GeForce GT 420 vs GeForce GTX 970M

Intro

Compare that to the GeForce GTX 970M, which has core speeds of 924 MHz on the GPU, and 1000 MHz on the 3072 MB of GDDR5 memory. It features 1280 SPUs as well as 80 TAUs and 48 ROPs.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GT 420		50 Watts
GeForce GTX 970M		75 Watts
	Difference: 25 Watts (50%)

Memory Bandwidth

In theory, the GeForce GTX 970M is 233% faster than the GeForce GT 420 overall, because of its greater bandwidth. (explain)

GeForce GTX 970M		96000 MB/sec
GeForce GT 420		28800 MB/sec
	Difference: 67200 (233%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 970M is much (more or less 1220%) more effective at anisotropic filtering than the GeForce GT 420. (explain)

GeForce GTX 970M		73920 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GT 420		5600 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 68320 (1220%)

Pixel Rate

The GeForce GTX 970M will be a lot (about 1484%) more effective at full screen anti-aliasing than the GeForce GT 420, and should be able to handle higher screen resolutions without losing too much performance. (explain)

GeForce GTX 970M		44352 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GT 420		2800 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 41552 (1484%)

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 data (in units of megabytes per second) that can be transferred over the external memory interface in a second. The number is calculated by multiplying the card's interface width by its memory clock speed. In the case of DDR type memory, the result should be multiplied by 2 once again. If DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The higher the memory bandwidth, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, HDR and higher screen resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum amount of texture map elements (texels) that can be applied in one second. This number is worked out by multiplying the total amount of texture units of the card by the core speed of the chip. The better the texel rate, the better the video 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 the graphics card can 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 clock 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 fill rate also depends on lots of other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the ability to reach the max fill rate.