GeForce 820M vs GeForce GTX 970M

Intro

Compare that 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 model. It features 1280 SPUs along with 80 TAUs and 48 ROPs.

Display Graphs

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Benchmarks

These are real-world performance benchmarks that were submitted by Hardware Compare users. The scores seen here are the average of all benchmarks submitted for each respective test and hardware.

3DMark Fire Strike Graphics Score

GeForce GTX 970M		7520 points
GeForce 820M		850 points
	Difference: 6670 (785%)

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce 820M		15 Watts
GeForce GTX 970M		75 Watts
	Difference: 60 Watts (400%)

Memory Bandwidth

Theoretically speaking, the GeForce GTX 970M should be 500% faster than the GeForce 820M overall, because of its higher data rate. (explain)

GeForce GTX 970M		96000 MB/sec
GeForce 820M		16000 MB/sec
	Difference: 80000 (500%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 970M is a lot (approximately 543%) faster with regards to texture filtering than the GeForce 820M. (explain)

GeForce GTX 970M		73920 Mtexels/sec
GeForce 820M		11504 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 62416 (543%)

Pixel Rate

If using lots of anti-aliasing is important to you, then the GeForce GTX 970M is a better choice, by a large margin. (explain)

GeForce GTX 970M		44352 Mpixels/sec
GeForce 820M		2876 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 41476 (1442%)

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 maximum amount of data (measured in MB per second) that can be moved over the external memory interface within a second. It is worked out by multiplying the interface width by the speed of its memory. In the case of DDR memory, it must 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, HDR and higher screen resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum number of texture map elements (texels) that can be applied in one second. This number is calculated by multiplying the total amount of texture units of the card by the core clock speed of the chip. The higher this number, the better the 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 that the graphics chip 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 core speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also sometimes called Render Output Units) are responsible for filling the screen with pixels (the image). The actual pixel fill rate also depends on quite a few other factors, especially the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the ability to get to the maximum fill rate.