GeForce GTX 260 216SP 55 nm vs GeForce GTX 870M

Intro

Compare that to the GeForce GTX 870M, which comes with a clock frequency of 941 MHz and a GDDR5 memory frequency of 1000 MHz. It also uses a 192-bit bus, and makes use of a 28 nm design. It features 1344 SPUs, 112 TAUs, and 24 Raster Operation Units.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GTX 870M		110 Watts
GeForce GTX 260 216SP 55 nm		171 Watts
	Difference: 61 Watts (55%)

Memory Bandwidth

The GeForce GTX 260 216SP 55 nm should in theory perform a bit faster than the GeForce GTX 870M overall. (explain)

GeForce GTX 260 216SP 55 nm		111888 MB/sec
GeForce GTX 870M		96000 MB/sec
	Difference: 15888 (17%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 870M will be quite a bit (approximately 154%) faster with regards to AF than the GeForce GTX 260 216SP 55 nm. (explain)

GeForce GTX 870M		105392 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GTX 260 216SP 55 nm		41472 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 63920 (154%)

Pixel Rate

If using lots of anti-aliasing is important to you, then the GeForce GTX 870M is a better choice, by a large margin. (explain)

GeForce GTX 870M		22584 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GTX 260 216SP 55 nm		16128 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 6456 (40%)

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 max amount of data (counted in MB per second) that can be transported past the external memory interface within a second. It is calculated by multiplying the card's bus width by its memory clock speed. If it uses DDR type RAM, it should be multiplied by 2 again. If DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The better the card's memory bandwidth, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, High Dynamic Range and higher screen resolutions.

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

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum number of pixels that the graphics chip can possibly record to the local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is calculated by multiplying the amount of Raster Operations Pipelines by the the core speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also called Render Output Units) are responsible for outputting the pixels (image) to the screen. The actual pixel rate also depends on quite a few other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the potential to get to the maximum fill rate.