m17x 7970m gpu?

Hi guys, I'll be ordering my m17x in the next few days and was going for the 680m graphics card but after getting quotes I'm told there's a month wait for delivery because of the 680m, the 7970m is £240 cheaper and will be delivered in a week or two max. I know the cards performance are very similar with benchmarks leaning more toward the 680m but wassnt a lot of difference, but now after researching some more I hear people have had problems with the 7970 not running some games, driver problems, cards dying.. Etc.. Anyone have this card or have any thoughts? I'm really stuck on what to do, if its going to end up being rubbish I'll wait the month for the nvidia, or have the problems been sorted with amd? Please help

Thanks in advance for any and all input

 

If money is tight go with the 7970m. Alienware are unique in that they can avoid Enduro issues. All other manufacturers cannot. Without Enduro troubles, for the most part, the 7970m is similar to the 680m.

The 680m is (in my opinion) more stable now, and won't require any fiddling with drivers.

 

When you say fiddling with drivers what exactly do you mean? I'm pretty technical minded but paying £1500+ for a gaming laptop then having to fiddle and mod things just to get it working seems stupid. Will it not work correctly out of the box then? If it means installing one thing and its done then that's not too bad, but constant tweaking and problems? Thanks for your help mate

 

Right now, the enduro issues are way less and all you need to do is download and install the latest drivers from AMD. The card works great: I can easily do ultra at 1440p on a lot of games including Bioshock Infinite.

 

Grab the 680M, it is an overall better card - drivers are stable and the card performs a little better than the 7970M. Also, AMD doesn't have the best track record when it comes to mobile GPU's. You may also want to wait a month because there are supposed to be new revisions coming out by June.

Off-Topic Tip: If you get the M17x R4 and there appears to be dead pixels on the screen, try tapping the screen a few times in that area. It may be dust particles inside the screen between the LCD and plastic cover. I did this once and they went away!

 

This is a matter of opinion....the actual difference in performance levels between the 2 cards is minimal to say the least. In some games the 7970 comes out on top and in other cases the 680 comes out on top. If you plan on overclocking I have the read the 680 will gain a definite advantage but I don't OC my laptop so I can't say one way of the other. AMD's track record is just fine with the mobile GPU's, their driver record on the other hand is not to awesome but they are getting better. When they first launched the 7970 series the driver support was terrible...people were having a hell of a time and enduro was almost non existent and didn't work very well, but they have come a long way and those days are behind us. As a 7970m user I can tell you I have never had a problem with mine and I got mine last June so....

As for the new revision coming out the early numbers are showing a less them impressive improvement, less then 15% in most early reports. If that will bug you that you don't have the newest and greatest when it comes out then I would say wait, otherwise I don't think you will really be missing much.

In the long run you are going to have to ask yourself, buy AMD who seems to have solved all the problems they were facing and has a reliable product or pay a lot more for the stability that Nvidia usually launches with...either way your getting a beast of a card.

 

I have had my r4 since feb the year, at first there was an issue with 7970m but dell changed it and since then it's been rock solid, of course I have enduro disabled.

 

I also have a r4 with a 7970 card in it and have had no problems running games. My last 3 lap-tops had Nvidia cards in them and I have
no regrets going with a new Alienware laptop with a 7970 card in it.

 

This is what I was talking about. Because OP is getting an Alienware, he can manually disable Enduro and avoid most of the potential issues people are having.

Once again, Alienware is unique because they can disable switchable graphics and force the dGPU to run. Other manufacturers usually cannot, thus have Enduro issues. Thus, for Alienware, I would recommend the 7970m while for others I would not.

 

I've had major issues in the past with AMD's drivers - I almost had a coronary when Skyrim first came out and the 9800GT in my desktop from high school was beating my laptop's 5870Ms by a factor of two (framerate) at half the resolution, but they seem to have been doing a fair bit better in recent times. I'd agree with the others in saying that the 680M is going to largely be more stable: The question is whether the money and wait are worth it.

 

Thanks for all the info guys, ive been doing alot more research and it seems the 7970's are pretty good in aw systems, but i have the extra money and would hate to order the ati option only to regret it, so im going all out with the 680m and ill just have to wait. Just in the process of getting a better deal with dell sales, it seems they can do much better deals over the phone than online. Thanks again

 

It's not opinion, it's fact. Search throughout this forum and you will find for every issue with NVIDIA cards, there are at least three issues with AMD cards. I would argue the only reason AMD exists is because of Intel, to keep them from becoming a monopoly. Drivers are still horrible from AMD, and are improving, but do not compare to NVIDIA's.

As for waiting for the new hardware, I wouldn't do it for the performance, I would do it because they are redesigning the M17x and the efficiency of the new hardware should improve battery life and temperatures, significantly.

But hey, it is what it is. The AMD GPU is pretty good performance wise, no argument there.

 

In addition to generally being unstable, as J.Dre outlined, they also tend to take a lot longer to release drivers that actually utilize their hardware. From an article here, for example, see this:

 

You won't regret with any of them, the 680m is amazing card and the 7970m gives great performance for a very good price. Let us know when you get it how you feel about it!