GeForce GTX 660 vs GeForce GTX 870M

Intro

Compare those specifications to the GeForce GTX 870M, which comes with GPU core speed of 941 MHz, and 3072 MB of GDDR5 memory running at 1000 MHz through a 192-bit bus. It also features 1344 Stream Processors, 112 Texture Address Units, and 24 ROPs.

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 660		5063 points
GeForce GTX 870M		4770 points
	Difference: 293 (6%)

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GTX 870M		110 Watts
GeForce GTX 660		140 Watts
	Difference: 30 Watts (27%)

Memory Bandwidth

Theoretically speaking, the GeForce GTX 660 should be 50% faster than the GeForce GTX 870M overall, due to its higher bandwidth. (explain)

GeForce GTX 660		144192 MB/sec
GeForce GTX 870M		96000 MB/sec
	Difference: 48192 (50%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 870M should be a lot (approximately 34%) better at texture filtering than the GeForce GTX 660. (explain)

GeForce GTX 870M		105392 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GTX 660		78400 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 26992 (34%)

Pixel Rate

The GeForce GTX 660 will be a bit (more or less 4%) better at anti-aliasing than the GeForce GTX 870M, and also able to handle higher screen resolutions while still performing well. (explain)

GeForce GTX 660		23520 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GTX 870M		22584 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 936 (4%)

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 maximum amount of information (measured in MB per second) that can be moved over the external memory interface in one second. It's calculated by multiplying the interface width by the speed of its memory. If it uses DDR type RAM, it must be multiplied by 2 once again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. 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 number of texture map elements (texels) that can be applied per second. This figure is calculated by multiplying the total texture units of the card by the core clock speed of the chip. The higher this number, the better the video 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 that the graphics chip could possibly record to the local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is worked out by multiplying the amount of Render Output Units by the the card's clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also sometimes called Render Output Units) are responsible for filling the screen with pixels (the image). The actual pixel rate also depends on lots of other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the ability to reach the max fill rate.