GeForce GTX 460 SE vs GeForce GTX 970M

Intro

Compare that to the GeForce GTX 970M, which has a core clock frequency of 924 MHz and a GDDR5 memory frequency of 1000 MHz. It also makes use of a 192-bit bus, and makes use of a 28 nm design. It is comprised of 1280 SPUs, 80 Texture Address Units, and 48 Raster Operation Units.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GTX 970M		75 Watts
GeForce GTX 460 SE		150 Watts
	Difference: 75 Watts (100%)

Memory Bandwidth

Performance-wise, the GeForce GTX 460 SE should in theory be just a bit better than the GeForce GTX 970M in general. (explain)

GeForce GTX 460 SE		108800 MB/sec
GeForce GTX 970M		96000 MB/sec
	Difference: 12800 (13%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 970M should be much (approximately 137%) more effective at texture filtering than the GeForce GTX 460 SE. (explain)

GeForce GTX 970M		73920 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GTX 460 SE		31200 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 42720 (137%)

Pixel Rate

If using a high screen resolution is important to you, then the GeForce GTX 970M is superior to the GeForce GTX 460 SE, by far. (explain)

GeForce GTX 970M		44352 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GTX 460 SE		20800 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 23552 (113%)

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 largest amount of information (counted in megabytes per second) that can be moved past the external memory interface in one second. The number is calculated by multiplying the card's bus width by its memory clock speed. If the card has DDR RAM, it should be multiplied by 2 again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The better the memory bandwidth, the faster 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 texture map elements (texels) that are applied per second. This is calculated by multiplying the total amount of texture units of the card by the core speed of the chip. The higher the texel rate, the better the video 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 most pixels the video card can possibly write to its local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is worked out by multiplying the amount of ROPs by the clock speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also called Render Output Units) are responsible for filling the screen with pixels (the image). The actual pixel fill rate is also dependant on quite a few other factors, especially the memory bandwidth - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the ability to reach the maximum fill rate.