GeForce GTX 870M vs GeForce GTX 960

Intro

Compare those specs to the GeForce GTX 960, which uses a 28 nm design. nVidia has set the core frequency at 1127 MHz. The GDDR5 memory runs at a speed of 1750 MHz on this particular model. It features 1024 SPUs as well as 64 TAUs and 32 ROPs.

Display Graphs

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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 960		7627 points
GeForce GTX 870M		4770 points
	Difference: 2857 (60%)

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GTX 870M		110 Watts
GeForce GTX 960		120 Watts
	Difference: 10 Watts (9%)

Memory Bandwidth

Performance-wise, the GeForce GTX 960 should in theory be a small bit better than the GeForce GTX 870M in general. (explain)

GeForce GTX 960		112000 MB/sec
GeForce GTX 870M		96000 MB/sec
	Difference: 16000 (17%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 870M will be much (about 46%) more effective at AF than the GeForce GTX 960. (explain)

GeForce GTX 870M		105392 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GTX 960		72128 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 33264 (46%)

Pixel Rate

The GeForce GTX 960 will be a lot (more or less 60%) faster with regards to full screen anti-aliasing than the GeForce GTX 870M, and should be capable of handling higher screen resolutions without losing too much performance. (explain)

GeForce GTX 960		36064 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GTX 870M		22584 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 13480 (60%)

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: Bandwidth is the max amount of information (measured in megabytes per second) that can be moved across the external memory interface in a second. It's calculated by multiplying the card's interface width by the speed of its memory. If the card has DDR RAM, it must be multiplied by 2 again. If DDR5, multiply by ANOTHER 2x. The better the bandwidth is, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, High Dynamic Range and high resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum amount of texture map elements (texels) that are 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 this number, the better the video card will be at handling texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels in a second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the maximum amount of pixels that the graphics card could possibly record to its local memory in one second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The figure is worked out by multiplying the number of Raster Operations Pipelines by the the core clock speed. 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 is also dependant on many other factors, especially the memory bandwidth - the lower the memory bandwidth is, the lower the ability to get to the max fill rate.