GeForce 8800 GTX vs GeForce GTX 970M

Intro

Compare all that to the GeForce GTX 970M, which features a core clock frequency of 924 MHz and a GDDR5 memory frequency of 1000 MHz. It also features a 192-bit memory bus, and makes use of a 28 nm design. It features 1280 SPUs, 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 will be 11% quicker than the GeForce 8800 GTX in general, due to its higher bandwidth. (explain)

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

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 970M is a lot (about 101%) better at AF than the GeForce 8800 GTX. (explain)

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

Pixel Rate

The GeForce GTX 970M is much (about 221%) faster with regards to FSAA than the GeForce 8800 GTX, and also capable of handling higher screen resolutions better. (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: Bandwidth is the largest amount of information (measured in megabytes per second) that can be transferred across the external memory interface within a second. It's calculated by multiplying the card's interface width by its memory clock speed. If the card has DDR type RAM, it should 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, HDR and high resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum number of texture map elements (texels) that are applied per second. This number is calculated by multiplying the total texture units by the core clock speed of the chip. The higher the texel rate, the better the 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 maximum number of pixels that the graphics card can possibly record 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 - aka Render Output Units) are responsible for outputting the pixels (image) to the screen. The actual pixel output rate is also dependant on many other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the ability to reach the maximum fill rate.