GeForce 8800 Ultra vs GeForce GTX 970M

Intro

Compare those specs to the GeForce GTX 970M, which has a core clock frequency of 924 MHz and a GDDR5 memory speed of 1000 MHz. It also uses a 192-bit bus, and makes use of a 28 nm design. It is made up of 1280 SPUs, 80 TAUs, and 48 Raster Operation Units.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GTX 970M		75 Watts
GeForce 8800 Ultra		171 Watts
	Difference: 96 Watts (128%)

Memory Bandwidth

Theoretically speaking, the GeForce 8800 Ultra should perform a small bit faster than the GeForce GTX 970M overall. (explain)

GeForce 8800 Ultra		103680 MB/sec
GeForce GTX 970M		96000 MB/sec
	Difference: 7680 (8%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 970M will be quite a bit (more or less 89%) better at AF than the GeForce 8800 Ultra. (explain)

GeForce GTX 970M		73920 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 8800 Ultra		39168 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 34752 (89%)

Pixel Rate

If running with high levels of AA is important to you, then the GeForce GTX 970M is superior to the GeForce 8800 Ultra, by a large margin. (explain)

GeForce GTX 970M		44352 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 8800 Ultra		14688 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 29664 (202%)

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: Memory bandwidth is the max amount of data (counted in megabytes per second) that can be transferred over the external memory interface in a second. The number is calculated by multiplying the interface width by the speed of its memory. In the case of DDR RAM, it must be multiplied by 2 once again. If DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The better the bandwidth is, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, High Dynamic Range and high resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum texture map elements (texels) that can be applied in one second. This is calculated by multiplying the total amount 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 applied in one second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the most pixels the graphics card could possibly write to its local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is worked out by multiplying the number of Raster Operations Pipelines by the the core clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - sometimes also referred to as Render Output Units) are responsible for outputting the pixels (image) to the screen. The actual pixel output rate also depends on lots of other factors, especially the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the ability to get to the maximum fill rate.