NVIDIA GeForce GTX 960M vs NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1080 Mobile vs NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1060 Mobile

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 1080 Mobile

The Nvidia GeForce GTX 1080 for laptops (formerly known as GTX 1080M) is the mobile counterpart of the desktop GeForce GTX 1080. It uses the same GP104 chip and was officially announced at 16. August. The performance should be around +-10% of a non overclocked desktop GTX 1080. The amount of shaders and other technical specifications should be identical.

The mobile GTX1080 is the successor to the GeForce GTX 980 for Laptops and offers a significantly higher performance at the same TDP.

For thin and light laptops Nvidia offer a Max-Q called version of the GTX 1080 with lower TDP and also significantly lower performance. Sadly this variant im sold with the same GTX 1080 name, making it hard to judge the performance.

The performance depends on the used thermal headroom, processor and game. In our benchmarks the mobile GTX 1080 was between 0 to 10 percent slower than the desktop GTX 1080. Therefore, the card also allows gaming in 4k for modern and demanding games of 2017. However, the performance depends on the cooling and TDP settings in each laptop. E.g. the MSI GT73VR (200 W TDP) is much faster than the 1080 in the Razer Blade Pro (<=150 W).

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.

Due to the high TDP, the mobile GTX 1080 is only suited for large laptops with high performance cooling solutions. The power consumption is ranging from 150 to 200 Watt (according to Nvidia, up to 220 W in the Asus G701VIK, G800, GX800). A low power version (Max-Q) is available beginning summer 2017 with a reduced TGP of 90 - 110 Watt (at a reduced performance).

NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1060 Mobile

The mobile Nvidia GeForce GTX 1060 is a graphics card for high end laptops. It is based on the Pascal architecture and manufactured in 16 nm FinFET at TSMC. The GPU is using the smaller GP106 chip. Compared to the desktop version of the GTX 1060, the laptop version offers the same amount of shaders but slightly lower clock rates. The TDP is slightly less than the old GTX 970M (predecessor).

For thin and light laptops Nvidia offer a Max-Q called version of the GTX 1060 with lower TDP and also significantly lower performance. Sadly this variant im sold with the same GTX 1060 name, making it hard to judge the performance.

The performance of the mobile GTX 1060 is a few percent below a reference GTX 1060 desktop card. In our benchmark so far (no max-Q version) the mobile GTX 1060 was somewhere between -1 and -16% slower than a desktop variant. A comprehensive review of the dekstop GeForce GTX 1060 Founders Edition with 6 GB GDDR5 can be found here. Therefore, the card is most suited for Full HD or WQHD gaming in high to maximum details (see benchmarks below).

The GP106 chip is produced in 16nm FinFET at TSMC and offers a range of new features, like DisplayPort 1.4 (ready), HDMI 2.0b, HDR, Simultaneous Multi-Projection (SMP) and improved H.265 video de- and encoding (PlayReady 3.0). A list of improvements and features can be found in our article on the Pascal architecture.

The power consumption is specified with a TGP of 80 Watt and therefore slightly below the old GTX 970M. Since summer 2017 a low power variant (Max-Q) is available for thin and light laptops with reduced performance and a lower TGP of 60 - 70 Watt.