GeForce GTX 860M vs GeForce GTX 960M

Intro

Compare those specifications to the GeForce GTX 960M, which uses a 28 nm design. nVidia has set the core speed at 1096 MHz. The GDDR5 RAM works at a speed of 1000 MHz on this card. It features 640 SPUs along with 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 960M		4350 points
GeForce GTX 860M		4340 points
	Difference: 10 (0%)

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GTX 860M		45 Watts
GeForce GTX 960M		65 Watts
	Difference: 20 Watts (44%)

Memory Bandwidth

Both cards have exactly the same memory bandwidth, so in theory they should have identical performance. (explain)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 860M is quite a bit (approximately 75%) faster with regards to AF than the GeForce GTX 960M. (explain)

GeForce GTX 860M		76512 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GTX 960M		43840 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 32672 (75%)

Pixel Rate

The GeForce GTX 960M is much (more or less 38%) better at full screen anti-aliasing than the GeForce GTX 860M, and capable of handling higher resolutions without losing too much performance. (explain)

GeForce GTX 960M		17536 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GTX 860M		12752 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 4784 (38%)

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 (in units of MB per second) that can be transferred past the external memory interface in a second. It is calculated by multiplying the bus width by its memory speed. In the case of DDR memory, the result should be multiplied by 2 again. If it uses DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The better the bandwidth is, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, High Dynamic Range and high resolutions.

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

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the most pixels that the graphics chip can possibly record to its local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. Pixel rate is calculated by multiplying the number of colour ROPs by the clock speed of the card. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - aka Render Output Units) are responsible for filling the screen with pixels (the image). The actual pixel output 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.