GeForce GTX 460 1GB vs GeForce GTX 970M

Intro

Compare all that to the GeForce GTX 970M, which comes with core speeds of 924 MHz on the GPU, and 1000 MHz on the 3072 MB of GDDR5 RAM. It features 1280 SPUs along with 80 TAUs and 48 Rasterization Operator Units.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GTX 970M		75 Watts
GeForce GTX 460 1GB		160 Watts
	Difference: 85 Watts (113%)

Memory Bandwidth

The GeForce GTX 460 1GB should in theory perform just a bit faster than the GeForce GTX 970M overall. (explain)

GeForce GTX 460 1GB		115200 MB/sec
GeForce GTX 970M		96000 MB/sec
	Difference: 19200 (20%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 970M is much (about 96%) faster with regards to texture filtering than the GeForce GTX 460 1GB. (explain)

GeForce GTX 970M		73920 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GTX 460 1GB		37800 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 36120 (96%)

Pixel Rate

The GeForce GTX 970M is a lot (approximately 105%) faster with regards to anti-aliasing than the GeForce GTX 460 1GB, and able to handle higher screen resolutions without slowing down too much. (explain)

GeForce GTX 970M		44352 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GTX 460 1GB		21600 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 22752 (105%)

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 (in units of MB per second) that can be moved past the external memory interface in one second. It is calculated by multiplying the bus width by its memory clock speed. If it uses DDR RAM, it should be multiplied by 2 once again. If DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The better the bandwidth is, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, High Dynamic Range and high resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum amount of texture map elements (texels) that can be processed per second. This is worked out by multiplying the total texture units of the card by the core clock speed of the chip. The better this number, the better the graphics card will be at handling 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 that the graphics chip can possibly record to its local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is calculated by multiplying the number of colour ROPs by the the card's clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also called Render Output Units) are responsible for drawing the pixels (image) on the screen. The actual pixel 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 maximum fill rate.