GeForce 8800 GT 512MB vs GeForce GTX 970M

Intro

Compare all that to the GeForce GTX 970M, which has GPU clock speed of 924 MHz, and 3072 MB of GDDR5 RAM running at 1000 MHz through a 192-bit bus. It also features 1280 Stream Processors, 80 Texture Address Units, and 48 Raster Operation Units.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GTX 970M		75 Watts
GeForce 8800 GT 512MB		105 Watts
	Difference: 30 Watts (40%)

Memory Bandwidth

Theoretically speaking, the GeForce GTX 970M is 67% quicker than the GeForce 8800 GT 512MB overall, because of its greater bandwidth. (explain)

GeForce GTX 970M		96000 MB/sec
GeForce 8800 GT 512MB		57600 MB/sec
	Difference: 38400 (67%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 970M is much (approximately 120%) better at AF than the GeForce 8800 GT 512MB. (explain)

GeForce GTX 970M		73920 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 8800 GT 512MB		33600 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 40320 (120%)

Pixel Rate

The GeForce GTX 970M will be quite a bit (more or less 362%) more effective at AA than the GeForce 8800 GT 512MB, and also will be able to handle higher screen resolutions more effectively. (explain)

GeForce GTX 970M		44352 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 8800 GT 512MB		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 maximum amount of information (measured in MB per second) that can be moved past the external memory interface within a second. The number is calculated by multiplying the card's bus width by its memory clock speed. In the case of DDR RAM, it must be multiplied by 2 again. If DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The higher the memory bandwidth, 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 number of texture map elements (texels) that can be processed in one second. This figure is calculated by multiplying the total amount 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 applied in a second.

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