NVIDIA GeForce 940MX vs NVIDIA GeForce 920MX

NVIDIA GeForce 940MX

The Nvidia GeForce 940MX is a mid-range laptop graphics card with DirectX 12 support (FL 11_0). It has been announced in the first quarter of 2016 and is the refresh of the GeForce 940M. Compared to the older card, the new one is based on the same chip but now supports faster GDDR5. Therefore, it is similar to the Maxwell GPU in the Microsoft Surface Book but with more memory and higher clock speeds. However, most notebook vendors will use the slower DDR3 version of the 940MX that clocks only a few percent faster than the old GeForce 940M (1122 versus 1072 MHz base clock e.g.). 

For the GDDR5 version of the 940MX there appears to be also a variant with the GM107-B chip with 512 shaders instead of the 384 but lower clock speeds. The 940MX in the Acer Aspire E5-774G e.g. featured 512 shader cores (GM107) clocked at 795 - 861 MHz. The Dell Inspiron 17 7778 version however had the GM108 chip with 384 shaders clocked at 1083 - 1189 MHz.

The performance greatly depends on the used graphics memory and chip. According to our benchmarks (see below), the DDR3 version is very similar to the old 940M (due to only minor increased clock rates). The GDDR5 version however pushes ahead 20% (even 30% if paired with a fast desktop quad-core, but we lack 940M reference scores). Therefore, demanding games from 2015 should run fluently in low to medium settings and WXGA resolution. 

The TDP of the card should be rated at about 15 to 30 Watt (depending on the version, clock speeds and memory). Therefore, the GPU is best suited for laptops from 13-inch and up.

NVIDIA GeForce 920MX

The Nvidia GeForce 920MX is an entry-level graphics card for laptops that was launched in the first quarter of 2016. In comparison to the older 920M, the 920MX is now be based on the modern Maxwell chip of the 930MX but with a reduced shader count of 265 (GM108). According to our sources the TDP of 5-12 Watt and the support for DDR3 and GDDR5 is also specified.

The performance depends on the used graphics memory. The DDR3 version was slightly slower than an average GeForce 930M in our tests (and definitely faster than the GeForce 920M). The GDDR5 version could therefore best the 930M slightly. However, both versions are not suited for demanding games of 2017. Less demanding games, like The Sims 4, should be playable in medium to high settings (see below for benchmarks).

Thanks to the low power consumption, the GeForce 920MX is also suited for thin and light laptops.