GeForce GTX 660 vs GeForce GTX 970M

Intro

Compare those specifications to the GeForce GTX 970M, which has a core clock frequency of 924 MHz and a GDDR5 memory speed of 1000 MHz. It also uses a 192-bit bus, and makes use of a 28 nm design. It is comprised of 1280 SPUs, 80 TAUs, and 48 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 970M		7520 points
GeForce GTX 660		5063 points
	Difference: 2457 (49%)

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GTX 970M		75 Watts
GeForce GTX 660		140 Watts
	Difference: 65 Watts (87%)

Memory Bandwidth

The GeForce GTX 660 should theoretically perform quite a bit faster than the GeForce GTX 970M overall. (explain)

GeForce GTX 660		144192 MB/sec
GeForce GTX 970M		96000 MB/sec
	Difference: 48192 (50%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 660 is a small bit (about 6%) faster with regards to AF than the GeForce GTX 970M. (explain)

GeForce GTX 660		78400 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GTX 970M		73920 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 4480 (6%)

Pixel Rate

The GeForce GTX 970M is a lot (about 89%) better at full screen anti-aliasing than the GeForce GTX 660, and also will be capable of handling higher resolutions more effectively. (explain)

GeForce GTX 970M		44352 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GTX 660		23520 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 20832 (89%)

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 megabytes per second) that can be moved across the external memory interface in a second. The number is calculated by multiplying the card's bus width by its memory speed. If it uses DDR memory, the result should be multiplied by 2 once again. If DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The higher the bandwidth is, 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 number of texture map elements (texels) that can be processed in one second. This figure is calculated by multiplying the total texture units of the card by the core speed of the chip. The better the texel rate, the better the card will be at texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels in one second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the most pixels that the graphics chip could possibly write to its local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is worked out by multiplying the amount of ROPs by the the core speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - sometimes also referred to as Render Output Units) are responsible for drawing the pixels (image) on the screen. The actual pixel rate also depends on quite a few other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the ability to reach the max fill rate.