GeForce GTX 870M vs GeForce GTX 970

Intro

Compare that to the GeForce GTX 970, which makes use of a 28 nm design. nVidia has clocked the core frequency at 1050 MHz. The GDDR5 memory works at a speed of 1750 MHz on this particular model. It features 1664 SPUs as well as 104 TAUs and 64 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 970		10867 points
GeForce GTX 870M		4770 points
	Difference: 6097 (128%)

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GTX 870M		110 Watts
GeForce GTX 970		145 Watts
	Difference: 35 Watts (32%)

Memory Bandwidth

Performance-wise, the GeForce GTX 970 should in theory be quite a bit superior to the GeForce GTX 870M overall. (explain)

GeForce GTX 970		224000 MB/sec
GeForce GTX 870M		96000 MB/sec
	Difference: 128000 (133%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 970 is a little bit (about 4%) better at texture filtering than the GeForce GTX 870M. (explain)

GeForce GTX 970		109200 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GTX 870M		105392 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 3808 (4%)

Pixel Rate

If running with a high screen resolution is important to you, then the GeForce GTX 970 is the winner, and very much so. (explain)

GeForce GTX 970		67200 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GTX 870M		22584 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 44616 (198%)

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 data (in units of MB per second) that can be moved past the external memory interface in one second. The number is calculated by multiplying the bus width by its memory speed. If it uses DDR type RAM, it should be multiplied by 2 again. If DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The higher the card's memory bandwidth, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, High Dynamic Range and higher screen resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum texture map elements (texels) that are applied per second. This figure is worked out by multiplying the total number of texture units of the card by the core clock speed of the chip. The higher this number, the better the card will be at handling 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 that the graphics card can possibly write to the local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is worked out by multiplying the number of Raster Operations Pipelines by the clock speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - aka Render Output Units) are responsible for drawing the pixels (image) on the screen. The actual pixel rate also depends on many other factors, especially the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the ability to reach the maximum fill rate.