GeForce GTX 1080 vs GeForce GTX 970

Intro

Compare all that to the GeForce GTX 970, which comes with GPU clock speed of 1050 MHz, and 4096 MB of GDDR5 memory running at 1750 MHz through a 256-bit bus. It also is made up of 1664 SPUs, 104 TAUs, and 64 Raster Operation Units.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

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 1080		21942 points
GeForce GTX 970		10867 points
	Difference: 11075 (102%)

Zcash Mining Hash Rate

GeForce GTX 1080		553 Sol/s
GeForce GTX 970		262 Sol/s
	Difference: 291 (111%)

Ethereum Mining Hash Rate

GeForce GTX 1080		20 Mh/s
GeForce GTX 970		19 Mh/s
	Difference: 1 (5%)

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GTX 970		145 Watts
GeForce GTX 1080		180 Watts
	Difference: 35 Watts (24%)

Memory Bandwidth

Theoretically speaking, the GeForce GTX 1080 will be 46% faster than the GeForce GTX 970 in general, because of its higher bandwidth. (explain)

GeForce GTX 1080		327680 MB/sec
GeForce GTX 970		224000 MB/sec
	Difference: 103680 (46%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 1080 is much (more or less 135%) more effective at AF than the GeForce GTX 970. (explain)

GeForce GTX 1080		257120 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GTX 970		109200 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 147920 (135%)

Pixel Rate

If using a high screen resolution is important to you, then the GeForce GTX 1080 is the winner, and very much so. (explain)

GeForce GTX 1080		102848 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GTX 970		67200 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 35648 (53%)

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 data (measured in MB per second) that can be transported across the external memory interface within a second. It is calculated by multiplying the card's interface width by its memory speed. In the case of DDR RAM, 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 higher screen resolutions.

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

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum number of pixels the video card can possibly write to its local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is calculated by multiplying the number of Raster Operations Pipelines by the the core clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also called Render Output Units) are responsible for outputting the pixels (image) to the screen. The actual pixel fill rate is also dependant on lots of other factors, especially the memory bandwidth - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the potential to get to the maximum fill rate.