GeForce GTS 450 1GB vs GeForce GTX 960M

Intro

Compare those specifications to the GeForce GTX 960M, which has GPU clock speed of 1096 MHz, and 2048 MB of GDDR5 RAM set to run at 1000 MHz through a 128-bit bus. It also is comprised of 640 SPUs, 40 Texture Address Units, and 16 Raster Operation Units.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GTX 960M		65 Watts
GeForce GTS 450 1GB		106 Watts
	Difference: 41 Watts (63%)

Memory Bandwidth

In theory, the GeForce GTX 960M will be 11% faster than the GeForce GTS 450 1GB overall, because of its greater bandwidth. (explain)

GeForce GTX 960M		64000 MB/sec
GeForce GTS 450 1GB		57728 MB/sec
	Difference: 6272 (11%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 960M should be quite a bit (approximately 75%) better at anisotropic filtering than the GeForce GTS 450 1GB. (explain)

GeForce GTX 960M		43840 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GTS 450 1GB		25056 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 18784 (75%)

Pixel Rate

The GeForce GTX 960M should be much (about 40%) more effective at AA than the GeForce GTS 450 1GB, and also will be able to handle higher resolutions while still performing well. (explain)

GeForce GTX 960M		17536 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GTS 450 1GB		12528 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 5008 (40%)

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 (measured in megabytes per second) that can be moved past the external memory interface in one second. It's calculated by multiplying the card's bus width by its memory clock speed. In the case of DDR memory, it must be multiplied by 2 once again. If DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The better the bandwidth is, 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 texture map elements (texels) that are applied per second. This is calculated by multiplying the total amount of texture units by the core clock speed of the chip. The higher the texel rate, 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 in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is worked out by multiplying the number of Render Output Units by the the core speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also called Render Output Units) are responsible for outputting the pixels (image) to the screen. The actual pixel fill rate also depends on lots of other factors, especially the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the ability to get to the max fill rate.