GeForce GTX 960 vs Geforce GTX 680

Intro

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

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 680		7650 points
GeForce GTX 960		7627 points
	Difference: 23 (0%)

Ethereum Mining Hash Rate

Geforce GTX 680		16 Mh/s
GeForce GTX 960		11 Mh/s
	Difference: 5 (45%)

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GTX 960		120 Watts
Geforce GTX 680		195 Watts
	Difference: 75 Watts (63%)

Memory Bandwidth

As far as performance goes, the Geforce GTX 680 should in theory be much better than the GeForce GTX 960 in general. (explain)

Geforce GTX 680		192256 MB/sec
GeForce GTX 960		112000 MB/sec
	Difference: 80256 (72%)

Texel Rate

The Geforce GTX 680 is quite a bit (about 79%) better at AF than the GeForce GTX 960. (explain)

Geforce GTX 680		128768 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GTX 960		72128 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 56640 (79%)

Pixel Rate

The GeForce GTX 960 should be a little bit (about 12%) more effective at full screen anti-aliasing than the Geforce GTX 680, and will be capable of handling higher screen resolutions better. (explain)

GeForce GTX 960		36064 Mpixels/sec
Geforce GTX 680		32192 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 3872 (12%)

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 data (counted in megabytes per second) that can be transferred past the external memory interface in a second. It is calculated by multiplying the card's interface width by the speed of its memory. If the card has DDR type memory, the result should be multiplied by 2 once again. If DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The higher the card's memory bandwidth, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, High Dynamic Range and higher screen resolutions.

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

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum number of pixels that the graphics card can possibly write to the local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is worked out by multiplying the amount of Raster Operations Pipelines by the the core speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also called Render Output Units) are responsible for drawing the pixels (image) on the screen. The actual pixel output rate also depends on many other factors, especially the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the potential to reach the maximum fill rate.