GeForce GTX 950M vs GeForce GTX 960M

Intro

Compare those specifications to the GeForce GTX 960M, which makes use of a 28 nm design. nVidia has set the core speed at 1096 MHz. The GDDR5 memory is set to run at a frequency of 1000 MHz on this particular model. It features 640 SPUs as well as 40 Texture Address Units and 16 Rasterization Operator Units.

Display Graphs

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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 960M		4350 points
GeForce GTX 950M		3330 points
	Difference: 1020 (31%)

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GTX 950M		55 Watts
GeForce GTX 960M		65 Watts
	Difference: 10 Watts (18%)

Memory Bandwidth

Theoretically speaking, the GeForce GTX 960M should be 100% quicker than the GeForce GTX 950M overall, because of its higher data rate. (explain)

GeForce GTX 960M		64000 MB/sec
GeForce GTX 950M		32000 MB/sec
	Difference: 32000 (100%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 960M should be just a bit (about 20%) more effective at anisotropic filtering than the GeForce GTX 950M. (explain)

GeForce GTX 960M		43840 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GTX 950M		36560 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 7280 (20%)

Pixel Rate

The GeForce GTX 960M will be just a bit (approximately 20%) faster with regards to anti-aliasing than the GeForce GTX 950M, and able to handle higher resolutions without losing too much performance. (explain)

GeForce GTX 960M		17536 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GTX 950M		14624 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 2912 (20%)

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 one second. It's calculated by multiplying the card's interface width by its memory clock speed. In the case of DDR RAM, it must be multiplied by 2 again. If DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The higher the card's memory bandwidth, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, High Dynamic Range and higher screen resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum number of texture map elements (texels) that can be processed per second. This figure is calculated by multiplying the total amount of texture units by the core clock speed of the chip. The better 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 maximum number of pixels the video card could possibly write to its local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is worked out by multiplying the number of colour ROPs by the the card's clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also called Render Output Units) are responsible for drawing the pixels (image) on the screen. The actual pixel 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 get to the max fill rate.