GeForce GTX 580 3GB vs GeForce GTX 950M

Intro

Compare those specifications to the GeForce GTX 950M, which comes with a clock frequency of 914 MHz and a DDR3 memory frequency of 1000 MHz. It also uses a 128-bit bus, and uses a 28 nm design. It features 640 SPUs, 40 Texture Address Units, and 16 Raster Operation Units.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GTX 950M		55 Watts
GeForce GTX 580 3GB		244 Watts
	Difference: 189 Watts (344%)

Memory Bandwidth

As far as performance goes, the GeForce GTX 580 3GB should theoretically be a lot better than the GeForce GTX 950M in general. (explain)

GeForce GTX 580 3GB		192384 MB/sec
GeForce GTX 950M		32000 MB/sec
	Difference: 160384 (501%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 580 3GB is quite a bit (approximately 35%) better at AF than the GeForce GTX 950M. (explain)

GeForce GTX 580 3GB		49408 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GTX 950M		36560 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 12848 (35%)

Pixel Rate

If running with lots of anti-aliasing is important to you, then the GeForce GTX 580 3GB is a better choice, by far. (explain)

GeForce GTX 580 3GB		37056 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GTX 950M		14624 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 22432 (153%)

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 data (in units of megabytes per second) that can be moved past the external memory interface in a second. It's calculated by multiplying the card's interface width by its memory clock speed. If the card has DDR RAM, it should be multiplied by 2 once again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The better the memory bandwidth, the faster 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 number of texture map elements (texels) that can be applied in one second. This figure is calculated by multiplying the total amount of texture units of the card by the core clock speed of the chip. The better this number, the better the graphics card will be at handling texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels applied in a second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum amount of pixels that the graphics chip could possibly write to its local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is calculated by multiplying the number of colour ROPs by the the core speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - aka Render Output Units) are responsible for outputting the pixels (image) to the screen. The actual pixel fill rate is also dependant on lots of other factors, especially the memory bandwidth - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the potential to get to the max fill rate.