GeForce 8800 Ultra vs GeForce GTX 970M

Intro

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

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GTX 970M		75 Watts
GeForce 8800 Ultra		171 Watts
	Difference: 96 Watts (128%)

Memory Bandwidth

Theoretically, the GeForce 8800 Ultra should be a bit faster than the GeForce GTX 970M overall. (explain)

GeForce 8800 Ultra		103680 MB/sec
GeForce GTX 970M		96000 MB/sec
	Difference: 7680 (8%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 970M is much (more or less 89%) more effective at anisotropic filtering than the GeForce 8800 Ultra. (explain)

GeForce GTX 970M		73920 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 8800 Ultra		39168 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 34752 (89%)

Pixel Rate

If running with a high resolution is important to you, then the GeForce GTX 970M is a better choice, and very much so. (explain)

GeForce GTX 970M		44352 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 8800 Ultra		14688 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 29664 (202%)

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 max amount of data (in units of megabytes per second) that can be transported across the external memory interface in a second. It's worked out by multiplying the interface width by its memory clock speed. If it uses DDR type memory, it must be multiplied by 2 again. If DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The higher the card's memory bandwidth, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, High Dynamic Range and high resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum amount of texture map elements (texels) that can be applied in one second. This figure is worked out by multiplying the total texture units by the core speed of the chip. The better this number, the better the card will be at texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels per second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum amount of 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 Raster Operations Pipelines by the the card's clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - sometimes also referred to as Render Output Units) are responsible for filling the screen with pixels (the image). The actual pixel output rate also depends on many other factors, especially the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the ability to get to the max fill rate.