GeForce GT 230 vs GeForce GTX 980M

Intro

Compare all that to the GeForce GTX 980M, which makes use of a 28 nm design. nVidia has set the core frequency at 1038 MHz. The GDDR5 memory is set to run at a speed of 1000 MHz on this specific card. It features 1536 SPUs along with 96 TAUs and 64 Rasterization Operator Units.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GT 230		65 Watts
GeForce GTX 980M		100 Watts
	Difference: 35 Watts (54%)

Memory Bandwidth

Performance-wise, the GeForce GTX 980M should theoretically be quite a bit superior to the GeForce GT 230 overall. (explain)

GeForce GTX 980M		128000 MB/sec
GeForce GT 230		38400 MB/sec
	Difference: 89600 (233%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 980M will be much (more or less 1032%) more effective at texture filtering than the GeForce GT 230. (explain)

GeForce GTX 980M		99648 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GT 230		8800 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 90848 (1032%)

Pixel Rate

The GeForce GTX 980M should be much (more or less 1410%) more effective at anti-aliasing than the GeForce GT 230, and also will be able to handle higher resolutions more effectively. (explain)

GeForce GTX 980M		66432 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GT 230		4400 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 62032 (1410%)

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 maximum amount of information (counted in MB per second) that can be transferred over the external memory interface within a second. The number is calculated by multiplying the bus width by the speed of its memory. If the card has DDR type RAM, it must be multiplied by 2 again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The higher the memory bandwidth, the faster 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 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 the texel rate, the better the video card will be at texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels in a second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum number of pixels that the graphics card can possibly record to the local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is worked out by multiplying the amount of colour ROPs by the the core 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 fill rate is also dependant on lots of other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the ability to reach the max fill rate.