GeForce 8800 GTX vs GeForce GTX 970M

Intro

Compare those specifications to the GeForce GTX 970M, which makes use of a 28 nm design. nVidia has set the core frequency at 924 MHz. The GDDR5 RAM runs at a frequency of 1000 MHz on this particular card. 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 GTX		155 Watts
	Difference: 80 Watts (107%)

Memory Bandwidth

In theory, the GeForce GTX 970M should perform just a bit faster than the GeForce 8800 GTX in general. (explain)

GeForce GTX 970M		96000 MB/sec
GeForce 8800 GTX		86400 MB/sec
	Difference: 9600 (11%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 970M is quite a bit (more or less 101%) more effective at texture filtering than the GeForce 8800 GTX. (explain)

GeForce GTX 970M		73920 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 8800 GTX		36800 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 37120 (101%)

Pixel Rate

If using a high screen 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 GTX		13800 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 30552 (221%)

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 maximum amount of information (measured in MB per second) that can be transferred over the external memory interface within a second. The number is worked out by multiplying the interface width by its memory clock speed. In the case of DDR type memory, it must be multiplied by 2 once again. If DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The better the 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 are processed per second. This figure is worked out by multiplying the total number of texture units of the card by the core speed of the chip. The higher this number, the better the graphics 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 amount of pixels the video card can possibly write to its local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is calculated by multiplying the number of Raster Operations Pipelines by the the card's clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also called Render Output Units) are responsible for outputting the pixels (image) to the screen. The actual pixel fill 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.