GeForce GTX 1080 vs GeForce GTX 970

Intro

Compare all that to the GeForce GTX 970, which features a clock frequency of 1050 MHz and a GDDR5 memory frequency of 1750 MHz. It also makes use of a 256-bit memory bus, and makes use of a 28 nm design. It is made up of 1664 SPUs, 104 TAUs, and 64 ROPs.

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

The GeForce GTX 1080, in theory, should be quite a bit faster than the GeForce GTX 970 in general. (explain)

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

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 1080 will be quite a bit (about 135%) more effective at texture filtering 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 high levels of AA is important to you, then the GeForce GTX 1080 is superior to the GeForce GTX 970, by far. (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 max amount of information (in units of MB per second) that can be transferred past the external memory interface within a second. It's calculated by multiplying the card's interface width by the speed of its memory. If it uses DDR RAM, the result 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 anti-aliasing, HDR and high resolutions.

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

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the most pixels the graphics card can possibly record to its local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is calculated by multiplying the amount of Render Output Units by the the core speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - sometimes also referred to as Render Output Units) are responsible for filling the screen with pixels (the image). The actual pixel fill rate is also dependant on many other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the ability to reach the max fill rate.