GeForce GTX 260 vs GeForce GTX 870M

Intro

Compare all of that to the GeForce GTX 870M, which features clock speeds of 941 MHz on the GPU, and 1000 MHz on the 3072 MB of GDDR5 memory. It features 1344 SPUs along with 112 TAUs and 24 ROPs.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GTX 870M		110 Watts
GeForce GTX 260		182 Watts
	Difference: 72 Watts (65%)

Memory Bandwidth

In theory, the GeForce GTX 260 is 17% faster than the GeForce GTX 870M overall, due to its higher data rate. (explain)

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

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 870M is quite a bit (about 186%) better at AF than the GeForce GTX 260. (explain)

GeForce GTX 870M		105392 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GTX 260		36864 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 68528 (186%)

Pixel Rate

If running with lots of anti-aliasing is important to you, then the GeForce GTX 870M is superior to the GeForce GTX 260, by far. (explain)

GeForce GTX 870M		22584 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GTX 260		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: Memory bandwidth is the maximum amount of information (in units of megabytes per second) that can be moved across the external memory interface in a second. It is worked out by multiplying the bus width by its memory speed. In the case of DDR memory, it must be multiplied by 2 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, HDR and high resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum number of texture map elements (texels) that are applied per second. This number is worked out by multiplying the total texture units of the card by the core speed of the chip. The higher the texel rate, the better the 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 most pixels that the graphics card can possibly record to the local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is worked out by multiplying the number of ROPs by the the card's clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - aka Render Output Units) are responsible for filling the screen with pixels (the image). The actual pixel fill rate also depends on many other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the potential to reach the max fill rate.