GeForce GTX 260 vs GeForce GTX 980M

Intro

Compare those specifications 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 runs at a speed of 1000 MHz on this model. It features 1536 SPUs as well as 96 TAUs and 64 Rasterization Operator Units.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GTX 980M		100 Watts
GeForce GTX 260		182 Watts
	Difference: 82 Watts (82%)

Memory Bandwidth

In theory, the GeForce GTX 980M should be 14% quicker than the GeForce GTX 260 overall, because of its higher bandwidth. (explain)

GeForce GTX 980M		128000 MB/sec
GeForce GTX 260		111888 MB/sec
	Difference: 16112 (14%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 980M should be a lot (more or less 170%) better at AF than the GeForce GTX 260. (explain)

GeForce GTX 980M		99648 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GTX 260		36864 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 62784 (170%)

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 260		16128 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 50304 (312%)

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 largest amount of information (counted in MB per second) that can be transported across the external memory interface in a second. The number is calculated by multiplying the card's interface width by its memory speed. If the card has DDR type RAM, the result should be multiplied by 2 again. If DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The better the memory bandwidth, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, HDR and high resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum amount of texture map elements (texels) that can be applied in one second. This number is calculated by multiplying the total number of texture units of the card by the core clock speed of the chip. The better this number, 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 amount of pixels the video card could possibly write to its local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is calculated by multiplying the amount of Render Output Units by the the core clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also sometimes called Render Output Units) are responsible for filling the screen with pixels (the image). The actual pixel fill rate also depends on many other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the potential to get to the max fill rate.