GeForce GTX 850M vs GeForce GTX 970M

Intro

Compare all that to the GeForce GTX 970M, which features a clock speed of 924 MHz and a GDDR5 memory speed of 1000 MHz. It also features a 192-bit memory bus, and uses a 28 nm design. It is comprised of 1280 SPUs, 80 Texture Address Units, and 48 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 970M		7520 points
GeForce GTX 850M		3340 points
	Difference: 4180 (125%)

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GTX 850M		40 Watts
GeForce GTX 970M		75 Watts
	Difference: 35 Watts (88%)

Memory Bandwidth

In theory, the GeForce GTX 970M should be 200% faster than the GeForce GTX 850M overall, due to its greater data rate. (explain)

GeForce GTX 970M		96000 MB/sec
GeForce GTX 850M		32000 MB/sec
	Difference: 64000 (200%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 970M should be a lot (more or less 111%) faster with regards to AF than the GeForce GTX 850M. (explain)

GeForce GTX 970M		73920 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GTX 850M		35040 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 38880 (111%)

Pixel Rate

The GeForce GTX 970M should be a lot (more or less 216%) better at full screen anti-aliasing than the GeForce GTX 850M, and also able to handle higher resolutions without slowing down too much. (explain)

GeForce GTX 970M		44352 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GTX 850M		14016 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 30336 (216%)

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 data (in units of MB per second) that can be transported past the external memory interface within a second. It's calculated by multiplying the bus width by the speed of its memory. If it uses DDR memory, it should be multiplied by 2 once again. If DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. 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 texture map elements (texels) that are applied per second. This figure is calculated by multiplying the total texture units by the core speed of the chip. The better the texel rate, the better the card will be at handling texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels per second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum number of pixels the video card can possibly write to the local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is worked out by multiplying the amount of colour ROPs by the the card's clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - aka Render Output Units) are responsible for filling the screen with pixels (the image). The actual pixel fill rate also depends on quite a few other factors, especially the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the potential to reach the maximum fill rate.