NVIDIA started GeForce GTX 970M sales 7 October 2014 at a recommended price of $2,560.89 . This is a laptop graphics card based on a Maxwell 2.0 architecture and made with 28 nm manufacturing process. It is primarily aimed at gamers. 3 GB of GDDR5 memory clocked at 2.5 GHz are supplied, and together with 192 Bit memory interface this creates a bandwidth of 120 GB/s.

Compatibility-wise, this is a graphics card attached via MXM-B (3.0) interface. Power consumption is at unknown.

Primary details

Some basic facts about GeForce GTX 970M: architecture, market segment, release date etc.

Place in the ranking	351
Place by popularity	not in top-100
Power efficiency	13.04	of 100.00 (Radeon 890M)
Architecture	Maxwell 2.0 (2014−2019)
GPU code name	GM204
Market segment	Laptop
Release date	7 October 2014 (10 years ago)
Launch price (MSRP)	$2,560.89	of 14,999 (Quadro Plex 7000)

Cost-effectiveness evaluation

Performance to price ratio. The higher, the better.

Detailed specifications

GeForce GTX 970M's specs such as number of shaders, GPU base clock, manufacturing process, texturing and calculation speed. These parameters indirectly speak of GeForce GTX 970M's performance, but for precise assessment you have to consider its benchmark and gaming test results.

Pipelines / CUDA cores	1280	of 21760 (GeForce RTX 5090)
Core clock speed	924 MHz	of 2800 MHz (Playstation 5 Pro GPU)
Boost clock speed	1038 MHz	of 3599 MHz (Radeon RX 7990 XTX)
Number of transistors	5,200 million	of 208,000 million (B200 SXM 192 GB)
Manufacturing process technology	28 nm	of 3 nm (Arc Graphics 140V)
Power consumption (TDP)	unknown	of 2400 Watt (Data Center GPU Max Subsystem)
Texture fill rate	83.04	of 2,554 (Radeon Instinct MI300X)
Floating-point processing power	2.657 TFLOPS	of 109.7 (GeForce RTX 5090)
ROPs	48	of 192 (Radeon RX 7900 XTX)
TMUs	80	of 1280 (Data Center GPU Max NEXT)

Form factor & compatibility

This section provides details about the physical dimensions of GeForce GTX 970M and its compatibility with other computer components. This information is useful when selecting a computer configuration or upgrading an existing one. For desktop graphics cards, it includes details about the interface and bus (for motherboard compatibility) and additional power connectors (for power supply compatibility).

Laptop size	large
Bus support	PCI Express 3.0
Interface	MXM-B (3.0)
Supplementary power connectors	None
SLI options	+

VRAM capacity and type

Parameters of memory installed on GeForce GTX 970M: its type, size, bus, clock and resulting bandwidth. Note that GPUs integrated into processors have no dedicated memory and use a shared part of system RAM instead.

Memory type	GDDR5
Maximum RAM amount	3 GB	of 294912 (Radeon Instinct MI325X)
Memory bus width	192 Bit	of 8192 Bit (Radeon Instinct MI250X)
Memory clock speed	2500 MHz	of 20000 (RTX 5000 Ada Generation Mobile)
Memory bandwidth	120 GB/s	of 5,171 GB/s (Radeon Instinct MI300X)
Shared memory	-

Connectivity and outputs

Types and number of video connectors present on GeForce GTX 970M. As a rule, this section is relevant only for desktop reference graphics cards, since for notebook ones the availability of certain video outputs depends on the laptop model, while non-reference desktop models can (though not necessarily will) bear a different set of video ports.

Display Connectors	No outputs
VGA аnalog display support	+
DisplayPort Multimode (DP++) support	+
HDMI	+
G-SYNC support	+

Supported technologies

Technological solutions and APIs supported by GeForce GTX 970M. You'll probably need this information if you need some particular technology for your purposes.

GameStream	+
GeForce ShadowPlay	+
GPU Boost	2.0
GameWorks	+
H.264, VC1, MPEG2 1080p video decoder	+
Optimus	+
BatteryBoost	+
Ansel	+

API compatibility

APIs supported by GeForce GTX 970M, sometimes including their particular versions.

DirectX	12 (12_1)
Shader Model	6.4
OpenGL	4.5	of 4.6 (GeForce RTX 4090)
OpenCL	1.1
Vulkan	1.1.126
CUDA	+

Benchmark performance

Synthetic benchmark performance of GeForce GTX 970M. The combined score is measured on a 0-100 point scale.

Combined synthetic benchmark score

This is our combined benchmark score. We are regularly improving our combining algorithms, but if you find some perceived inconsistencies, feel free to speak up in comments section, we usually fix problems quickly.

GTX 970M 14.83

Passmark

This is the most ubiquitous GPU benchmark. It gives the graphics card a thorough evaluation under various types of load, providing four separate benchmarks for Direct3D versions 9, 10, 11 and 12 (the last being done in 4K resolution if possible), and few more tests engaging DirectCompute capabilities.

GTX 970M 5724

3DMark Vantage Performance

3DMark Vantage is an outdated DirectX 10 benchmark using 1280x1024 screen resolution. It taxes the graphics card with two scenes, one depicting a girl escaping some militarized base located within a sea cave, the other displaying a space fleet attack on a defenseless planet. It was discontinued in April 2017, and Time Spy benchmark is now recommended to be used instead.

GTX 970M 28845

3DMark 11 Performance GPU

3DMark 11 is an obsolete DirectX 11 benchmark by Futuremark. It used four tests based on two scenes, one being few submarines exploring the submerged wreck of a sunken ship, the other is an abandoned temple deep in the jungle. All the tests are heavy with volumetric lighting and tessellation, and despite being done in 1280x720 resolution, are relatively taxing. Discontinued in January 2020, 3DMark 11 is now superseded by Time Spy.

GTX 970M 9878

3DMark Fire Strike Graphics

Fire Strike is a DirectX 11 benchmark for gaming PCs. It features two separate tests displaying a fight between a humanoid and a fiery creature made of lava. Using 1920x1080 resolution, Fire Strike shows off some realistic graphics and is quite taxing on hardware.

GTX 970M 7463

3DMark Cloud Gate GPU

Cloud Gate is an outdated DirectX 11 feature level 10 benchmark that was used for home PCs and basic notebooks. It displays a few scenes of some weird space teleportation device launching spaceships into unknown, using fixed resolution of 1280x720. Just like Ice Storm benchmark, it has been discontinued in January 2020 and replaced by 3DMark Night Raid.

GTX 970M 51247

GeekBench 5 OpenCL

Geekbench 5 is a widespread graphics card benchmark combined from 11 different test scenarios. All these scenarios rely on direct usage of GPU's processing power, no 3D rendering is involved. This variation uses OpenCL API by Khronos Group.

GTX 970M 19017

3DMark Ice Storm GPU

Ice Storm Graphics is an obsolete benchmark, part of 3DMark suite. Ice Storm was used to measure entry level laptops and Windows-based tablets performance. It utilizes DirectX 11 feature level 9 to display a battle between two space fleets near a frozen planet in 1280x720 resolution. Discontinued in January 2020, it is now superseded by 3DMark Night Raid.

GTX 970M 274626

GeekBench 5 Vulkan

GTX 970M 16936

GeekBench 5 CUDA

GTX 970M 17191

Unigine Heaven 3.0

This is an old DirectX 11 benchmark using Unigine, a 3D game engine by eponymous Russian company. It displays a fantasy medieval town sprawling over several flying islands. Version 3.0 was released in 2012, and in 2013 it was superseded by Heaven 4.0, which introduced several slight improvements, including a newer version of Unigine.

GTX 970M 93

Octane Render OctaneBench

This is a special benchmark measuring graphics card performance in OctaneRender, which is a realistic GPU rendering engine by OTOY Inc., available either as a standalone program, or as a plugin for 3DS Max, Cinema 4D and many other apps. It renders four different static scenes, then compares render times with a reference GPU which is currently GeForce GTX 980. This benchmark has nothing to do with gaming and is aimed at professional 3D graphics artists.

GTX 970M 51

SPECviewperf 12 - specvp12 maya-04

GTX 970M 34

SPECviewperf 12 - specvp12 sw-03

GTX 970M 21

SPECviewperf 12 - specvp12 snx-02

GTX 970M 3

SPECviewperf 12 - specvp12 catia-04

GTX 970M 24

SPECviewperf 12 - specvp12 creo-01

GTX 970M 37

SPECviewperf 12 - specvp12 medical-01

GTX 970M 11

SPECviewperf 12 - specvp12 showcase-01

GTX 970M 28

SPECviewperf 12 - specvp12 energy-01

GTX 970M 12

SPECviewperf 12 - Showcase

GTX 970M 28

SPECviewperf 12 - Maya

This part of SPECviewperf 12 workstation benchmark uses Autodesk Maya 13 engine to render a superhero energy plant static scene consisting of more than 700 thousand polygons, in six different modes.

GTX 970M 34

SPECviewperf 12 - Catia

GTX 970M 24

SPECviewperf 12 - Solidworks

GTX 970M 21

SPECviewperf 12 - Siemens NX

GTX 970M 3

SPECviewperf 12 - Creo

GTX 970M 37

SPECviewperf 12 - Medical

GTX 970M 11

SPECviewperf 12 - Energy

GTX 970M 11.7

Gaming performance

Let's see how good GeForce GTX 970M is for gaming. Particular gaming benchmark results are measured in frames per second. Comparisons with game system requirements are included, but remember that sometimes official requirements may reflect reality inaccurately.

Average FPS across all PC games

Here are the average frames per second in a large set of popular modern games across different resolutions:

900p	136
Full HD	55
1440p	25
4K	21

FPS performance in popular games

Full HD
Low Preset

Cyberpunk 2077

21−24

Full HD
Medium Preset

Assassin's Creed Odyssey	42
Assassin's Creed Valhalla	24−27
Battlefield 5	52
Call of Duty: Modern Warfare	30−33
Cyberpunk 2077	21−24
Far Cry 5	50
Far Cry New Dawn	48
Forza Horizon 4	144
Hitman 3	27−30
Horizon Zero Dawn	75−80
Metro Exodus	53
Red Dead Redemption 2	40−45
Shadow of the Tomb Raider	81
Watch Dogs: Legion	75−80

Full HD
High Preset

Assassin's Creed Odyssey	53
Assassin's Creed Valhalla	24−27
Battlefield 5	44
Call of Duty: Modern Warfare	30−33
Cyberpunk 2077	21−24
Far Cry 5	41
Far Cry New Dawn	37
Forza Horizon 4	131
Hitman 3	27−30
Horizon Zero Dawn	75−80
Metro Exodus	44
Red Dead Redemption 2	40−45
Shadow of the Tomb Raider	45−50
The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt	101
Watch Dogs: Legion	75−80

Full HD
Ultra Preset

Assassin's Creed Odyssey	21
Assassin's Creed Valhalla	24−27
Call of Duty: Modern Warfare	30−33
Cyberpunk 2077	21−24
Far Cry 5	29
Forza Horizon 4	36
Hitman 3	27−30
Horizon Zero Dawn	75−80
Shadow of the Tomb Raider	45−50
The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt	26
Watch Dogs: Legion	75−80

Full HD
Epic Preset

Red Dead Redemption 2

40−45

1440p
High Preset

Battlefield 5	26
Far Cry New Dawn	25

1440p
Ultra Preset

Assassin's Creed Odyssey	17
Assassin's Creed Valhalla	12−14
Call of Duty: Modern Warfare	16−18
Cyberpunk 2077	8−9
Far Cry 5	19
Forza Horizon 4	80
Hitman 3	18−20
Horizon Zero Dawn	30−33
Metro Exodus	25
Shadow of the Tomb Raider	27−30
The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt	16−18
Watch Dogs: Legion	90−95

1440p
Epic Preset

Red Dead Redemption 2

24−27

4K
High Preset

Battlefield 5	12
Far Cry New Dawn	13
Hitman 3	10−12
Horizon Zero Dawn	70−75
Metro Exodus	14
The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt	16

4K
Ultra Preset

Assassin's Creed Odyssey	9−10
Assassin's Creed Valhalla	7−8
Call of Duty: Modern Warfare	7−8
Cyberpunk 2077	2−3
Far Cry 5	8
Forza Horizon 4	6
Shadow of the Tomb Raider	14−16
Watch Dogs: Legion	6−7

4K
Epic Preset

Red Dead Redemption 2

12−14

Closest competitors

GeForce GTX 970M's performance relative to its closest rivals among notebook graphics cards.

GeForce GTX 1050 Ti Mobile 103.78

GeForce GTX 1060 Max-Q 6 GB 102.9

GeForce MX570 100.07

GeForce GTX 970M 100

Arc A350M 98.99

Apple M1 8-Core GPU 98.04

GeForce GTX 770M SLI 97.1

AMD equivalent

According to our data, the closest AMD alternative to GeForce GTX 970M is Radeon RX 5500M, which is slower by 3% and lower by 10 positions in our ranking.