GeForce GTX 960 vs GeForce GTX 970

Intro

Compare those specs to the GeForce GTX 970, which comes with a clock frequency of 1050 MHz and a GDDR5 memory speed of 1750 MHz. It also uses a 256-bit memory bus, and uses a 28 nm design. It is made up of 1664 SPUs, 104 TAUs, 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 960		7627 points
	Difference: 3240 (42%)

Zcash Mining Hash Rate

GeForce GTX 970		262 Sol/s
GeForce GTX 960		154 Sol/s
	Difference: 108 (70%)

Ethereum Mining Hash Rate

GeForce GTX 970		19 Mh/s
GeForce GTX 960		11 Mh/s
	Difference: 8 (73%)

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GTX 960		120 Watts
GeForce GTX 970		145 Watts
	Difference: 25 Watts (21%)

Memory Bandwidth

Performance-wise, the GeForce GTX 970 should in theory be quite a bit better than the GeForce GTX 960 in general. (explain)

GeForce GTX 970		224000 MB/sec
GeForce GTX 960		112000 MB/sec
	Difference: 112000 (100%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 970 should be a lot (approximately 51%) better at AF than the GeForce GTX 960. (explain)

GeForce GTX 970		109200 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GTX 960		72128 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 37072 (51%)

Pixel Rate

If using lots of anti-aliasing is important to you, then the GeForce GTX 970 is superior to the GeForce GTX 960, by a large margin. (explain)

GeForce GTX 970		67200 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GTX 960		36064 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 31136 (86%)

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 maximum amount of data (measured in megabytes per second) that can be transported past the external memory interface in a second. The number is calculated by multiplying the interface width by its memory speed. In the case of DDR RAM, it must be multiplied by 2 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, High Dynamic Range and higher screen resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum texture map elements (texels) that can be processed in one second. This number is calculated by multiplying the total texture units 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 that the graphics card can possibly write to the local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is worked out by multiplying the number of ROPs by the clock speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also sometimes called Render Output Units) are responsible for outputting the pixels (image) to the screen. The actual pixel output rate is also dependant on lots of other factors, especially the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the potential to get to the max fill rate.