NVIDIA GeForce GTX 970 vs NVIDIA GRID K2 Comparison

Where Each One Wins

The recorded benchmark data splits cleanly between these two NVIDIA cards, with the GeForce GTX 970 taking every single comparative win. Across the two head-to-head tests available in the database, the GRID K2 does not record a single victory. The GTX 970 wins the Geekbench Metal test with a score of 13,595 against the GRID K2's 5,557, a margin of 59.1 percent. In Geekbench OpenCL, the GTX 970 scores 29,982 while the GRID K2 manages 10,602, a 64.6 percent advantage.

The GRID K2's average benchmark score sits at 8,080, placing it in the 42nd percentile of all GPUs in the database. Its nearest rivals include the GeForce GTX 650 Ti Boost, which scores 8,067 and trails by just 0.2 percent, and the GeForce 945M at 8,099, which leads the K2 by 0.2 percent. The GTX 970, by contrast, has an average score of 7,157, which places it in the 39th percentile. Its closest competitors are the Intel Iris Pro Graphics P580 at 7,170 and the GeForce GTX 560 SE at 7,171, both of which are only 0.2 percent ahead.

The interesting wrinkle is that the GTX 970's average score is actually lower than the GRID K2's average score, yet the GTX 970 wins decisively in every shared test. This divergence reflects the different benchmark sets recorded for each card. The GRID K2 only has Geekbench Metal and OpenCL results, while the GTX 970 has a much broader suite including PassMark tests, 3DMark Steel Nomad, and Vulkan workloads. The GTX 970's average is dragged down by weak PassMark DirectX 9 and DirectX 12 scores of 143 and 41, respectively, and a 3DMark Steel Nomad result of just 369. None of those tests appear in the GRID K2's record, so the two averages are not directly comparable.

In the tests they share, the GTX 970 is the clear winner. The GRID K2 does have a higher average benchmark score, but that does not translate into any head-to-head advantage. For raw compute and graphics workloads covered by Geekbench, the GTX 970 dominates.

Architecture Differences

The two cards come from different NVIDIA architectures and different eras of the company's product stack. The GRID K2 uses the GK104 chip, built on the Kepler architecture, and was released in May 2013. The GTX 970 uses the GM204 chip, built on Maxwell 2.0, and launched in September 2014. Both are fabricated by TSMC on a 28 nm process node, but the transistor counts differ significantly. The GRID K2 packs 3,540 million transistors on a 294 mm² die, giving a transistor density of 12.0 million per square millimeter. The GTX 970 carries 5,200 million transistors on a 398 mm² die, with a density of 13.1 million per square millimeter.

The memory subsystems share the same capacity and bus width. Both cards have 4 GB of GDDR5 memory on a 256 bit bus. The effective memory speed differs, however. The GRID K2 runs at 5 Gbps effective, producing 160.0 GB/s of bandwidth. The GTX 970 runs at 7 Gbps effective, yielding 224.4 GB/s. That is a 40 percent bandwidth advantage for the GTX 970, which helps explain its large lead in compute-oriented tests.

Compute resources also differ. The GRID K2 has 1,536 shading units, 128 texture mapping units, and 32 ROPs. The GTX 970 has 1,664 shading units, 104 TMUs, and 56 ROPs. The GTX 970 has more shaders and far more ROPs, but fewer TMUs. The pixel rate tells the story: the GTX 970 posts 65.97 GPixel/s versus 23.84 GPixel/s for the GRID K2. The texture rate is 122.5 GTexel/s for the GTX 970 and 95.36 GTexel/s for the GRID K2. Floating point performance follows the same pattern: the GTX 970 delivers 3.920 TFLOPS of FP32 throughput, while the GRID K2 manages 2.289 TFLOPS.

The GTX 970 also has a clock advantage. Its base clock is 1,050 MHz with a boost clock of 1,178 MHz. The GRID K2 lists no base or boost clock in the database, only a memory clock. That lack of clock data makes direct frequency comparison impossible, but the resulting throughput figures already capture the effect.

Power and physical requirements differ substantially. The GRID K2 has a TDP of 225 W and requires a 550 W power supply, with a 1x 6-pin plus 1x 8-pin power connector configuration. The GTX 970 draws only 148 W, needs a 300 W power supply, and uses two 6-pin connectors. Both are dual-slot cards with the same 267 mm length, but the GTX 970 adds a height of 111 mm and width of 40 mm, dimensions the GRID K2 does not list.

API support also differs. The GRID K2 supports DirectX 12 at feature level 11_0, OpenGL 4.6, and Vulkan 1.2.175. The GTX 970 supports DirectX 12 at feature level 12_1, OpenGL 4.6, and Vulkan 1.4. The newer Maxwell card has a higher DirectX feature level and a newer Vulkan version.

The GRID K2 has no display outputs, which reflects its intended role as a server-side virtualization or grid computing product. The GTX 970 includes 1x DVI, 1x HDMI 2.0, and 3x DisplayPort 1.2 outputs. The GRID K2 was also launched with an MSRP of 5,199 USD, while the GTX 970 launched at 329 USD.

The Verdict

The data supports a straightforward conclusion: the GeForce GTX 970 is the faster card in every test the two share. In Geekbench Metal, it leads by 59.1 percent. In Geekbench OpenCL, it leads by 64.6 percent. Its higher ROP count, greater memory bandwidth, higher FP32 throughput, and newer architecture all point in the same direction.

The GRID K2 does have a higher average benchmark score of 8,080 versus 7,157, but that average is based on a much smaller and different set of tests. When both cards run the same workload, the GTX 970 wins by a wide margin. The GRID K2's higher average is an artifact of the limited benchmarks recorded for it, not evidence of superior performance.

For anyone choosing based on raw compute and graphics performance in the shared test suite, the GTX 970 is the clear pick. It delivers more than double the OpenCL score and nearly two and a half times the Metal score. It also does so at a lower TDP of 148 W versus 225 W, with a smaller power supply recommendation of 300 W versus 550 W.

The GRID K2 makes sense only in its specific niche. With no display outputs, it is not a consumer graphics card at all. It is built for server environments where rendering happens remotely and the card is accessed over a network. In that context, its lower performance relative to the GTX 970 may be acceptable if the workload is designed around grid computing rather than local frame output. But for any task covered by Geekbench Metal or OpenCL, the GTX 970 is the superior part.

The percentile rankings reinforce this. The GRID K2 sits at the 42nd percentile of all GPUs, while the GTX 970 sits at the 39th. That difference is small and driven by the different benchmark sets. In shared tests, the GTX 970 is not merely slightly ahead; it is ahead by more than half in both cases. The GTX 970 also has a much broader benchmark footprint, with results across DirectX 9, 10, 11, and 12, Vulkan, and 3DMark, making it a more thoroughly characterized product.

FAQ

Q: Which card performs better in Geekbench OpenCL?

A: The GeForce GTX 970 scores 29,982 in Geekbench OpenCL, while the GRID K2 scores 10,602. The GTX 970 leads by 64.6 percent.

Q: Do both cards have the same memory capacity?

A: Yes, both have 4 GB of GDDR5 memory on a 256 bit bus. However, the GTX 970 runs at 7 Gbps effective with 224.4 GB/s bandwidth, while the GRID K2 runs at 5 Gbps effective with 160.0 GB/s bandwidth.

Q: What is the transistor count difference between the two?

A: The GRID K2 has 3,540 million transistors on a 294 mm² die, while the GTX 970 has 5,200 million transistors on a 398 mm² die.

Q: Does the GRID K2 have display outputs?

A: No, the GRID K2 lists no display outputs. The GTX 970 has 1x DVI, 1x HDMI 2.0, and 3x DisplayPort 1.2 outputs.

Q: Which card has a higher pixel rate?

A: The GTX 970 has a pixel rate of 65.97 GPixel/s, compared to 23.84 GPixel/s for the GRID K2.

Q: What are the TDP values for each card?

A: The GRID K2 has a TDP of 225 W and requires a 550 W power supply. The GTX 970 has a TDP of 148 W and requires a 300 W power supply.

Head-to-Head Benchmarks

The database records two direct comparisons between these cards, and both are lopsided victories for the GTX 970.

In Geekbench Metal, the GTX 970 scores 13,595 against the GRID K2's 5,557. The delta is 59.1 percent in favor of the GTX 970. That means the GTX 970 delivers nearly 2.45 times the Metal performance of the GRID K2. Metal is Apple's graphics API, and while this benchmark does not necessarily reflect gaming performance, it does measure compute and graphics throughput in a standardized way. The GRID K2's Metal result is closer to its average benchmark score of 8,080 than to the GTX 970's result, which shows how far ahead the newer card is.

The OpenCL result is even more decisive. The GTX 970 scores 29,982, while the GRID K2 scores 10,602. The delta is 64.6 percent. The GTX 970 produces nearly three times the OpenCL score of the GRID K2. OpenCL is a general-purpose compute API, and this margin reflects the underlying hardware differences: the GTX 970 has more shading units, higher clocks, greater memory bandwidth, and more ROPs. The FP32 throughput gap, 3.920 TFLOPS versus 2.289 TFLOPS, is a 71 percent advantage for the GTX 970, and the benchmark result tracks that hardware advantage closely.

The GRID K2's only other recorded benchmarks are the same two Geekbench tests, so there is no broader head-to-head comparison available. The GTX 970, however, has results in PassMark DirectX 9 (143), DirectX 10 (46), DirectX 11 (71), DirectX 12 (41), G2D (764), G3D (9,638), GPU Compute (4,073), Geekbench Vulkan (20,005), and 3DMark Steel Nomad (369). Those results show that the GTX 970 is a well-rounded card across multiple API generations, even if its DirectX scores are modest.

When looking at the full picture, the GTX 970's wins are not marginal. It is more than 59 percent ahead in Metal and more than 64 percent ahead in OpenCL. The GRID K2 does not win a single recorded comparison. Its higher average benchmark score of 8,080 comes from the fact that its only two benchmark results are both in the 5,000 to 11,000 range, while the GTX 970's broader suite includes several low DirectX scores that pull its average down to 7,157. The average is a useful summary for comparing cards with similar test coverage, but it is misleading here because the test sets differ so much.

The head-to-head data is unambiguous. The GTX 970 is the faster card in every shared workload, and the margins are large enough that no amount of workload tuning would close the gap. The GRID K2's role as a server-side card without display outputs explains its existence, but it does not make it competitive with the GTX 970 in compute performance.