GeForce GTX 980 vs Geforce GTX 680

Intro

Compare that to the Geforce GTX 680, which comes with a core clock frequency of 1006 MHz and a GDDR5 memory frequency of 1502 MHz. It also makes use of a 256-bit memory bus, and makes use of a 28 nm design. It features 1536 SPUs, 128 TAUs, and 32 ROPs.

Display Graphs

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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 980		13552 points
Geforce GTX 680		7650 points
	Difference: 5902 (77%)

Grand Theft Auto V | 1920x1080 | Very High

GeForce GTX 980		63 FPS
Geforce GTX 680		38 FPS
	Difference: 25 (66%)

Ethereum Mining Hash Rate

GeForce GTX 980		20 Mh/s
Geforce GTX 680		16 Mh/s
	Difference: 4 (25%)

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GTX 980		165 Watts
Geforce GTX 680		195 Watts
	Difference: 30 Watts (18%)

Memory Bandwidth

Theoretically speaking, the GeForce GTX 980 will be 17% faster than the Geforce GTX 680 in general, because of its greater bandwidth. (explain)

GeForce GTX 980		224000 MB/sec
Geforce GTX 680		192256 MB/sec
	Difference: 31744 (17%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 980 should be a small bit (about 12%) more effective at anisotropic filtering than the Geforce GTX 680. (explain)

GeForce GTX 980		144128 Mtexels/sec
Geforce GTX 680		128768 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 15360 (12%)

Pixel Rate

If running with a high screen resolution is important to you, then the GeForce GTX 980 is the winner, by a large margin. (explain)

GeForce GTX 980		72064 Mpixels/sec
Geforce GTX 680		32192 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 39872 (124%)

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 data (in units of megabytes per second) that can be moved past the external memory interface in a second. It's calculated by multiplying the bus width by its memory clock speed. In the case of DDR type RAM, it must be multiplied by 2 again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The higher the card's memory bandwidth, the faster 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 can be processed per second. This figure is worked out by multiplying the total 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 in a second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the most pixels that the graphics chip can possibly write to the local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is calculated by multiplying the number of colour ROPs by the clock speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - aka Render Output Units) are responsible for filling the screen with pixels (the image). The actual pixel fill rate is also dependant on quite a few other factors, especially the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the ability to get to the maximum fill rate.