GeForce GTX 870M vs GeForce GTX 960

Intro

Compare that to the GeForce GTX 960, which features a GPU core clock speed of 1127 MHz, and 2048 MB of GDDR5 RAM set to run at 1750 MHz through a 128-bit bus. It also features 1024 SPUs, 64 Texture Address Units, and 32 Raster Operation Units.

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 870M		4770 points
	Difference: 2857 (60%)

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GTX 870M		110 Watts
GeForce GTX 960		120 Watts
	Difference: 10 Watts (9%)

Memory Bandwidth

Theoretically speaking, the GeForce GTX 960 should be a little bit faster than the GeForce GTX 870M in general. (explain)

GeForce GTX 960		112000 MB/sec
GeForce GTX 870M		96000 MB/sec
	Difference: 16000 (17%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 870M should be quite a bit (about 46%) faster with regards to texture filtering than the GeForce GTX 960. (explain)

GeForce GTX 870M		105392 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GTX 960		72128 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 33264 (46%)

Pixel Rate

The GeForce GTX 960 is a lot (about 60%) more effective at full screen anti-aliasing than the GeForce GTX 870M, and should be capable of handling higher resolutions better. (explain)

GeForce GTX 960		36064 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GTX 870M		22584 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 13480 (60%)

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 megabytes per second) that can be moved across the external memory interface within a second. It is worked out by multiplying the card's bus width by its memory speed. If it uses DDR RAM, it must be multiplied by 2 again. If DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The better the memory bandwidth, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, HDR and high resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum texture map elements (texels) that are processed per second. This is worked out by multiplying the total texture units by the core speed of the chip. The higher the texel rate, the better the graphics card will be at handling texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels in one 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. The figure is calculated by multiplying the amount of Render Output Units by the the core 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 rate also depends on many other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the potential to reach the maximum fill rate.