GeForce GTX 950 vs GeForce GTX 980

Intro

Compare all of that to the GeForce GTX 980, which features core speeds of 1126 MHz on the GPU, and 1750 MHz on the 4096 MB of GDDR5 RAM. It features 2048 SPUs along with 128 TAUs and 64 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 980		13552 points
GeForce GTX 950		6536 points
	Difference: 7016 (107%)

Ethereum Mining Hash Rate

GeForce GTX 980		20 Mh/s
GeForce GTX 950		10 Mh/s
	Difference: 10 (100%)

Zcash Mining Hash Rate

GeForce GTX 980		408 Sol/s
GeForce GTX 950		155 Sol/s
	Difference: 253 (163%)

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GTX 950		90 Watts
GeForce GTX 980		165 Watts
	Difference: 75 Watts (83%)

Memory Bandwidth

As far as performance goes, the GeForce GTX 980 should in theory be a lot better than the GeForce GTX 950 overall. (explain)

GeForce GTX 980		224000 MB/sec
GeForce GTX 950		105728 MB/sec
	Difference: 118272 (112%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 980 should be a lot (more or less 193%) faster with regards to texture filtering than the GeForce GTX 950. (explain)

GeForce GTX 980		144128 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GTX 950		49152 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 94976 (193%)

Pixel Rate

If using a high screen resolution is important to you, then the GeForce GTX 980 is the winner, and very much so. (explain)

GeForce GTX 980		72064 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GTX 950		32768 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 39296 (120%)

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 largest amount of data (measured in MB per second) that can be transferred past the external memory interface in one second. The number is calculated by multiplying the card's interface width by its memory clock speed. In the case of DDR type memory, the result 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 higher screen resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum amount of texture map elements (texels) that are processed per second. This is calculated by multiplying the total texture units by the core clock speed of the chip. The higher the texel rate, the better the graphics card will be at texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels processed per second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum number of pixels the video card could possibly write to the local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is calculated by multiplying the amount of colour ROPs by the the core speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - sometimes also referred to as Render Output Units) are responsible for drawing the pixels (image) on the screen. The actual pixel output rate is also dependant on lots of other factors, especially the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the ability to reach the maximum fill rate.