NVIDIA GeForce GTX 960M vs NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1050 Mobile vs NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1080 Ti (Desktop)

NVIDIA GeForce GTX 960M

The NVIDIA GeForce GTX 960M 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 960M offers 640 shader units clocked at 1097 - 1202 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 860M, the GTX 960M is clocked slightly higher.

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 960M has the same memory bandwidth as the previous GTX 860M, its higher core clock leads to a slightly better performance. Overall, the 960M is almost 10 percent faster and similar to the desktop GTX 750 Ti.

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 960M should be similar to the old GTX 860M (about 60 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 1050 Mobile

The Nvidia GTX 1050 is a mainstream GPU based on the Pascal architecture and was announced in January 2017. Contrary to the faster models, the GTX 1050 uses the GP107 chip, which is manufactured in a 14 nm process at Samsung.

The notebook version differs a bit in terms of clocks, but is equipped with 640 shader units, just like the desktop model. It is shipped with up to 4 GB GDDR5-VRAM attached via 128-bit interface and a 7 Gbps memory data rate (112 GB/s).

Features

The GP107 chip is manufactured in a 14 nm FinFET process at Samsung and offers a number of new features, including support for DisplayPort 1.4 (ready), HDMI 2.0b, HDR, Simultaneous Multi-Projection (SMP) as well as improved H.265 video de- and encoding (PlayReady 3.0). A full list of improvements and the new Pascal desktop GPUs is available in our dedicated Pascal architecture article.

Performance

The performance of the GeForce GTX 1050 can vary quite a lot depending on the cooling performance of the laptop. It can be just as fast as the desktop model under ideal conditions, but the notebook model is usually a bit slower. The GeForce GTX 960M is beaten by around 30%, so the GTX 1050 is comparable to a GTX 965M in general. It is therefore an upper mainstream GPU. Games from 2016 can be played in high settings an the Full HD resolution.

Power Consumption

The power consumption of the GeForce GTX 1050 is roughly on par with the old GTX 960M, which would mean around 40-50 Watts and (probably due to better selection and optimized parts) therefore much lower compared to the desktop counterpart. This means the graphics card will usually be used for powerful multimedia notebooks and entry-level gaming systems with at least 15.4 inches.

NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1080 Ti (Desktop)

The Nvidia GeForce GTX 1080 Ti is the fastest desktop consumer graphics card (beginning 2017). It is based on the same GP107 chip as the Titan X but with slightly higher clock speeds and a different memory configuration. It offers one memory controller less (and 11 instead of 12 GB), but the GDDR5X memory is faster clocked (11 GHz) leading to a comparable memory bandwidth. Due to the higher boost clock, the 1080Ti should be around 5 % faster compared to the Pascal Titan X and about 35 % faster compared to the GTX 1080. The TDP is equal to the Titan X with 250 Watt. A new cooler of the Founders Edition should be more efficient and quieter.