than the GeForce GTX 970M in general. (explain)

GeForce GTX 260 216SP 55 nm		111888 MB/sec
GeForce GTX 970M		96000 MB/sec
	Difference: 15888 (17%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 970M should be much (approximately 78%) better at AF than the GeForce GTX 260 216SP 55 nm. (explain)

GeForce GTX 970M		73920 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GTX 260 216SP 55 nm		41472 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 32448 (78%)

Pixel Rate

The GeForce GTX 970M is quite a bit (about 175%) more effective at FSAA than the GeForce GTX 260 216SP 55 nm, and also capable of handling higher screen resolutions without slowing down too much. (explain)

GeForce GTX 970M		44352 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GTX 260 216SP 55 nm		16128 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 28224 (175%)

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

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GeForce GTX 260 216SP 55 nm

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Specifications

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Model	GeForce GTX 260 216SP 55 nm	GeForce GTX 970M
Manufacturer	nVidia	nVidia
Year	December 22, 2008	October 7 2014
Code Name	G200b	GM204
Memory	896 MB	3072 MB
Core Speed	576 MHz	924 MHz
Memory Speed	1998 MHz	4000 MHz
Power (Max TDP)	171 watts	75 watts
Bandwidth	111888 MB/sec	96000 MB/sec
Texel Rate	41472 Mtexels/sec	73920 Mtexels/sec
Pixel Rate	16128 Mpixels/sec	44352 Mpixels/sec
Unified Shaders	216	1280
Texture Mapping Units	72	80
Render Output Units	28	48
Bus Type	GDDR3	GDDR5
Bus Width	448-bit	192-bit
Fab Process	55 nm	28 nm
Transistors	1400 million	(Unknown) million
Bus	PCIe x16 2.0	PCIe 3.0 x16
DirectX Version	DirectX 10	DirectX 12
OpenGL Version	OpenGL 3.1	OpenGL 4.5

Memory Bandwidth: Memory bandwidth is the largest amount of data (measured in MB per second) that can be transported across the external memory interface in a second. The number is worked out by multiplying the bus width by the speed of its memory. In the case of DDR type memory, it should be multiplied by 2 once again. If DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The better the memory bandwidth, the better 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 applied per second. This number is worked out by multiplying the total texture units of the card by the core speed of the chip. The higher this number, the better the graphics card will be at handling texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels in a second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the most pixels that the graphics chip can possibly record to its local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is calculated by multiplying the amount of ROPs by the the card's clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - aka Render Output Units) are responsible for outputting the pixels (image) to the screen. The actual pixel output rate also depends on quite a few other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the potential to reach the maximum fill rate.

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