580m vs 6990m Benches

Haven't we been through this since 1999? DO NOT EVER rely on company-issued benchmarks for an accurate representation of performance. Biased game selection, generous/misleading graph scale, omitted disclaimers etc.

You can't blame ATI or nVidia from wanting to show their product in the best light respective to competition and having a pretty chart for the press, but I normally don't even waste my time looking at these. Respected publications and, better yet, reports from actual users (although at times biased) -- this is what matters.

 

Absolutely agree with harmattan. Its all PR smoke and mirrors until we can get some 3rd party/user reports.

 

How long does it normally take from first release to 3rd party benches?

 

You know, I'm pretty much an Nvidia fan, but the fact that AMD just launched a card that competes so closely to the 580m and is about half the price leaves me scratching my head.

I prefer Nvidia drivers and features, but not for double the money of an equal AMD card. Really, what are they doing???

I was under the impression the 580m would be superior to the 6990m, but that hardly seems to be the case. All the more reason Nvidia's pricing strategy is leaving me baffled.

I've defended Nvidia on many instances, but after seeing how good the 6990m will be for half the price, I just have no logical defense for Nvidia this time.

It seems less and less like you're paying for a premium card and more and more like you're paying into corporate greed.

Even though many say the 6970m and 485m traded blows, the 485m was definitively faster in most of the games that I care about, so to me, it was a faster card. This is a whole 'nother can of worms.

 

From what I can remember, the 485M was seen as the better card, even when both came out. It wasn't as close or AMD is better race as this one is.

 

Soasin I have seen your defenses and sometimes wondered how grounded they were or how fanboi they were, we have even sparred a couple times, in this case, I think you are pretty dead on.

I am not a fanboi of either ... In fact I have never owned an AMD/ATI card, when I first was shopping for laptops, I was blindly looking for something with the 485gtx ... and almost bought Sager, but was holding out because Eric G said the 485 was coming to alienware ... I didn't even consider the 6970 ... but there is no question about 6990 vs 580 for me ... even though I like 3d as well ... I am STOKED to be getting the 6990s. I can't imagine why anyone would get the 580m at this point ...

Thanks for being honest and logical. There are still people clinging to fanboism over this ... "you get what you pay for" One of them recently wrote ...

For many people its not an issue, we have experience and knowledge so we can make our own decisions, but we also have a lot of people coming here for guidance and advice ... and the fact that people respond to their inquiries with utter crap about drivers(although to some extent this can be a preference), physix, or with blind claims that Nvidia will be faster ... does a real hinderance to them and this community.

So thanks.

 

Oh people just realized that Nvidia is Nvidia? Cool!

I have 8 Nvidia Cards from previous Desktop builds, felt exactly like Saosin, and NEVER thought about defecting to team RED. This all changed when the 5000 series came out. I waited and waited and waited for the GTX480, FINALLY it launched and I was SURE that Nvidia was back in action and I could finally replace my crappy 9600GT SLI config. Being fiscally cautious I waited until the reviews starting showing up. Tom's Hardware called it "Big disappointment", Anand "We're not sure what Nvidia is thinking", and I'm left wonder what the heck? 1 Month later our company has a contest to win a 40,000 points that we can use on an internal Amazon site. I win the contest and decide, well I guess I'll just get two of these 5970's and CFX them. The performance was AMAZING and at a fraction of the pathetic Nvidia offering. I still use those two cards to this day.

Fast forward to about March of this year and I thought "Well I'm going to build a second system for my Loft upstairs and maybe I'll check out the GTX580 for the heck of if." I have a Acer G24HDz monitor that I bought for the sole purpose of the 120Hz refresh rate making games look amazing when running them that fast. I go out and buy 2 GTX580's and a Nvidia 3D Surround headset and I'm giddy again because I'm coming back to Nvidia. I get the machine up and running and I'm extremely excited because maybe this will redeem Nvidia for me. Blue screen. ! Boot, Blue screen. Pull out one card, Boot Blue screen. Figured I must have 2 bad cards so I go back exchange them and get home and try them. Get into windows update with the newest set of drivers and it FRIES ONE OF THE CARDS! Literal smoke coming out of the fan and it was shot. Most people would abandon them at this point, but I took out the bad card, made sure everything else was ok, and I booted and tried out the 3D. Not only was it completely gimmicky, the 3D was very buggy in most games. The next day I returned everything and I haven't looked back since.

ATI releases Driver updates 1 time monthly and CAP profiles, for us CFX, usually every month. They have listened and corrected almost EVERYTHING that Tom's Hardware, Hardware Heaven, Anandtech, have complained about. They have beaten Nvidia at their own game in almost every aspect of the game, Drivers, CrossFire Destroys Nvidia in a Price per performance range, and last but not least they do it for a fraction of the cost. OH and you don't have to have a thermal power station powering your computer to run it.

The only reason I can see anyone crazy/dumb enough to stick with Nvidia is nostalgia from back in the day. I remember my first VooDoo 2 card for lords sake! I'm sorry there is NO arguement you can make that will justify buying Nvidia over ATI currently for any system besides 3D.

Sorry for the TL;DR post.

 

Tessellation performance is what will really set the two cards apart. The Barts XT architecture that the 6990m was built on only has 1 Tessellation unit, while the 580m appears to have 8 (if related to the 560ti as previously stated). I can speak from experience that the Fermi lineup does an amazing job with Tessellation. My friend's desktop is an i7 950@4ghz with a GTX480, and my M18x walks all over his scores except for one category: Tessellation. When set to extreme Tessellation settings in Unigine 2.5, I beat him by about 2FPS. When Tessellation is on normal, I beat him by 15FPS.

With many hot DX11 titles on the horizon, (SWTOR :O) I'd be hard-pressed to choose AMD over the green machine.

 

Wow, that is great to know. I really hope dell doesn't cancel my free 580 order now. I didnt really care before, but now...................

 

Haha I remember those cards too. I still remember my father buying a computer way back in the day, had to be 94-95. Don't remember exactly, but had like 2MB of RAM and we upgraded to 4MB and saw huge performance gains. Ahhh old tech.

 

Im debating about buying either:
-an Alienware M17 with a single 6990M
-an Alienware M17 with a single 580M
-an Alienware M18 with dual 6990M
-an Alienware M18 with dual 580M
-Maybe if ASUS makes a move by the end of August with a new ROG

I just wish these benches would come sooner. I do wish the M18 would have a single 6990 or 580. Instead they opt for a 460.

 

Asus does not offer high-end gaming laptops anymore. The highest card they will be offering is the 560M.

And why would you want an M18x with only one graphics card? If you only want one, get the M17x R3.

Me, I would get the 6990M Crossfire M18x.

 

+1 and agree! Its well known that Tessellation is AMD's weak point. At one point, I think maybe with CCC 11.1a, AMD basically admits defeat and uses a driver trick to get performance back up to standards. (Here is a link about it Catalyst Hotfix 11.1a: AMD admits defeat in tessellation | Scali's blog) Fortunately, not too many games have really used it much so far, but I imagine that will change. I originally ordered my unit with the 580m's but have since changed it to the 6990. The price to performance ratio is just too great. Even with Nvidia's superior Tessellation and CUDA features.

 

Read the post...

 

Maybe you should read the post? He said he wishes the M18x offered one 6990M or one 580M, and I said why would he want that if he can get the M17x with only one.

 

I too agree with MaynardLD50. I have been a die hard Nvidia fan for many years and for the last 2-3 years I have switched side because there is really not many points you can give Nvidia.

AMD GPUs are cheaper, smaller, produce a lot less heat, use less power. Nvidia`s GPUs however are huge and we the customers have to pay a lot of $$ for their poor engineering that consist of putting as many CUDA cores and transistors on the biggest board you can find. Nvidia don`t really care about power consumption or heat, no, they want to make the meanest and most powerful card. Too bad AMD is able to offer all of this for a lot less materials...
As for the drivers I don`t know how the two companies stack against each other. I see that it is an argument Nvidia fanboys are using whenever a AMD vs Nvidia discussion is brought up. But the drivers alone can`t be worth 2x the price?


Oh man I remember the Voodoo cards back in the days. Or Riva TNT2 <3

 

Probably the best look thus far at the 6990m vs 580m ....

http://forum.notebookreview.com/sager-clevo/592906-ati-hd-6990m-26.html#post7707815

From Mythlogic:

Hey Guys,

We don't have full benchmarks to release yet as we have to get approval, but I think everyone will be pleasantly surprised. I can tell you at least at this point that 6990m CF > 580m SLI, still working on the non SLI/CF benchmarks, can't fault us for trying the big-daddy first heh.



Please note thats tested not with simulated anything, thats a real pair of 6990's with a real pair of 580's

__________________

For those of your wanting actual comparisons between the two cards ... there you go.

 

Sup Omega!

 

Asus is for budgeting gaming. If you really want portable power get an AW or Sager.

 

To everyone who is talking about tesselation with Nvidia being better and all. Is "better" tesselation performance worth $700 additional over a chip that can probably do it pretty well to have it? I don't think so personally.

The M17x doesnt offer the same CPU options though. And isn't the screen smaller?

The main reason Im debating between single or crossfire/sli with these chips is not only price but performance. Is Crossfire that big of a deal with the 6990? Thats why these benches would be great. I'm all for going bigger and badder - two chips are better than one. But is the $1,000-$2,000 additional price tag between the single M17 or dual M18 worth it? Probably not. We shall see though.

Bingo. Exactly what I wanted to hear. Thank you.

Hey there!

 

No it's just the matter of, do you want performance or not. You don't get the M18 to not get the best performance. Upgrading the CPU doesn't do as much as upgrading the GPU or having dual GPU's.

*EDIT* Just read your post again, lol. Spoke too soon. =P If you want the best performance, get the M18x... If you want to save some cash but still have a decent setup, get the M17x. Both are great computers either way.

 

From my earlier analysis of the M17x (1499) vs. M18x (1999), the M18x is more expensive by a smaller $225 if configured the same.

Price both out with base GTX460M (+75), larger screen (+150), wireless (+50, not exactly the same, but the M18x has a better default card I think) on the M18x and the price isn't that different. I'm hoping to go with the M18x myself if funds ever became available.

Yeah, it'd be nice if they offered the M18x with just 1 6990 and it looks like the jump to the 6990 is a lot more now vs the 6970 was originally I think (+225 vs +125 on the M17x and +500 vs +300? on the M18x). There looks like a greater markup on the M18x CrossFireX.

 

Also the Aluminum build quality and a Subwoofer to add. That pretty much make up for the price difference.

 

Yes BlazeGaj,

The aluminum build is key for my decision to go with this system. Cooling and build quality are second to me with performance being number 1.

 

I'm still trying to decide between the 6990m and 580m SLI for a new M18x (join the club, I know).

I've heard that AMD cards have trouble running Crysis 2, a game that's fairly high on my list for this year. I saw some Crysis 2 DX11 workarounds posted for the 6970m CF, but it all sounds like a pain.

Do people think the 6990m CF is likely to have the same issues, and if so, will updated drivers resolve them or do they stem from something more fundamental?

Thanks in advance!

 

Dunno what exactly you hear about AMD and Crysis2 but I'm running the dx11 patched version with the 6970M's and have no problems. The cards are stock clocked and the game runs perfectly smooth on extreme settings. Max settings are barely playable (20-40fps) but I'm sure with a little OC'ing I can run it smooth. The 6990M's are even more powerful so you should have no problem there.

 

IGN has a video feature comparing dx9 and dx11 in Crysis 2 in which they refer to problems with AMD cards resulting in low framerates.

There's also that "Weird Crysis 2" thread that you've already responded to, which I guess is probably an isolated issue.

I've also read in various posts, blogs, etc. here and there that AMD cards are buggier in general, but that could just be NVIDIA fanboy hype. From similar sources I've also heard that NVIDIA cards are better at tessellation.

 

Played a few hours today - no issues. Stock Dell drivers. Temps are under 75C (room 27C). The only thing I hate is that it cannot be maxed out without OC'ing...

Yeah, there seems to be a general consensus about tessellation. As for stability, I'm not convinced. After owning mobile Nvidia cards in the past and moving to AMD, I have zero regrets. I could consider giving the greens a try again if and only if they matched the price of AMD offering. Till then, my system will come in Nebula Red, lol.

 

If $ was not an issue, what would everyone buy?

 

One of the reasons I'd still prefer AMD is the absence of memory sensors on Nvidia cards.

 

$ not an issue, I would get 2 and compare ... but if I had the choice of 1, 6990s. They will be better at stock and I foresee better overclocking as well.

 

Mind elaborating a little more regarding memory sensors?

 

Temp sensors

 

Ah ok that makes sense. Thanks

 

Not sure on the overclocking... I've had experience with both 485ms and 6970s and, in terms of relative percentage above stock, the 485s clocked a bit higher. Now, if 580m overclocks better than 485m (which it likely should due to the improved pw utilization), 580m should overclock noticably better than 6990 (which should have lower OC headroom due to the additional shaders and ROPs).

 

you can Overclock a 485 30% ???

 

Oh yeah - I dont doubt that I'll end up unhappy at the end of the day
I think I might just pull the trigger on the M18x with dual 6990s. I'll wait for the benches another week just to see and it'll be a closed case.

There was a problem with Crysis 2 when it launched where Crossfire and SLi had flickering. Crossfire took longer to fix for some reason, and SLi was like instant. Made it even harder if you have a STEAM version of the game.

As for the DX11 patch, I did hear of problems regarding Crossfire scaling and the CAP profiles. At first ATi was going to release a new CAP, and then they said no - it was fine or something. It was really odd. But as far as I know, thats all been settled. I have a 6990 in my rig and it's doing just fine.

 

Does Ati card have Tessellation? So the flickering problem for Crysis 2 is fix? Do these games automatically download update for you or do you have to download on your own? Seem more of a hassle to be a Ati user when your not sure that your game will work well right off the bat.

 

Yup, with Nvidia you have no clue what's going on there and even if your core is ice cold @75C the memory may be running @100C. With AMD you at least have some extra monitoring option which is super important when OC'ing, benching and generally, can help increasing the GPU life span.

 

Hey guys, some great insight is coming from Sager Clevo thread:
http://forum.notebookreview.com/sager-clevo/584665-gtx-580m-92.html#post7717437



Originally Posted by synk

MSI Afterburner worked for me. I was able to overclock to 650, 1300, and 1950 for my core, shader, and memory clocks, respectively.

My reply:
yea please let us know, honestly compared to the 6970, thats pathetic.

people are running 30% OCs on 6970s ... your Core OC is 5% Shader 3%
Memory 30% ...

But the memory is probably the least important.

6970s are getting 30% CORE OC, and memory ...

Have you pushed or is that the best you can run on the 580 ?

 

Apparently someone got the GTX 580M to overclock to 560Ti clocks (822mhz core). If that's stable, then WOW!. I don't think the 6990M would be able to clock competitively without voltage tuning.

 

will have to see Ichime ... people are clocking the 6970s higher then that ... but who knows how the 6990 will handle OCing .... But yea that OC looked IMPRESSIVE !

 

Here's a link from that same thread:

Generic VGA video card benchmark result - Intel Core i7-980X Processor,CLEVO CO. X7200 score: P19701 3DMarks

Wonder what the power consumption is on that if it's stable

 

yea I saw the thread, its freakin impressive. Although I have seen people running single 6970 on worse CPUs and getting 16K scores ...

Really hard to say at this point, particularly without knowing if that score is stable, a fluke, what cooling was used, etc....

 

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Thats a 15600 6970 OC ...

He also said that with new drivers he beat that by 500, meaning 16100.
AND thats only with a 2630 ...

here is the thread:
http://forum.notebookreview.com/sager-clevo/594840-extreme-6970m-overclocking.html

 

I just bought crysis 2 off of origin yesterday for 39.99, anyway I have tried to play it on my desktop with I7 920 and 5970HD Dual GPU single slot card and it CHOKES everytime on the opening scene at the submarine. I AM not impressed with AMD right now, I get a aticfx32.dll error a lot now too.

EDIT: Last night I bought another copy of crysis 2 for my sons computer cause it was still on sale on origin. He has a Phenom 1080T black edition and a measly 460GTX video card and the game runs as smooth as anything I ever seen. The only diff is his settings are all on extreme and 1900x1080 wow. Not bad for a 200.00 video card. Puts my 800.00 AMD card to shame.

 

all in all that 580m score is only beating a 6970 by 10% with a FAR FAR superior CPU ...

I would almost say the 6970 is matching it ... if you could account for CPU varriance ..

 

Money is always an issue even when you've got extra to spend frivolously.

I favor AMD's proposed plans for future tech so I'd buy the HD6990M to back them. Buying AMD also sends the message to Nvidia that they need to cut costs and price competitively.

DGDXGDG had to up the voltage on the GTX 580M to hit GTX 560Ti clocks...highest clocks at stock V were 760/1800.

 

Here's a newb question for you: does the brand of GPU you chose for an M18x configuration limit your options for future upgrades? In other words, if I go with the 6990m CF and then decide next year I want NVIDIA's 28nm mobile GPU, would that upgrade void my warranty or be harder to pull off in any other way than sticking with AMD would be?

 

It shouldn't be difficult as long as the new GPU is still MXM.