GeForce GTX 280 vs GeForce GTX 950M

Intro

Compare those specifications to the GeForce GTX 950M, which features core clock speeds of 914 MHz on the GPU, and 1000 MHz on the 2048 MB of DDR3 RAM. It features 640 SPUs as well as 40 TAUs and 16 Rasterization Operator Units.

Display Graphs

Hide Graphs

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GTX 950M		55 Watts
GeForce GTX 280		236 Watts
	Difference: 181 Watts (329%)

Memory Bandwidth

Theoretically, the GeForce GTX 280 should perform a lot faster than the GeForce GTX 950M overall. (explain)

GeForce GTX 280		141696 MB/sec
GeForce GTX 950M		32000 MB/sec
	Difference: 109696 (343%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 280 should be a lot (about 32%) better at anisotropic filtering than the GeForce GTX 950M. (explain)

GeForce GTX 280		48160 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GTX 950M		36560 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 11600 (32%)

Pixel Rate

If using a high screen resolution is important to you, then the GeForce GTX 280 is the winner, and very much so. (explain)

GeForce GTX 280		19264 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GTX 950M		14624 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 4640 (32%)

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 (in units of MB per second) that can be moved past the external memory interface in one second. It's calculated by multiplying the interface width by the speed of its memory. In the case of DDR type memory, it must be multiplied by 2 once again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The higher the card's memory bandwidth, the faster 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 figure is worked out by multiplying the total amount of texture units by the core clock speed of the chip. The better the texel rate, the better the 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 number of pixels that the graphics card can possibly write to its local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is worked out by multiplying the number of colour ROPs by the clock 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 fill rate also depends on many other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the potential to get to the maximum fill rate.