GeForce GTX 860M vs GeForce GTX 960

Intro

Compare all of that to the GeForce GTX 960, which makes use of a 28 nm design. nVidia has clocked the core speed at 1127 MHz. The GDDR5 memory works at a speed of 1750 MHz on this model. It features 1024 SPUs as well as 64 Texture Address Units and 32 ROPs.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

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 a lot faster than the GeForce GTX 860M overall. (explain)

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

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 860M should be a bit (more or less 6%) faster with regards to AF than the GeForce GTX 960. (explain)

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

Pixel Rate

If running with a high screen resolution is important to you, then the GeForce GTX 960 is a better choice, by a large margin. (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 max amount of data (counted in MB per second) that can be moved over the external memory interface within a second. The number is worked out by multiplying the bus width by its memory clock speed. In the case of DDR memory, it should be multiplied by 2 once again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The better the card's memory bandwidth, the faster 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 applied per second. This is worked out by multiplying the total amount of texture units of the card by the core clock speed of the chip. The better the texel rate, the better the video card will be at texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels in a second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum amount of pixels that the graphics card could possibly record to the local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is worked out by multiplying the amount of ROPs by the the card's clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also called Render Output Units) are responsible for filling the screen with pixels (the image). The actual pixel fill rate is also dependant on quite a few other factors, especially the memory bandwidth - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the ability to reach the maximum fill rate.