GeForce GTX 870M vs GeForce GTX 950

Intro

Compare those specifications to the GeForce GTX 950, which features core clock speeds of 1024 MHz on the GPU, and 1652 MHz on the 2048 MB of GDDR5 memory. It features 768 SPUs as well as 48 TAUs and 32 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 950		6536 points
GeForce GTX 870M		4770 points
	Difference: 1766 (37%)

Power Usage and Theoretical Benchmarks

Power Consumption (Max TDP)

GeForce GTX 950		90 Watts
GeForce GTX 870M		110 Watts
	Difference: 20 Watts (22%)

Memory Bandwidth

Theoretically speaking, the GeForce GTX 950 is 10% faster than the GeForce GTX 870M in general, due to its higher bandwidth. (explain)

GeForce GTX 950		105728 MB/sec
GeForce GTX 870M		96000 MB/sec
	Difference: 9728 (10%)

Texel Rate

The GeForce GTX 870M will be quite a bit (about 114%) more effective at AF than the GeForce GTX 950. (explain)

GeForce GTX 870M		105392 Mtexels/sec
GeForce GTX 950		49152 Mtexels/sec
	Difference: 56240 (114%)

Pixel Rate

The GeForce GTX 950 is a lot (about 45%) better at AA than the GeForce GTX 870M, and also able to handle higher screen resolutions without losing too much performance. (explain)

GeForce GTX 950		32768 Mpixels/sec
GeForce GTX 870M		22584 Mpixels/sec
	Difference: 10184 (45%)

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 (measured in megabytes per second) that can be moved past the external memory interface in a second. It is calculated by multiplying the card's interface width by the speed of its memory. In the case of DDR type RAM, it should be multiplied by 2 again. If DDR5, multiply by 4 instead. The higher the bandwidth is, the faster the card will be in general. It especially helps with AA, HDR 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 number of texture units of the card by the core speed of the chip. The better the texel rate, the better the graphics card will be at handling texture filtering (anisotropic filtering - AF). It is measured in millions of texels processed per second.

Pixel Rate: Pixel rate is the most pixels the video card can possibly write to its local memory in a second - measured in millions of pixels per second. The number is calculated by multiplying the number of colour ROPs by the clock speed of the card. 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 output rate also depends on lots of other factors, most notably the memory bandwidth - the lower the bandwidth is, the lower the potential to reach the maximum fill rate.