GeForce 8800 GT 256MB vs GeForce GTX 970M

Intro

Compare that to the GeForce GTX 970M, which features clock speeds of 924 MHz on the GPU, and 1000 MHz on the 3072 MB of GDDR5 RAM. It features 1280 SPUs along with 80 Texture Address Units and 48 Rasterization Operator Units.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GTX 970M		75 Watts
GeForce 8800 GT 256MB		105 Watts
	Difference: 30 Watts (40%)

Memory Bandwidth

In theory, the GeForce GTX 970M will be 114% quicker than the GeForce 8800 GT 256MB overall, because of its greater bandwidth. (explain)

GeForce GTX 970M		96000 MB/sec
GeForce 8800 GT 256MB		44800 MB/sec
	Difference: 51200 (114%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 970M is much (about 120%) faster with regards to AF than the GeForce 8800 GT 256MB. (explain)

GeForce GTX 970M		73920 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 8800 GT 256MB		33600 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 40320 (120%)

Pixel Rate

The GeForce GTX 970M is much (about 362%) faster with regards to anti-aliasing than the GeForce 8800 GT 256MB, and will be able to handle higher resolutions better. (explain)

GeForce GTX 970M		44352 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 8800 GT 256MB		9600 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 34752 (362%)

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 max amount of information (in units of MB per second) that can be transferred past the external memory interface within a second. It's worked out by multiplying the card's bus width by its memory speed. If the card has DDR type memory, the result should be multiplied by 2 once again. If DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The better the bandwidth is, 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 number of texture map elements (texels) that can be processed in one second. This is worked out by multiplying the total texture units of the card by the core clock speed of the chip. The better this number, the better the video card will be at texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels processed in one second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum number of pixels the graphics card could possibly write to the local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is worked out by multiplying the number of ROPs by the the core 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 quite a few other factors, especially the memory bandwidth - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the potential to reach the max fill rate.