GeForce GTX 460 1GB vs GeForce GTX 980M

Intro

Compare those specs to the GeForce GTX 980M, which uses a 28 nm design. nVidia has set the core frequency at 1038 MHz. The GDDR5 RAM is set to run at a speed of 1000 MHz on this particular card. It features 1536 SPUs as well as 96 TAUs and 64 Rasterization Operator Units.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GTX 980M		100 Watts
GeForce GTX 460 1GB		160 Watts
	Difference: 60 Watts (60%)

Memory Bandwidth

Theoretically, the GeForce GTX 980M should perform a little bit faster than the GeForce GTX 460 1GB in general. (explain)

GeForce GTX 980M		128000 MB/sec
GeForce GTX 460 1GB		115200 MB/sec
	Difference: 12800 (11%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 980M will be quite a bit (more or less 164%) faster with regards to AF than the GeForce GTX 460 1GB. (explain)

GeForce GTX 980M		99648 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GTX 460 1GB		37800 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 61848 (164%)

Pixel Rate

If using high levels of AA is important to you, then the GeForce GTX 980M is superior to the GeForce GTX 460 1GB, by far. (explain)

GeForce GTX 980M		66432 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GTX 460 1GB		21600 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 44832 (208%)

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 (in units of megabytes per second) that can be moved past the external memory interface in one second. The number is worked out by multiplying the bus width by the speed of its memory. In the case of DDR type memory, it must be multiplied by 2 again. If DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The better the memory bandwidth, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, High Dynamic Range and high resolutions.

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

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