GeForce GTX 960M vs GeForce GTX 980M

Intro

Compare all of that to the GeForce GTX 980M, which comes with a core clock frequency of 1038 MHz and a GDDR5 memory speed of 1000 MHz. It also features a 256-bit memory bus, and makes use of a 28 nm design. It is made up of 1536 SPUs, 96 TAUs, and 64 ROPs.

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 980M		9476 points
GeForce GTX 960M		4350 points
	Difference: 5126 (118%)

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GTX 960M		65 Watts
GeForce GTX 980M		100 Watts
	Difference: 35 Watts (54%)

Memory Bandwidth

Performance-wise, the GeForce GTX 980M should in theory be much better than the GeForce GTX 960M in general. (explain)

GeForce GTX 980M		128000 MB/sec
GeForce GTX 960M		64000 MB/sec
	Difference: 64000 (100%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 980M will be quite a bit (approximately 127%) more effective at texture filtering than the GeForce GTX 960M. (explain)

GeForce GTX 980M		99648 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GTX 960M		43840 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 55808 (127%)

Pixel Rate

If using high levels of AA is important to you, then the GeForce GTX 980M is a better choice, and very much so. (explain)

GeForce GTX 980M		66432 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GTX 960M		17536 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 48896 (279%)

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 largest amount of data (counted in MB per second) that can be moved over the external memory interface within a second. It's calculated by multiplying the card's bus width by the speed of its memory. In the case of DDR memory, it must be multiplied by 2 once again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The higher the bandwidth is, 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 texture map elements (texels) that can be applied per second. This figure is calculated by multiplying the total texture units of the card by the core clock speed of the chip. The higher the texel rate, the better the video card will be at handling texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels applied per second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the most pixels that the graphics chip can possibly record to its local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is worked out by multiplying the amount of ROPs by the the card's clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - sometimes also referred to as Render Output Units) are responsible for filling the screen with pixels (the image). The actual pixel output rate is also dependant on quite a few other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the potential to get to the max fill rate.