GeForce GTX 260 216SP 55 nm vs GeForce GTX 970M

Intro

Compare that to the GeForce GTX 970M, which features a core clock speed of 924 MHz and a GDDR5 memory frequency of 1000 MHz. It also features a 192-bit bus, and uses a 28 nm design. It is made up of 1280 SPUs, 80 Texture Address Units, and 48 Raster Operation Units.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GTX 970M		75 Watts
GeForce GTX 260 216SP 55 nm		171 Watts
	Difference: 96 Watts (128%)

Memory Bandwidth

In theory, the GeForce GTX 260 216SP 55 nm is 17% quicker than the GeForce GTX 970M in general, because of its higher bandwidth. (explain)

GeForce GTX 260 216SP 55 nm		111888 MB/sec
GeForce GTX 970M		96000 MB/sec
	Difference: 15888 (17%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 970M should be quite a bit (approximately 78%) better at AF than the GeForce GTX 260 216SP 55 nm. (explain)

GeForce GTX 970M		73920 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GTX 260 216SP 55 nm		41472 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 32448 (78%)

Pixel Rate

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

GeForce GTX 970M		44352 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GTX 260 216SP 55 nm		16128 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 28224 (175%)

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 largest amount of data (in units of MB per second) that can be moved over the external memory interface in a second. It's calculated by multiplying the interface width by the speed of its memory. If the card has DDR type memory, it should be multiplied by 2 once again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The higher 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 number of texture map elements (texels) that can be processed in one second. This is calculated by multiplying the total number of texture units of the card by the core speed of the chip. The higher this number, the better the graphics card will be at handling texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels processed in one second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum amount of pixels the graphics card could possibly write to the local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate 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 output 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 reach the max fill rate.