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

Intro

The GeForce GTX 260 216SP 55 nm uses a 55 nm design. nVidia has clocked the core speed at 576 MHz. The GDDR3 memory is set to run at a frequency of 999 MHz on this card. It features 216 SPUs along with 72 TAUs and 28 Rasterization Operator Units.

Compare those specs to the GeForce GTX 970M, which uses a 28 nm design. nVidia has clocked the core frequency at 924 MHz. The GDDR5 RAM works at a speed of 1000 MHz on this card. It features 1280 SPUs along with 80 TAUs 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

Performance-wise, the GeForce GTX 260 216SP 55 nm should in theory be a small bit superior to 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 will be a lot (about 78%) faster with regards to anisotropic filtering 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

If running with lots of anti-aliasing 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 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 maximum amount of data (in units of megabytes per second) that can be transported across the external memory interface in one second. The number is calculated by multiplying the bus width by its memory clock speed. If it uses DDR memory, it should be multiplied by 2 again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The higher the memory bandwidth, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, HDR and high resolutions.

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

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum number of pixels the video card can possibly record to its local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is worked out by multiplying the number of colour ROPs by the clock speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also called Render Output Units) are responsible for drawing the pixels (image) on the screen. The actual pixel fill rate is also dependant on lots of other factors, especially the memory bandwidth - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the potential to get to the maximum fill rate.

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