GeForce GTX 870M vs GeForce GTX 970

Intro

Compare all that to the GeForce GTX 970, which comes with GPU core speed of 1050 MHz, and 4096 MB of GDDR5 RAM set to run at 1750 MHz through a 256-bit bus. It also features 1664 SPUs, 104 Texture Address Units, and 64 Raster Operation Units.

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

In theory, the GeForce GTX 970 will be 133% faster than the GeForce GTX 870M overall, due to its greater data rate. (explain)

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

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 970 will be a bit (more or less 4%) faster with regards to AF than the GeForce GTX 870M. (explain)

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

Pixel Rate

The GeForce GTX 970 should be much (approximately 198%) more effective at FSAA than the GeForce GTX 870M, and also will be able to handle higher resolutions more effectively. (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: Bandwidth is the maximum amount of data (measured in megabytes per second) that can be transferred past the external memory interface in a second. It's calculated by multiplying the interface width by its memory speed. In the case of DDR type RAM, it should be multiplied by 2 again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The better the bandwidth is, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, 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 is calculated by multiplying the total amount of texture units of the card by the core clock speed of the chip. The better the texel rate, the better the graphics card will be at handling texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels applied in a second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the most pixels that the graphics chip could possibly write to its local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is worked out by multiplying the amount of Raster Operations Pipelines by the the card's clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - sometimes also referred to as Render Output Units) are responsible for drawing the pixels (image) on the screen. The actual pixel output rate also depends on quite a few other factors, especially the memory bandwidth - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the potential to reach the max fill rate.