GeForce GTX 460 SE vs GeForce GTX 970

Intro

Compare all that to the GeForce GTX 970, which comes with core clock speeds of 1050 MHz on the GPU, and 1750 MHz on the 4096 MB of GDDR5 RAM. It features 1664 SPUs along with 104 Texture Address Units and 64 ROPs.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GTX 970		145 Watts
GeForce GTX 460 SE		150 Watts
	Difference: 5 Watts (3%)

Memory Bandwidth

The GeForce GTX 970 should theoretically perform a lot faster than the GeForce GTX 460 SE in general. (explain)

GeForce GTX 970		224000 MB/sec
GeForce GTX 460 SE		108800 MB/sec
	Difference: 115200 (106%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 970 is a lot (about 250%) better at anisotropic filtering than the GeForce GTX 460 SE. (explain)

GeForce GTX 970		109200 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GTX 460 SE		31200 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 78000 (250%)

Pixel Rate

The GeForce GTX 970 is a lot (approximately 223%) faster with regards to full screen anti-aliasing than the GeForce GTX 460 SE, and should be capable of handling higher screen resolutions without losing too much performance. (explain)

GeForce GTX 970		67200 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GTX 460 SE		20800 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 46400 (223%)

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 max amount of data (counted in megabytes per second) that can be transferred across the external memory interface in one second. It's calculated by multiplying the card's interface width by its memory speed. In the case of DDR type RAM, it must be multiplied by 2 again. If DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The better 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 amount of texture map elements (texels) that are processed per second. This is calculated by multiplying the total number of texture units 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 processed per second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum number of pixels the graphics card can possibly record to its local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is worked out 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 filling the screen with pixels (the image). The actual pixel output rate also depends on lots of other factors, especially the memory bandwidth - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the ability to reach the maximum fill rate.