GeForce GT 420 vs GeForce GTX 950M

Intro

Compare that to the GeForce GTX 950M, which makes use of a 28 nm design. nVidia has set the core frequency at 914 MHz. The DDR3 memory works at a frequency of 1000 MHz on this model. It features 640 SPUs as well as 40 Texture Address Units and 16 ROPs.

Display Graphs

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Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GT 420		50 Watts
GeForce GTX 950M		55 Watts
	Difference: 5 Watts (10%)

Memory Bandwidth

The GeForce GTX 950M, in theory, should perform just a bit faster than the GeForce GT 420 overall. (explain)

GeForce GTX 950M		32000 MB/sec
GeForce GT 420		28800 MB/sec
	Difference: 3200 (11%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 950M should be a lot (approximately 553%) better at texture filtering than the GeForce GT 420. (explain)

GeForce GTX 950M		36560 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GT 420		5600 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 30960 (553%)

Pixel Rate

The GeForce GTX 950M is quite a bit (more or less 422%) better at AA than the GeForce GT 420, and will be able to handle higher screen resolutions without losing too much performance. (explain)

GeForce GTX 950M		14624 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GT 420		2800 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 11824 (422%)

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 (counted in megabytes per second) that can be transported over the external memory interface within a second. The number is worked out by multiplying the card's interface width by the speed of its memory. In the case of DDR RAM, it should be multiplied by 2 once again. If DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The better the memory bandwidth, the better the card will be in general. It especially helps with anti-aliasing, HDR and high resolutions.

Texel Rate: Texel rate is the maximum texture map elements (texels) that can be processed in one second. This is worked out by multiplying the total number of texture units of the card by the core speed of the chip. The higher this number, 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 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 number is calculated by multiplying the number of Render Output Units by the the core clock speed. ROPs (Raster Operations Pipelines - also called Render Output Units) are responsible for drawing the pixels (image) on the screen. The actual pixel rate is also dependant on lots of other factors, especially the memory bandwidth of the card - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the potential to reach the max fill rate.