M17xR3 GPU Comparison Question.

I have been through the gamut of GPUs on my laptop in the past week due to my original 6990m dying, parts being on back order and some mistaken part ordering. The 6990m handled everything I needed but when the opportunity arose to "upgrade" to a GTX580m I said why not.

I have gone through 6990m > GTX460m > 6970m > GTX580m. Now after getting the GTX580m I am trying to figure out why is this suppose to be the "faster mobile GPU". So maybe someone can answer me this question. I thought the GTX580m was suppose to be equal if not faster than the 6990m(Please this isn't meant to be a vs post or a start of a flame war.)

The 6990m just seems faster at stock settings. Now I dont play many PC games but one of them is FFXIV. It is very GPU dependent and runs most of the time max GPU usage. I had no issues with the 6990m or 6970m for that matter but with the GTX580m and its Thermal Throttle and Power Throttle is makes the game unplayable.

I have used the modified bios to get rid of the power throttle and just repasted the GPU, no O/C, on a Laptop cooler and once temp hits 78 the throttle kicks in.

I guess my question is why are people looking to get the GTX580m over the 6990m? Again I do not want this to be a flame war but just a legitimate conversation.

 

It's like intel vs amd cpu chips. personal preference.

 

The two cards are right on par with one another, give or take. You'll just have to figure out what's hurting your performance. The 580M should handle anything the 6990M did.

 

A lot of folks like nvida drivers, how often they update and enhanced performance with big name games. The seem to have a much larger tie with game companies and can help optimize for their hardware.

Some need cuda and physx exclusives and nvidia 3d is much more mature than amd.

Amd reminds me of Lexus to nVidias BMW.

 

i have an nvidia 580m gtx...the only problem is the random throttles that happen. so if you want 3d, then u have no choice but the 580m or if you want just performance i would prolly go for the 6990m

 

when 6990ms aren't blowing up then they are king IMO. I run max settings under 99% load, and my beautifully modded VBIOS makes sure it never breaks 73 C temp wise. No throttling ever. Haven't heard of any 580m fail yet, but the throttling seems like a major issue and downer. For bitcoin mining, ATI seems to have the upper hand as well

Nvidia pros:
CUDA/PhysX
Driver support
Developed 3d

Nvidia Cons:
Price/performance ratio
throttling
optimus auto switch

ATI pros:
price/performance ratio
no throttling
manual control over switching gpu

ATI Cons:
poor 3d support
poor driver developement
recent questionable quality

My personal preference: intel cpu, ati gpu.

 

Auto-switching graphics is a bad thing?!

I dunno about you, but when I had my R1 I hated the fact that if I accidentally started the laptop without the power cord, I'd have to restart, enter the BIOS, re-enable dedicated graphics, and would only then be able to fully use the laptop.

 

Auto-switching causes headaches when the laptop doesn't recognise that it is a game and only uses the IGP.

I have the 580m and although it is on par with the 6990m at stock, then overclocked using a custom vbios, I get far higher scores than an overclocked 6990m. Around 18k GPU score vs 16k.

 

Plus nvidia has physX built in, so games like metro2033 run better on the 580m.

 

personaly i find 3d just a gimmic anyways however if we are talking price vs performce ati mostly always wins. physx is nice tho to have.

I personaly never realy have issues with ati drivers i guess im lucky on that end ehe.

Ive had geforces and radeons and tbh the difference isnt all that masive, in most cases we are talking small amounts of fps difference. And well maybe geforce scores a tad higher on 3d mark n stuff but in the end its the games u play that counts.

I mainly prefer ati as they are mostly best bang for your buck esp when we are talking a laptop like the m17x wich is already pricey to start with

In the end there is always a faster card just around the corner ;p

 

I think the guys on this thread have gone over the major points

I can't see a real reason to go with the 580m, especially when you factor in the price difference. Just because it costs more doesn't mean it is an upgrade.

You've already found out the hard way about the 580m throttling and the auto-optimus BS that doesn't always work properly...

i'd stay with ATI err AMD graphics for now. In my opinion, it is the better card when all things are considered.

 

http://www.notebookcheck.net/Computer-Games-on-Laptop-Graphic-Cards.13849.0.html


The 580m beats every other cards....just not on metro 2033 ultra.

 

Thank you all for your comments. How do the owners of the GTX580m handle games that use 99% of usage and not hit the thermal throttle? My main goal is playing FFXIV and I know that is a specific game but the performance between the 6990m and GTX580m noticeable even before the thermal throttle.

 

have you tried repasting your card with some decent thermal paste? It will drop your temps 5-10c so it will help with hitting the thermal throttling boundary.

There's also a new 580m vBios that you should upgrade to. It just came out yesterday. It might help with the throttling:

Drivers and Downloads

It says "level of importance: URGENT" lol...i think you should definitely give it a try

 

I repasted with Arctic MX-4 and the card I received yesterday already had the new vbios on it. I think for my situation I will just go back to a 6990m since I know that works for what I need.

Again thanks for all your input and hope that Dell fixes this issue.

 

Sigh...i feel your pain dude. You pay double and you have to put up with this BS. They should be a warning or something on the dell website so you don't have to go through this

 

New vbios doesn't help with throttling. It still throttles but not as aggressively. I applied the throttling fix to my system so my 580m only throttles when it hits 79C. I must have a decent card with a very good heatsink as even when overclocked to 800/2000 and gaming for over 2 hours, I have yet to see anything above 75C.