GeForce GTX 460 SE vs GeForce GTX 980M

Intro

Compare all that to the GeForce GTX 980M, which has GPU clock speed of 1038 MHz, and 4096 MB of GDDR5 RAM running at 1000 MHz through a 256-bit bus. It also is comprised of 1536 SPUs, 96 TAUs, and 64 Raster Operation Units.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GTX 980M		100 Watts
GeForce GTX 460 SE		150 Watts
	Difference: 50 Watts (50%)

Memory Bandwidth

The GeForce GTX 980M should in theory perform a little bit faster than the GeForce GTX 460 SE overall. (explain)

GeForce GTX 980M		128000 MB/sec
GeForce GTX 460 SE		108800 MB/sec
	Difference: 19200 (18%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 980M should be a lot (more or less 219%) better at anisotropic filtering than the GeForce GTX 460 SE. (explain)

GeForce GTX 980M		99648 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GTX 460 SE		31200 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 68448 (219%)

Pixel Rate

The GeForce GTX 980M should be a lot (about 219%) faster with regards to anti-aliasing than the GeForce GTX 460 SE, and will be capable of handling higher screen resolutions better. (explain)

GeForce GTX 980M		66432 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GTX 460 SE		20800 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 45632 (219%)

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 MB per second) that can be moved over the external memory interface in a second. It is calculated by multiplying the card's interface width by the speed of its memory. In the case of DDR RAM, the result should be multiplied by 2 again. If DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The better the card's memory bandwidth, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, High Dynamic Range and high resolutions.

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

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum number of pixels the video card can possibly record to the local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is worked out by multiplying the amount of Raster Operations Pipelines by the the core 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 fill rate is also dependant on quite a few other factors, especially the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the ability to reach the max fill rate.