GeForce 9800 GT 1GB vs GeForce GTX 970M

Intro

Compare that 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 TAUs and 48 Rasterization Operator Units.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GTX 970M		75 Watts
GeForce 9800 GT 1GB		105 Watts
	Difference: 30 Watts (40%)

Memory Bandwidth

Theoretically, the GeForce GTX 970M should be a lot faster than the GeForce 9800 GT 1GB in general. (explain)

GeForce GTX 970M		96000 MB/sec
GeForce 9800 GT 1GB		57600 MB/sec
	Difference: 38400 (67%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 970M should be quite a bit (more or less 120%) better at texture filtering than the GeForce 9800 GT 1GB. (explain)

GeForce GTX 970M		73920 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 9800 GT 1GB		33600 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 40320 (120%)

Pixel Rate

The GeForce GTX 970M should be much (more or less 362%) more effective at anti-aliasing than the GeForce 9800 GT 1GB, and also will be capable of handling higher resolutions while still performing well. (explain)

GeForce GTX 970M		44352 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 9800 GT 1GB		9600 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 34752 (362%)

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 max amount of information (in units of megabytes per second) that can be transferred across the external memory interface in a second. It's worked out by multiplying the card's bus width by the speed of its memory. If the card has DDR type memory, it must be multiplied by 2 again. If DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The higher the card's memory bandwidth, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, HDR and higher screen resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum amount of texture map elements (texels) that are processed in one second. This figure is worked out by multiplying the total number of texture units by the core clock speed of the chip. The better this number, the better the 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 number of pixels the video card can possibly write to its local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is calculated by multiplying the amount of Render Output Units 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 fill rate is also dependant on many other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the ability to reach the max fill rate.