GeForce GTX 860M vs GeForce GTX 960

Intro

Compare those specs to the GeForce GTX 960, which has a GPU core clock speed of 1127 MHz, and 2048 MB of GDDR5 memory running at 1750 MHz through a 128-bit bus. It also features 1024 Stream Processors, 64 Texture Address Units, and 32 Raster Operation 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 960		7627 points
GeForce GTX 860M		4340 points
	Difference: 3287 (76%)

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GTX 860M		45 Watts
GeForce GTX 960		120 Watts
	Difference: 75 Watts (167%)

Memory Bandwidth

The GeForce GTX 960 should in theory perform much faster than the GeForce GTX 860M in general. (explain)

GeForce GTX 960		112000 MB/sec
GeForce GTX 860M		64000 MB/sec
	Difference: 48000 (75%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 860M will be a bit (about 6%) faster with regards to anisotropic filtering than the GeForce GTX 960. (explain)

GeForce GTX 860M		76512 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GTX 960		72128 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 4384 (6%)

Pixel Rate

The GeForce GTX 960 should be much (approximately 183%) more effective at AA than the GeForce GTX 860M, and also capable of handling higher screen resolutions without losing too much performance. (explain)

GeForce GTX 960		36064 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GTX 860M		12752 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 23312 (183%)

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 data (in units of MB per second) that can be transported across the external memory interface in a second. It is worked out by multiplying the interface width by its memory clock speed. If the card has DDR type RAM, it should be multiplied by 2 once again. If DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The better the bandwidth is, 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 amount of texture map elements (texels) that are applied in one second. This is calculated by multiplying the total number of texture units of the card by the core clock speed of the chip. The better this number, the better the card will be at handling texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels processed in a second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum number of pixels the graphics card could possibly write to its local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is calculated by multiplying the number of ROPs by the the core clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also sometimes called Render Output Units) are responsible for drawing the pixels (image) on the screen. The actual pixel output rate also depends on many 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.