GeForce GTX 965M vs Maxwell GPU Surface Book

If you are going to buy a new graphics card and are choosing between GeForce GTX 965M and Maxwell GPU Surface Book, there are a couple of things to consider. Cards with more VRAM in general perform better and allow you to play on higher graphics settings. Size also makes a difference. A model with a large heatsink can occupy up to three expansion slots on a motherboard. Be sure you have enough room in your PC case. When comparing GPUs with different architectures, more processing cores and even higher TFLOPS will not always translate to better performance. To help you decide which GPU you need, we have measured frame rates in a number of popular games. For more on how the GeForce GTX 965M stacks up against Maxwell GPU Surface Book, check out specs charts below.

GeForce GTX 965M and Maxwell GPU Surface Book are Laptop Graphics Cards

Note: GeForce GTX 965M and Maxwell GPU Surface Book are only used in laptop graphics. They have lower GPU clock speed compared to the desktop variant, which results in lower power consumption, but also 10-30% lower gaming performance. Check available laptop models with GeForce GTX 965M or Maxwell GPU Surface Book here:

Main Specs

  GeForce GTX 965M Maxwell GPU Surface Book
Interface MXM-B (3.0)
Supplementary power connectors None
Memory type GDDR5 GDDR5
Maximum RAM amount 4 GB 1 GB
Display Connectors No outputs
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  • GeForce GTX 965M has 3 GB more memory, than Maxwell GPU Surface Book.
  • Both cards are used in Laptops.
  • GeForce GTX 965M and Maxwell GPU Surface Book are build with Maxwell architecture.
  • Core clock speed of Maxwell GPU Surface Book is 10 MHz higher, than GeForce GTX 965M.
  • GeForce GTX 965M and Maxwell GPU Surface Book are manufactured by 28 nm process technology.
  • Memory clock speed of Maxwell GPU Surface Book is 2512 MHz higher, than GeForce GTX 965M.

Game benchmarks

high / 1080p 20−22 8−9
ultra / 1080p 12−14 5−6
QHD / 1440p 6−7 0−1
4K / 2160p 5−6
low / 720p 35−40 20−22
medium / 1080p 24−27 10−12
The average gaming FPS of GeForce GTX 965M in Assassin's Creed Odyssey is 118% more, than Maxwell GPU Surface Book.

Full Specs

  GeForce GTX 965M Maxwell GPU Surface Book
Architecture Maxwell Maxwell
Code name N16E-GS, N16E-GR Surface Book
Type Laptop Laptop
Release date 5 January 2015 1 October 2015
Pipelines 1024 384
Core clock speed 944 MHz 954 MHz
Boost Clock 950 / 1151 MHz 993 MHz
Transistor count 2,940 million
Manufacturing process technology 28 nm 28 nm
Texture fill rate 73.60
Floating-point performance 2,355 gflops
Memory bus width 128 Bit 64 Bit
Memory clock speed 2500 MHz 5012 MHz
Memory bandwidth 80 GB/s
Shared memory - -
G-SYNC support +
DirectX 12 (12_1) DirectX 12 (FL 11_0), Shader 5.0
Shader Model 6.4
OpenGL 4.5
OpenCL 1.1
Vulkan 1.1
CUDA + +
CUDA cores 1024
Bus support PCI Express 3.0
SLI options +
HDMI +
Bitcoin / BTC (SHA256) 226 Mh/s
Laptop size large
DisplayPort Multimode (DP++) support +
H.264, VC1, MPEG2 1080p video decoder +
Optimus + +
GameStream +
GeForce ShadowPlay +
GPU Boost 2.0
GameWorks +
BatteryBoost +
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