880m or 780m to replace 6990m

Hi

Since my laptop is having some issues, I was looking to upgrade my (m17x R3) - 6990m GPU. An obvious choice would be the latest 880m GTX. But I noticed quite a few people are getting the 780m GTX. What would be the reason? I'ts only 40 euro or so cheaper. And although the 880m is a rebranded 780m, it's still a little bit faster and twice the memory. Am I missing something? Does the 880m have a higher TDP and require a adapter mod? I saw some throttling issues, but thats fixed right?

Just curious

 

You should be asking yourself: Would I rather spend $700 or $1000? They're the exact same card, but one has more memory that you'll never use.

 

Wut?

880M GTX: $830 dollar ( Nvidia GeForce GTX 880M 8GB DDR5 for MSI clevo alienware upgrademonkey | eBay)
780M GTX $760 dollar ( Nvidia GeForce GTX 780M 4GB DDR5 for clevo alienware upgrademonkey in stock | eBay)

Maybe I'm looking at the wrong thing?

GeForce GTX 880M vs 780M

higher memory, higher cpu. Even if you discard the memory, I see higher scores. Just made me wonder. If it was a difference of $300 dollar, I would get it, but $70 dollar... So price is the only reason not to get it? Not bad driver support of high tdp (can't find the tdp)?

 

The 780m can be clocked at 880m levels, the memory runs at the same speed. There is twice the amount of memory on the 880m, a whopping 8GB which is even more than a GTX Titan when even the most taxing games (Watch_Dogs) will use 3GB at most so it will be a huge waste. The processor is exactly the same, identical chips.

Get the 780m, pocket the change, get a nice hard drive or mouse. I will bet this computer I am using right now that the pleasure experience if you got a 880m will not be any more than a 780m.

 

Hey, you asked, I responded. The last time I checked (about two weeks ago) they were a few hundred apart. It's your money. The 880M is proven to be a mere 4%-6% better than the 780M, stock. If it's only $70 more, go for it.

Will the 880M work in your M17x R3? Maybe. The 780M will work.

 

Watch dogs definitely is using it though

Sent from my Nexus 5 using Tapatalk

 

Watch dogs definitely does not use 8GB of video memory.

 

I got watch dogs to use 5300+ MB of VRAM. That's hardly an optimized game though.

Also they aren't the same cards, sure the GPU is the same, but the MXM configurations are not. For example, the GDDR5 chips on the 880M are of better quality and can clock way higher, the 880M will also anyways OC higher than the 780M can, even if a 780M can reach 880 stock values and performances through OC. That said, on the Alienware 18, this hardly matters because on a SLI configuration both cards, would it be 780M or 880M already reach beyond the maximum current that can be drawn from the very limited 330W PSU, so unless you stick to single GPU you should get very similar performances overall.

Of course the resale value is always greater on the 880M cards.

Sent from my SM-N9005 using Tapatalk

 

i just recently upgraded mine from 6990m to gtx 780m and it just works great on alienware m17x r3

 

If you have more vRAM, the system is automatically going to allocate resources to most efficiently run programs and games. Just because Watch Dogs used 5GB or vRAM, does not mean it's requiring that much. Also, that game is new, and poorly optimized. Battlefield 4 was the same way when it was released. By the time decent drivers are released, Watch Dogs should not consume more than 4GB's.

8GB's may not be overkill anymore, but it's also not worth the extra money over the 780M. Or, it at least didn't used to be. In this case, it is worth it because the difference is less than $100. The problem with this is that nobody has tested the 880M in the M17x R3. I'm willing to bet it works, but I can't say with any certainty it will. The 780M is confirmed working.

 

Thanks for all the replies. I'm gonna think about it. I contacted upgrademonkey and he confirmed it would work.

Are upgrademonkey (on ebay and aliexpress) and upgradeyourlaptop (ebay and eurocomm) the only two suppliers? Couldn't find a supplier in the Netherlands, Germany or Europe for that matter.

 

And 1 OC's slightly better than the other. The 780m seems to be the best route for the OP to take, don't you think J.Dre?

 

If the OP can get a 880m at a price only slightly higher than the 780m then I would suggest just get the higher card. He will benefit from slightly better OC potential and massive 8GB of video memory. It is his decision to make and I'm sure us forum members would support either way. There are vbios mods out there too to make the cards really shine

PS I have been running Watch_Dogs on maximum settings including ultra textures @1080p but with TXAA 2 (best performance to image quality imho) with my card at 993/1250Mhz, ie 880m speeds, and I have run into zero issues. Frame rate never dips below 30fps and I believe it is around 40-50 at all times.

 

Now that the unlocked bios is available for both go with the 880M if it's not significantly more.

 

Hello Aliens,
Sorry I'm late to the party but just to confirm what all you gentlemen stated before me.
I'd personally go with the 780M.
They are both rated as 9.3 out of 10 by GPU boss.
One of them is more affordable. (That's always a plus).
Hopefully this will help you on your decision.

Let me know if you need anything else.!