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GeForce GT 420 vs GeForce GTX 950M

Intro

The GeForce GT 420 features a GPU core clock speed of 700 MHz, and the 2048 MB of GDDR3 RAM runs at 900 MHz through a 128-bit bus. It also is comprised of 48 Stream Processors, 8 Texture Address Units, and 4 Raster Operation Units.

Compare those specs to the GeForce GTX 950M, which makes use of a 28 nm design. nVidia has set the core speed at 914 MHz. The DDR3 memory works at a frequency of 1000 MHz on this specific card. It features 640 SPUs as well as 40 TAUs and 16 ROPs.

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GT 420		50 Watts
GeForce GTX 950M		55 Watts
	Difference: 5 Watts (10%)

Memory Bandwidth

Theoretically speaking, the GeForce GTX 950M should be a small bit faster than the GeForce GT 420 in general. (explain)

GeForce GTX 950M		32000 MB/sec
GeForce GT 420		28800 MB/sec
	Difference: 3200 (11%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 950M should be much (approximately 553%) better at texture filtering than the GeForce GT 420. (explain)

GeForce GTX 950M		36560 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GT 420		5600 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 30960 (553%)

Pixel Rate

The GeForce GTX 950M will be quite a bit (approximately 422%) faster with regards to anti-aliasing than the GeForce GT 420, and should be able to handle higher screen resolutions while still performing well. (explain)

GeForce GTX 950M		14624 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GT 420		2800 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 11824 (422%)

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

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GeForce GT 420

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GeForce GTX 950M

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Specifications

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Model	GeForce GT 420	GeForce GTX 950M
Manufacturer	nVidia	nVidia
Year	September 2010	March 12 2015
Code Name	GF108	GM107
Memory	2048 MB	2048 MB
Core Speed	700 MHz	914 MHz
Memory Speed	1800 MHz	2000 MHz
Power (Max TDP)	50 watts	55 watts
Bandwidth	28800 MB/sec	32000 MB/sec
Texel Rate	5600 Mtexels/sec	36560 Mtexels/sec
Pixel Rate	2800 Mpixels/sec	14624 Mpixels/sec
Unified Shaders	48	640
Texture Mapping Units	8	40
Render Output Units	4	16
Bus Type	GDDR3	DDR3
Bus Width	128-bit	128-bit
Fab Process	40 nm	28 nm
Transistors	585 million	(Unknown) million
Bus	PCIe x16	PCIe 3.0 x16
DirectX Version	DirectX 11	DirectX 12
OpenGL Version	OpenGL 4.1	OpenGL 4.5

Memory Bandwidth: Bandwidth is the largest amount of information (measured in megabytes per second) that can be moved across the external memory interface within a second. It is worked out by multiplying the 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 higher the memory bandwidth, the better 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 texture map elements (texels) that can be processed in one second. This figure is calculated by multiplying the total amount of texture units by the core clock speed of the chip. The higher the texel rate, the better the graphics 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 most pixels the video card could possibly write to its local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is worked out by multiplying the amount of Render Output Units by the the core clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - sometimes also referred to as Render Output Units) are responsible for drawing the pixels (image) on the screen. The actual pixel fill rate also depends on many other factors, especially the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the ability to reach the max fill rate.

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