GeForce GTX 870M vs GeForce GTX 970M

Intro

Compare all that to the GeForce GTX 970M, which comes with core clock speeds of 924 MHz on the GPU, and 1000 MHz on the 3072 MB of GDDR5 RAM. It features 1280 SPUs along with 80 TAUs and 48 Rasterization Operator Units.

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 memory bandwidth, so in theory they should perform the same. (explain)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 870M is quite a bit (about 43%) faster with regards to anisotropic 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 quite a bit (about 96%) better at anti-aliasing than the GeForce GTX 870M, and should be able to handle higher screen 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: Bandwidth is the max amount of information (in units of megabytes per second) that can be transported past the external memory interface in a second. The number is worked out by multiplying the card's bus width by its memory speed. If the card has DDR type memory, it should be multiplied by 2 once again. If DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The better the bandwidth is, the better 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 texture map elements (texels) that can be applied in one second. This number 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 handling texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels per second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum number of pixels the video card can possibly record to the local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is worked out by multiplying the number of Render Output Units by the the core 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 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 potential to reach the max fill rate.