GeForce GTX 850M vs GeForce GTX 950M

Intro

Compare that to the GeForce GTX 950M, which comes with core 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

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 850M		3340 points
GeForce GTX 950M		3330 points
	Difference: 10 (0%)

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GTX 850M		40 Watts
GeForce GTX 950M		55 Watts
	Difference: 15 Watts (38%)

Memory Bandwidth

Both cards have exactly the same memory bandwidth, so theoretically they should perform the same. (explain)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 950M will be a small bit (more or less 4%) faster with regards to anisotropic filtering than the GeForce GTX 850M. (explain)

GeForce GTX 950M		36560 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GTX 850M		35040 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 1520 (4%)

Pixel Rate

The GeForce GTX 950M is a small bit (approximately 4%) faster with regards to AA than the GeForce GTX 850M, and also will be capable of handling higher screen resolutions more effectively. (explain)

GeForce GTX 950M		14624 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GTX 850M		14016 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 608 (4%)

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 over the external memory interface in a second. It is worked out by multiplying the card's interface width by the speed of its memory. If it uses DDR type RAM, it must be multiplied by 2 once again. If DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The better the bandwidth is, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, High Dynamic Range and high resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum texture map elements (texels) that can be processed in one second. This figure is calculated by multiplying the total amount of texture units by the core 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 per second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the most pixels the video card can possibly write to the local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is worked out by multiplying the number of ROPs by the the card's clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - aka Render Output Units) are responsible for outputting the pixels (image) to the screen. The actual pixel fill rate is also dependant on quite a few other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the ability to get to the max fill rate.