GeForce GTX 870M vs GeForce GTX 970M

Intro

Compare that to the GeForce GTX 970M, which uses a 28 nm design. nVidia has set the core frequency at 924 MHz. The GDDR5 memory runs at a speed of 1000 MHz on this particular card. It features 1280 SPUs as well as 80 TAUs and 48 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 970M		7520 points
GeForce GTX 870M		4770 points
	Difference: 2750 (58%)

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GTX 970M		75 Watts
GeForce GTX 870M		110 Watts
	Difference: 35 Watts (47%)

Memory Bandwidth

Both cards have exactly the same bandwidth, so theoretically they should have the same performance. (explain)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 870M is much (about 43%) more effective at texture filtering than the GeForce GTX 970M. (explain)

GeForce GTX 870M		105392 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GTX 970M		73920 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 31472 (43%)

Pixel Rate

The GeForce GTX 970M will be much (approximately 96%) faster with regards to full screen anti-aliasing than the GeForce GTX 870M, and capable of handling higher resolutions while still performing well. (explain)

GeForce GTX 970M		44352 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GTX 870M		22584 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 21768 (96%)

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 (in units of megabytes per second) that can be transported across the external memory interface in a second. The number is calculated by multiplying the bus width by its memory clock speed. In the case of DDR type memory, it must be multiplied by 2 again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The better the card's memory bandwidth, the faster 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 amount of texture map elements (texels) that are processed per second. This figure is calculated by multiplying the total amount of texture units of the card by the core clock speed of the chip. The better the texel rate, the better the card will be at 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 could possibly record to the local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is calculated by multiplying the amount of ROPs by the the card's clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also sometimes called Render Output Units) are responsible for drawing the pixels (image) on the screen. The actual pixel fill rate is also dependant on quite a few other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the ability to get to the maximum fill rate.