GeForce GTX 980M vs Geforce GTX 680

Intro

Compare that to the Geforce GTX 680, which uses a 28 nm design. nVidia has clocked the core frequency at 1006 MHz. The GDDR5 memory works at a speed of 1502 MHz on this model. It features 1536 SPUs along with 128 TAUs and 32 ROPs.

Display Graphs

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Benchmarks

These are real-world performance benchmarks that were submitted by Hardware Compare users. The scores seen here are the average of all benchmarks submitted for each respective test and hardware.

3DMark Fire Strike Graphics Score

GeForce GTX 980M		9476 points
Geforce GTX 680		7650 points
	Difference: 1826 (24%)

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GTX 980M		100 Watts
Geforce GTX 680		195 Watts
	Difference: 95 Watts (95%)

Memory Bandwidth

In theory, the Geforce GTX 680 is 50% faster than the GeForce GTX 980M in general, due to its greater bandwidth. (explain)

Geforce GTX 680		192256 MB/sec
GeForce GTX 980M		128000 MB/sec
	Difference: 64256 (50%)

Texel Rate

The Geforce GTX 680 is much (approximately 29%) more effective at texture filtering than the GeForce GTX 980M. (explain)

Geforce GTX 680		128768 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GTX 980M		99648 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 29120 (29%)

Pixel Rate

If running with high levels of AA is important to you, then the GeForce GTX 980M is the winner, by a large margin. (explain)

GeForce GTX 980M		66432 Mpixels/sec
Geforce GTX 680		32192 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 34240 (106%)

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 (counted in megabytes per second) that can be moved across the external memory interface in a second. The number is calculated by multiplying the interface width by its memory clock speed. If the card has DDR type RAM, it must be multiplied by 2 once again. If 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 texture map elements (texels) that are processed in one second. This figure is worked out by multiplying the total number of texture units of the card by the core speed of the chip. The better this number, the better the graphics card will be at texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels applied per second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the most pixels the graphics card could possibly write to its local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is calculated by multiplying the number of colour ROPs by the the core clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - aka Render Output Units) are responsible for drawing the pixels (image) on the screen. The actual pixel output rate is also dependant on quite a few other factors, especially the memory bandwidth - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the potential to reach the maximum fill rate.