GeForce GTX 870M vs GeForce GTX 970

Intro

Compare those specifications to the GeForce GTX 970, which makes use of a 28 nm design. nVidia has clocked the core speed at 1050 MHz. The GDDR5 RAM works at a frequency of 1750 MHz on this model. It features 1664 SPUs along with 104 Texture Address Units and 64 Rasterization Operator Units.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

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 970		10867 points
GeForce GTX 870M		4770 points
	Difference: 6097 (128%)

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GTX 870M		110 Watts
GeForce GTX 970		145 Watts
	Difference: 35 Watts (32%)

Memory Bandwidth

As far as performance goes, the GeForce GTX 970 should in theory be much superior to the GeForce GTX 870M overall. (explain)

GeForce GTX 970		224000 MB/sec
GeForce GTX 870M		96000 MB/sec
	Difference: 128000 (133%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 970 is a bit (approximately 4%) faster with regards to texture filtering than the GeForce GTX 870M. (explain)

GeForce GTX 970		109200 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GTX 870M		105392 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 3808 (4%)

Pixel Rate

If using a high resolution is important to you, then the GeForce GTX 970 is a better choice, and very much so. (explain)

GeForce GTX 970		67200 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GTX 870M		22584 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 44616 (198%)

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 information (counted in megabytes per second) that can be transported past the external memory interface in one second. It's calculated by multiplying the card's bus width by its memory clock speed. If the card has DDR memory, it must be multiplied by 2 once again. If DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The better the card's memory bandwidth, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, High Dynamic Range and higher screen resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum amount of texture map elements (texels) that are processed in one second. This figure is worked out by multiplying the total amount of texture units by the core clock speed of the chip. The better the texel rate, the better the graphics card will be at texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels in a second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum amount of pixels the video card can possibly record to the local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is calculated by multiplying the number of colour ROPs by the clock speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - sometimes also referred to as Render Output Units) are responsible for drawing the pixels (image) on the screen. The actual pixel output rate is also dependant on quite a few other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the ability to get to the maximum fill rate.