NVIDIA GeForce GTX 960A vs NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3050 Ti Mobile Comparison

The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3050 Ti Mobile and the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 960A represent two distinct eras of mobile graphics, separated by six years of architectural evolution. The data shows a decisive generational shift: the RTX 3050 Ti Mobile leads the sole head-to-head benchmark by a margin of 382.7%, while the GTX 960A, despite its lower raw scores, holds a surprisingly high percentile ranking among all GPUs. This comparison quantifies the performance gulf between the Ampere and Maxwell architectures.

Head-to-Head Benchmarks

The only direct benchmark comparison available is the Geekbench OpenCL test, and the results are unequivocal. The RTX 3050 Ti Mobile scores 57,915 points, while the GTX 960A manages 11,998 points. This yields a delta of 382.7% in favor of the newer card. To put that in perspective, the RTX 3050 Ti Mobile is not merely faster; it delivers nearly five times the compute performance of the GTX 960A in this workload. This is not a close contest—it is a complete overhaul of performance expectations.

The average benchmark score further reinforces this gap. The RTX 3050 Ti Mobile has an average score of 12,940 across all its tested workloads, which includes DirectX 10, 11, and 12 tests, plus compute and 2D tests. The GTX 960A’s average score is 11,998, derived from a single OpenCL result. While the average scores are relatively close (12,940 vs. 11,998), this is misleading. The RTX 3050 Ti Mobile’s average is pulled down by low scores in older API tests (e.g., 60 in Passmark DirectX 10 and 49 in DirectX 12), whereas its OpenCL score is exceptionally high. The GTX 960A, having only one data point, does not reflect the same breadth of testing.

Examining the RTX 3050 Ti Mobile’s individual scores reveals a mixed profile. In Passmark tests, it scores 120 in DirectX 9, 76 in DirectX 11, 60 in DirectX 10, and 49 in DirectX 12. Its Passmark G3D score is 10,093, and its GPU Compute score is 4,305. In contrast, the GTX 960A has no direct scores for these tests, making a per-test comparison impossible beyond OpenCL. The 382.7% lead in OpenCL is the single most telling statistic, suggesting that the RTX 3050 Ti Mobile excels in compute-heavy tasks, while its legacy API performance may lag behind its modern capabilities.

Where Each One Wins

The RTX 3050 Ti Mobile wins the only direct head-to-head comparison, but its dominance is not uniform across all scenarios. In modern, compute-intensive applications—such as those utilizing OpenCL—the RTX 3050 Ti Mobile is in a different league. Its 5.299 TFLOPS of FP32 performance, combined with 80 tensor cores and 20 RT cores, makes it suitable for workloads that leverage these features, such as AI inference and ray-traced effects. The data supports this: its Geekbench Vulkan score of 55,812 is nearly as high as its OpenCL score, indicating strong performance in cross-platform graphics APIs.

The GTX 960A, meanwhile, has no wins in the benchmark data. However, its percentile ranking tells a different story. Despite having only 1.505 TFLOPS of FP32 performance, it sits at the 51st percentile of all GPUs, just two points below the RTX 3050 Ti Mobile’s 53rd percentile. This suggests that the GTX 960A, while ancient, is not a slouch in general-purpose tasks. Its nearest rivals include the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1080 (deltaPct 0.3), the AMD Radeon RX 6500 XT (deltaPct 1.3), and the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1660 (deltaPct 2.7). This indicates that the GTX 960A’s single OpenCL score is comparable to much newer and ostensibly more powerful desktop cards, likely due to driver optimizations or the specific nature of that test.

Where the GTX 960A might "win" is in scenarios where its lower transistor count (1,870 million vs. 12,000 million) and smaller die size (148 mm² vs. 276 mm²) could translate to lower power draw at idle, though both cards are rated at 75 W TDP. The GTX 960A also uses GDDR5 memory, which is older but may have different power characteristics than GDDR6. Without power consumption benchmarks in the data, this remains speculative, but the architectural simplicity of Maxwell (no RT or tensor cores) means fewer active transistors in traditional rasterization tasks.

The Verdict

The data is unambiguous for most users: the RTX 3050 Ti Mobile is the superior choice. Its 382.7% lead in OpenCL, its support for DirectX 12 Ultimate (12_2) versus the GTX 960A’s DirectX 12 (11_0), and its modern feature set make it the only reasonable option for contemporary gaming or compute workloads. The RTX 3050 Ti Mobile’s average benchmark score of 12,940 places it within 0.1% of the AMD Radeon RX 580 and 0.5% of the AMD Radeon 740M, showing it holds its own against established desktop-class parts.

However, the GTX 960A is not without a niche. For legacy applications or systems where the MXM-B (3.0) form factor is required, it remains a functional option. Its 51st percentile ranking, nearly matching the RTX 3050 Ti Mobile’s 53rd, suggests that in specific, older workloads, it may still deliver acceptable performance. If a system is locked to the GTX 960A’s MXM interface and cannot accommodate the RTX 3050 Ti Mobile’s IGP (integrated graphics processor) form factor, the GTX 960A is the only choice. But from a pure performance standpoint, the RTX 3050 Ti Mobile wins every measurable category except raw transistor density (where it has 43.5M/mm² vs. 12.6M/mm², indicating a more efficient design).

For gamers and creators, the RTX 3050 Ti Mobile is the clear pick. Its 4 GB of GDDR6 memory (versus 2 GB GDDR5) and 192.0 GB/s bandwidth (versus 80.19 GB/s) provide double the memory capacity and more than double the bandwidth, which is critical for modern texture-heavy games. The GTX 960A, with only 640 shading units and 16 ROPs, is outclassed by the RTX 3050 Ti Mobile’s 2,560 shading units and 32 ROPs.

FAQ

Q: Which GPU is faster in the Geekbench OpenCL test?

A: The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3050 Ti Mobile scores 57,915, which is 382.7% higher than the GTX 960A’s 11,998.

Q: Does the GTX 960A support ray tracing?

A: No. The GTX 960A has no RT cores, while the RTX 3050 Ti Mobile includes 20 RT cores.

Q: How does the memory configuration differ?

A: The RTX 3050 Ti Mobile has 4 GB of GDDR6 on a 128-bit bus with 192.0 GB/s bandwidth. The GTX 960A has 2 GB of GDDR5 on a 128-bit bus with 80.19 GB/s bandwidth.

Q: What are the nearest rivals to the RTX 3050 Ti Mobile?

A: Its nearest rivals are the AMD Radeon RX 580 (0.1% faster), NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1660 SUPER (0.4% faster), AMD Radeon 740M (0.5% slower), and AMD FirePro W5100 (0.7% slower).

Q: Which GPU has a higher transistor density?

A: The RTX 3050 Ti Mobile has a transistor density of 43.5M/mm², compared to the GTX 960A’s 12.6M/mm², indicating a more modern and compact design.

Q: Do both cards have the same power consumption?

A: Yes, both the RTX 3050 Ti Mobile and the GTX 960A are rated at 75 W TDP, although the RTX 3050 Ti Mobile delivers significantly more performance within that power envelope.

Architecture Differences

The architectural gap between these two GPUs is vast. The RTX 3050 Ti Mobile is built on the Ampere architecture using an 8 nm process at Samsung’s foundry, while the GTX 960A uses the Maxwell architecture on a 28 nm process at TSMC. This process shrink allows the RTX 3050 Ti Mobile to pack 12,000 million transistors into a 276 mm² die, yielding a density of 43.5M/mm². The GTX 960A, by contrast, has only 1,870 million transistors on a 148 mm² die, with a density of 12.6M/mm².

The shader configuration differs dramatically. The RTX 3050 Ti Mobile features 2,560 shading units, 80 texture mapping units (TMUs), and 32 render output units (ROPs). The GTX 960A has only 640 shading units, 40 TMUs, and 16 ROPs. This 4:1 ratio in shading units explains the massive FP32 performance difference: 5.299 TFLOPS for the RTX 3050 Ti Mobile versus 1.505 TFLOPS for the GTX 960A.

Feature support is another major separator. The RTX 3050 Ti Mobile includes 20 RT cores for ray tracing and 80 tensor cores for AI acceleration, neither of which exist on the GTX 960A. The RTX 3050 Ti Mobile supports DirectX 12 Ultimate (12_2) and Vulkan 1.4, while the GTX 960A is limited to DirectX 12 (11_0) and Vulkan 1.4. Both support OpenGL 4.6, but the RTX 3050 Ti Mobile’s API set is designed for modern graphics pipelines.

Memory technology also differs. The RTX 3050 Ti Mobile uses GDDR6 at 1500 MHz (12 Gbps effective), providing 192.0 GB/s of bandwidth. The GTX 960A uses GDDR5 at 1253 MHz (5 Gbps effective), yielding 80.19 GB/s. This more than doubles the memory bandwidth for the newer card, a critical factor for high-resolution textures. The RTX 3050 Ti Mobile also has double the memory capacity (4 GB vs. 2 GB), which is essential for modern game assets.

The physical form factors differ as well: the RTX 3050 Ti Mobile is an IGP (integrated graphics processor) with no power connectors, while the GTX 960A is an MXM module using the MXM-B (3.0) interface. Both are rated at 75 W TDP, but the RTX 3050 Ti Mobile achieves its performance with PCIe 4.0 x16 connectivity, whereas the GTX 960A uses the older MXM-B bus. The RTX 3050 Ti Mobile’s release date of 2021-05-10 places it six years after the GTX 960A’s 2015-03-12 launch, explaining the generational leap in every measurable metric.