GeForce GT 420 vs GeForce GTX 960M

Intro

Compare those specs to the GeForce GTX 960M, which comes with a clock speed of 1096 MHz and a GDDR5 memory speed of 1000 MHz. It also features a 128-bit memory bus, and uses a 28 nm design. It is comprised of 640 SPUs, 40 TAUs, and 16 ROPs.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GT 420		50 Watts
GeForce GTX 960M		65 Watts
	Difference: 15 Watts (30%)

Memory Bandwidth

In theory, the GeForce GTX 960M should be much faster than the GeForce GT 420 overall. (explain)

GeForce GTX 960M		64000 MB/sec
GeForce GT 420		28800 MB/sec
	Difference: 35200 (122%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 960M should be quite a bit (about 683%) better at anisotropic filtering than the GeForce GT 420. (explain)

GeForce GTX 960M		43840 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GT 420		5600 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 38240 (683%)

Pixel Rate

The GeForce GTX 960M will be much (about 526%) better at anti-aliasing than the GeForce GT 420, and should be capable of handling higher screen resolutions better. (explain)

GeForce GTX 960M		17536 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GT 420		2800 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 14736 (526%)

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: Memory bandwidth is the maximum amount of information (in units of MB per second) that can be moved across the external memory interface in one second. It is worked out by multiplying the bus width by the speed of its memory. In the case of DDR memory, the result should be multiplied by 2 once again. If it uses 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, HDR and higher screen resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum number of texture map elements (texels) that can be processed per second. This is worked out by multiplying the total texture units by the core 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 a second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the most pixels the video card can possibly write to its local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is calculated by multiplying the amount of Render Output Units by the clock speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also sometimes called Render Output Units) are responsible for outputting the pixels (image) to the screen. The actual pixel rate also depends on quite a few other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the ability to get to the max fill rate.