The ARM Mali-T760 MP8 is a fast mobile graphics solution that can be found in ARM SoCs like the Samsung Exynos 7420 Octa (Galaxy S6). The chip is available since Q1/2015 and is one of the fastest solutions of its class at the time of the introduction. Besides OpenGL ES 3.1, the GPU supports OpenCL 1.1 as well as DirectX 11. According to ARM, the Mali-T760 can be scaled from 1 - 16 cores/clusters.
The MP8 version offers 8 clusters clocked at up to 772 MHz (302 GFLOPS). In most benchmarks, the GPU is able to beat the competing Adreno 420 (Snapdragon 805) and PowerVR GX6450 (Apple A8). Only a few tablet chips like Tegra K1/X1 or the GXA6850 (Apple A8X) are still somewhat faster. Overall, the Mali-T760 MP8 is the fastest smartphone GPU in early 2015 and will handle even the most demanding Android games fluently in high resolutions.
Despite its impressive performance, the Mali-T760 MP8 / Exynos 7420 has a very modest power consumption thanks to an advanced 14 nm FinFET process (Samsung LPE). Therefore, it can be used even in smaller smartphones.
The NVIDIA GeForce GTX 965M SLI is a high-end DirectX 11-compatible graphics solution for laptops, consisting of two GeForce GTX 965M. Each card has a 28 nm GM204 GPU based on the Maxwell architecture, which is the same chip as found on the GTX 980M, GTX 970M as well as several desktop cards. The clocks for the SLI-setup are usually identical to a single GTX 965M (924 MHz GPU, 1250 MHz memory).
With SLI, each card renders a single frame (AFR mode). Therefore, it may suffer from micro stuttering in low fps ranges of 30 fps. This happens because of different timespans between two frames (e.g., irregular delays between sequential frames).
Architecture
GM204 is based on Nvidia's Maxwell architecture, which replaces the previous Kepler generation. Among other changes, Nvidia have restructured the streaming multi processors (SMM) in order to increase workload and efficiency. Now each SMM contains only 128 shader units and 8 TMUs, which is noticeably less than an equivalent Kepler GPU. The GM204 features four GPCs, and each consists of four SMMs. But, in the GeForce GTX 965M, Nvidia have deactivated 8 of 16 SMMs. As a result, only 1024 shader ALUs and 64 TMUs are active. In addition, there are 32 ROPs in two clusters with 16 units each.
The memory interface has a bandwidth of 128-bits (2x 64 bit) for each of the two GPUs. Thanks to an improved compression algorithm, the connection to the GDDR5 memory should be significantly more efficient per MHz. Furthermore, the L1 (96 KB per SMM) and L2 caches (2 MB) have been significantly increased to lower the needed bandwidth. Compared to the mid-range GM107, the newer and larger GM204 has several additional features and changes. Aside from the improved polymorphic engine in the SSMs, it is also the first Nvidia chip to support DirectX 12 Feature Level 12_1.
Performance
With good driver support, SLI almost doubles the performance of a single card. In this case, the GTX 965M SLI beats a single GeForce GTX 980M by about 10 percent. Therefore, the GTX 965M SLI is powerful enough to run even the most demanding games with highest details, AA/AF and/or resolutions exceeding FullHD.
Features
Most of the features are identical to the GeForce GTX 800M series. With the GTX 965M, there can be up to 4 active displays, but this will likely decrease due to Optimus. Displays can be connected with a maximum resolution of 3840 x 2160 pixels via DisplayPort 1.2 or HDMI 2.0 (no HDCP @ 4K). HD audio formats like Dolby True HD and DTS HD can be sent to a compatible receiver as bitstream. As with previous models, 3D Vision is not supported with Optimus.
The video processor VP6 supports the usual formats like H.264 and can also decode and encode H.265 with a resolution of up to 4K via the NVENC API (hybrid H.265 decoder, not fully fixed function). Several parallel streams, such as picture-in-picture in a Blu-Ray movie, are also possible.
Further features of the GTX 900M series, which are also partly supported by older cards, include Battery Boost (longer battery life during gaming), Shadowplay (recording of gaming videos up to 4K60p and 130 Mbit/s) and Gamestream (game streaming on Shield console). More information on these features are available here.
Power Consumption
The power consumption of each GeForce GTX 965M including its MXM board and memory should be around 70 W, leading to a total TDP of about 140 W. Therefore, the SLI setup can only be used in very large and heavy gaming notebooks with powerful cooling systems. Under low load, dynamic clock rates help the GPUs to save energy.
The ARM Mali-T720 MP4 (or T724) is a mobile graphics solution found in many ARM SoCs. The chip has been available since Q1/2015 in the Mediatek MT6753 and other low-end SoCs. Besides OpenGL ES 3.1, the GPU supports OpenCL 1.1 and DirectX 11 FL9_3.
The T720 MP4 offers 4 shader clusters at up to 600 MHz (40.8 GFLOPS). Therefore, the GPU should perform slightly worse than an Adreno 405 or PowerVR G6200. Modern Android games should therefore run fluently in 720p.
The GPU is typically built for smartphone SoCs in 28nm.
Average Benchmarks NVIDIA GeForce GTX 965M SLI → 928%n=1
Average Benchmarks ARM Mali-T720 MP4 → 23%n=1
- Range of benchmark values for this graphics card - Average benchmark values for this graphics card * Smaller numbers mean a higher performance 1 This benchmark is not used for the average calculation
Game Benchmarks
The following benchmarks stem from our benchmarks of review laptops. The performance depends on the used graphics memory, clock rate, processor, system settings, drivers, and operating systems. So the results don't have to be representative for all laptops with this GPU. For detailed information on the benchmark results, click on the fps number.