GeForce GTX 460 1GB vs GeForce GTX 970M

Intro

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

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GTX 970M		75 Watts
GeForce GTX 460 1GB		160 Watts
	Difference: 85 Watts (113%)

Memory Bandwidth

Theoretically speaking, the GeForce GTX 460 1GB is 20% faster than the GeForce GTX 970M overall, due to its higher data rate. (explain)

GeForce GTX 460 1GB		115200 MB/sec
GeForce GTX 970M		96000 MB/sec
	Difference: 19200 (20%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 970M should be quite a bit (about 96%) more effective at anisotropic filtering than the GeForce GTX 460 1GB. (explain)

GeForce GTX 970M		73920 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GTX 460 1GB		37800 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 36120 (96%)

Pixel Rate

The GeForce GTX 970M will be quite a bit (about 105%) faster with regards to full screen anti-aliasing than the GeForce GTX 460 1GB, and also capable of handling higher resolutions better. (explain)

GeForce GTX 970M		44352 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GTX 460 1GB		21600 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 22752 (105%)

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 maximum amount of information (counted in megabytes per second) that can be transferred past the external memory interface within a second. The number is calculated by multiplying the card's interface width by the speed of its memory. If it uses DDR RAM, it should be multiplied by 2 once 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 anti-aliasing, High Dynamic Range and high resolutions.

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

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum amount of pixels the graphics card can possibly write to the local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is worked out by multiplying the amount of Raster Operations Pipelines by the the core clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - sometimes also referred to as Render Output Units) are responsible for filling the screen with pixels (the image). The actual pixel output rate is also dependant on many other factors, especially the memory bandwidth - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the ability to get to the maximum fill rate.