NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1080 (Desktop) vs NVIDIA GeForce GTX 950M vs NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1070 Mobile

NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1080 (Desktop)

The Nvidia GeForce GTX 1080 is a fast desktop graphics card based on the Pascal architecture. It was announced in May 2016 and offers all 2,560 shader of the used GP104 chip. Furthermore, the GPU is coupled with 8 GB GDDR5X graphics memory using a 256 Bit interface (10 GHz, 320 GB/s). The chip is manufactured at TSMC in 16nm (FinFET). The TDP is specified at 180 Watt and therefore slightly higher than the predecessor, the GTX 980 with 165 Watt.

NVIDIA GeForce GTX 950M

The NVIDIA GeForce GTX 950M is an (upper) mid-range, DirectX 11-compatible graphics card for laptops unveiled in March 2015. It is based on Nvidia's Maxwell architecture (GM107 chip) and manufactured in 28 nm. The GTX 950M offers 640 shader units clocked at 914 MHz (+ Boost) as well as fast GDDR5 memory (128 bit, 5000 MHz effective, 80 GB/s). Compared to the previous and technically very similar GTX 850M, the GTX 950M is clocked slightly higher. A detailed performance comparison of the GTX 950M with GDDR5 and DDR3 can be found here.

Some GTX 950M may be equipped with cheaper 900 - 1000 MHz DDR3 memory (1800 - 2000 MHz effective, 28.8 - 32 GB/s), which leads to a 10 - 20 percent lower performance despite the slightly higher core clock of 993 MHz.

Architecture

Compared to Kepler, Maxwell has been optimized in several details to increase power efficiency. Smaller Streaming Multiprocessors (SMM) with only 128 ALUs (Kepler: 192) and an optimized scheduler should lead to better utilization of the shaders. Nvidia promises that a Maxwell SMM with 128 ALUs can offer 90 percent of the performance of a Kepler SMX with 192 ALUs. GM107 features 5 SMMs and thus 640 shader cores, 40 TMUs and 16 ROPs (128-bit interface).

Another optimization is the massively enlarged L2 cache (GM107: 2 MB). The increased size can handle some of the memory traffic to allow for a relatively narrow memory interface without significantly reducing the performance.

GM107 supports DirectX 12 with feature level 11_0 only.

Performance

Although the GTX 950M has the same memory bandwidth as the previous GTX 850M, its higher core clock leads to a slightly better performance. Overall, the 950M (GDDR5 version) is about 15 percent slower than the GTX 960M and just slightly behind the old GTX 860M.

Many games of 2014/2015 can be played fluently in FullHD resolution and high detail settings. However, very demanding games such as Assassin's Creed Unity will require lower resolutions and/or details.

Features

GM107 integrates the sixth generation of the PureVideo HD video engine (VP6), offering a better decoding performance for H.264 and MPEG-2 videos. Of course, VP6 supports all features of previous generations (4K support, PIP, video encoding via NVENC API). Unfortunately, HDMI 2.0 is still not supported.

Power Consumption

The power consumption of the GeForce GTX 950M should be similar to (or slightly above) the previous GTX 850M at about 50 watts. Therefore, the GPU is best suited for 15-inch laptops or larger. The 900M series also supports Optimus to automatically switch between an integrated graphics card and the Nvidia GPU.

NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1070 Mobile

The Nvidia GeForce GTX 1070 is the second fastest Pascal based graphics card in mid May 2016. It comes in two variants, the desktop version (see here for the detail page) with 1920 shaders and the mobile variant with 2048 shaders and lower clock rates. Both cards are based on a cut down GP104 chip (like the GTX 1080) and are manufactured in 16 nm FinFET at TSMC.

Compared to the GTX1080, the GTX1070 features less CUDA cores (2048 versus 2560) that are clocked a bit lower (maximum Boost 1645 versus 1733). Instead of the new GDDR5X, the GTX 1070 uses slower GDDR5 graphics memory - but still 8 GB. The TDP is also reduced and rumored to be 10 Watts higher than the predecessor, the GTX 980M.

For thin and light laptops Nvidia offer a Max-Q called version of the GTX 1070 with lower TDP and also significantly lower performance. Sadly this variant im sold with the same GTX 1070 name, making it hard to judge the performance.

The performance depends on the cooling solution of the laptop. With a good fan system, the performance of the laptop version is on par with the desktop GTX 1070 (Founders Edition). Nvidia claims that partner solutions can be up to 10 percent slower however. In our benchmarks with various laptops the performance ranged from -5 to -14% slower performance compared to partner models of the GTX 1080 desktop models with slightly higher clocks.

On average the GTX 1070 is around 20 percent faster than the old mobile GeForce GTX 980 and therefore the second fastest mobile graphics card (non SLI). Therefore it is capable of WQHD and 4K gaming in high settings (see game benchmarks below).

The GP104 chip is manufactured in 16nm FinFET process at TSMC and offers a range of new features. DisplayPort 1.4 (ready), HDMI 2.0b, HDR, Simultaneous Multi-Projection (SMP), improved H.265 video en- and decoders (for PlayReady 3.0) are only some of the improvements. See our detailed Pascal architecture article for more details.

The power consumption of the GTX 1070 is specified with 115 Watt TGP according to Nvidia and therefore slightly above the old GeForce GTX 980M. This leads to rather big and clunky gaming laptops that use the GTX 1070. The later released Max-Q version of the GTX 1070 uses only 80 - 90 Watt TGP and is therefore better suited for thin and light laptops.