GeForce GTS 150 vs GeForce GTX 870M

Intro

Compare those specifications to the GeForce GTX 870M, which has GPU core speed of 941 MHz, and 3072 MB of GDDR5 memory set to run at 1000 MHz through a 192-bit bus. It also features 1344 SPUs, 112 Texture Address Units, and 24 Raster Operation Units.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GTX 870M		110 Watts
GeForce GTS 150		141 Watts
	Difference: 31 Watts (28%)

Memory Bandwidth

In theory, the GeForce GTX 870M should perform much faster than the GeForce GTS 150 in general. (explain)

GeForce GTX 870M		96000 MB/sec
GeForce GTS 150		32000 MB/sec
	Difference: 64000 (200%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 870M is a lot (more or less 123%) more effective at anisotropic filtering than the GeForce GTS 150. (explain)

GeForce GTX 870M		105392 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GTS 150		47360 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 58032 (123%)

Pixel Rate

If using high levels of AA is important to you, then the GeForce GTX 870M is a better choice, by far. (explain)

GeForce GTX 870M		22584 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GTS 150		11840 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 10744 (91%)

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 max amount of information (counted in MB per second) that can be transported across the external memory interface in a second. The number is worked out by multiplying the card's interface width by its memory clock speed. In the case of DDR memory, the result should be multiplied by 2 once again. If 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 high resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum amount of texture map elements (texels) that can be applied per second. This figure is calculated by multiplying the total texture units of the card by the core speed of the chip. The higher this number, the better the card will be at texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels per second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum amount of pixels the video card could possibly record to the local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is worked out by multiplying the number of Render Output Units by the clock speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also sometimes called Render Output Units) are responsible for drawing the pixels (image) on the screen. The actual pixel fill rate is also dependant on many other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the potential to reach the maximum fill rate.