GeForce GTS 150 vs GeForce GTX 960

Intro

Compare those specifications to the GeForce GTX 960, which comes with a clock frequency of 1127 MHz and a GDDR5 memory frequency of 1750 MHz. It also uses a 128-bit bus, and makes use of a 28 nm design. It is made up of 1024 SPUs, 64 Texture Address Units, and 32 Raster Operation Units.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GTX 960		120 Watts
GeForce GTS 150		141 Watts
	Difference: 21 Watts (18%)

Memory Bandwidth

Theoretically, the GeForce GTX 960 should be much faster than the GeForce GTS 150 overall. (explain)

GeForce GTX 960		112000 MB/sec
GeForce GTS 150		32000 MB/sec
	Difference: 80000 (250%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 960 will be much (about 52%) more effective at AF than the GeForce GTS 150. (explain)

GeForce GTX 960		72128 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GTS 150		47360 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 24768 (52%)

Pixel Rate

If using high levels of AA is important to you, then the GeForce GTX 960 is a better choice, by far. (explain)

GeForce GTX 960		36064 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GTS 150		11840 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 24224 (205%)

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 information (counted in MB per second) that can be transported over the external memory interface in a second. The number is worked out by multiplying the bus width by the speed of its memory. If it uses DDR memory, it should be multiplied by 2 once again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The higher the card's 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 amount of texture map elements (texels) that can be processed per second. This figure is calculated by multiplying the total texture units by the core speed of the chip. The better the texel rate, the better the card will be at texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels per second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum number of pixels the video card can possibly write to its local memory per second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is worked out by multiplying the number of colour ROPs by the the core speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - aka Render Output Units) are responsible for drawing the pixels (image) on the screen. The actual pixel output rate also depends on many other factors, especially the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the potential to reach the maximum fill rate.