GeForce GTX 870M vs GeForce GTX 950

Intro

Compare that to the GeForce GTX 950, which comes with a GPU core clock speed of 1024 MHz, and 2048 MB of GDDR5 RAM set to run at 1652 MHz through a 128-bit bus. It also is made up of 768 Stream Processors, 48 TAUs, 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 950		6536 points
GeForce GTX 870M		4770 points
	Difference: 1766 (37%)

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GTX 950		90 Watts
GeForce GTX 870M		110 Watts
	Difference: 20 Watts (22%)

Memory Bandwidth

Performance-wise, the GeForce GTX 950 should theoretically be a small bit better than the GeForce GTX 870M in general. (explain)

GeForce GTX 950		105728 MB/sec
GeForce GTX 870M		96000 MB/sec
	Difference: 9728 (10%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 870M is much (about 114%) more effective at anisotropic filtering than the GeForce GTX 950. (explain)

GeForce GTX 870M		105392 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GTX 950		49152 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 56240 (114%)

Pixel Rate

The GeForce GTX 950 will be much (approximately 45%) faster with regards to full screen anti-aliasing than the GeForce GTX 870M, and capable of handling higher screen resolutions more effectively. (explain)

GeForce GTX 950		32768 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GTX 870M		22584 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 10184 (45%)

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

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum amount of pixels that the graphics card can possibly record to its local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is worked out by multiplying the amount of Raster Operations Pipelines 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 quite a few other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the potential to reach the max fill rate.