580m vs 6990m Benches

Typically, in other notebooks, it wouldn't be an issue, but in the M18x what brand GPU you choose could limit your upgrade choices because of how the hardware in the machines differs for set ups that include Optimus, 3D or AMD's switchable graphics.

 

Will it be possible to drive 3 screens from the SLI 580M?

 

correct phinagle, also i dont think the new line of gpu's will be compatible with it since it is a die shrink, hope im wrong though.

 

Someone can correct me if I'm wrong on this one but I believe you need something like Matrox Triplehead2Go to get three screens running with Nvidia cards. I also believe you'd lose 3D like that.

If you're going to go for multiple external monitors go for AMD. If you don't already own those 3 monitors you can use the money you saved by not going for the two GTX 580M to upgrade to three 120Hz capable screens and 3D glasses.

 

DC2 AMD has already said their 7K series will be mxm 3.0 compatible ... meaning they will work in the m18x.

 

Of course it has Tessellation.
And yes the flickering problem got fixed eventually it just took a few days longer. I think it was like a week after launch.

And it was a driver issue, so I'm not sure what you mean by "games automatically downloading the update." I mean if you're worried about game updates, most games do notify you of an update. Better yet just download from STEAM or Impulse or Origin and they automatically do it.

 

You can upgrade without any problem you just need the sli/xf cable if your hopping from one brand to another. As far as 3D the m18x does not do it to begin with (unless your using an external monitor/tv then it would work regardless).

 

With the AMD GPU tessellation issues, in terms of performance does that mean that less tessellation gets done than with an NVIDIA card, or that the level of tessellation remains the same while the frame rate drops during tessellation-heavy scenes (e.g. looking at a brick wall in Crysis 2 w/dx11)?

I read an article somewhere about AMD drivers and something called "tessellation control" but frankly it went over my head.

 

The level of tessellation remains the same correct me if I'm wrong. It's just the frame rate.

 

The current AMD GPUs only have 1 tessellation unit, unfortunately. Nvidia seems to have done it right this time around. The 580m is comparable to the desktop 560Ti, so it should have 8 tessellation units. If you don't intend to game on DX11, you won't notice a difference.

 

Cheers

 

How much tessellation is in a game is determined by the game developers. Nvidia's GPU can handle higher levels of tessellation than AMD's GPU only if game developers program for that level of tessellation. If a game has more tessellation than AMD's GPU can handle FPS will drop....AMD tessellation control settings allow users to tone down tessellation in those games to get better FPS.


Ultimately tessellation ends up like FPS in that past a certain point the triangles that make up the image become so small that the eye can't notice a difference....and the faster your game's frame rate the less tessellation you'll notice. Despite that though I expect we will always see plenty of still frame screen captures posted by people who adamantly claim they notice a difference.

 

Only fanboys will use the tesselation excuse to justify paying more than double for their gpu.

 

The 6990M and 580M are going to be similar in tesselation performance.

As Nvidia cuts down their GPUs their tesselation engine gets cut while the 6xxx series all have the same engine. So the 6990M has the same engine as the 6970 desktop while the 580M has the same as the desktop GTX560Ti.

 

I rep+ you for that comment.

 

We'll have to see the benches for that first I think. I dont see AMD getting better Tess performance than Nvidia at all. Nvidia always leads with tessellation with their hardware AND drivers.

Not that I think that it matters personally. I think the 6990M will do just fine with tessellation. And for half the price of the 580M, that fact weighs a hell of alot more than a few FPS the 580M will probably crank out.

Thats just my 2cent prediction. Not fact.

 

I didn't (pay double)

 

Neither did I.

Folks just let me know when you can do Crossfire in windowed mode

 

You glitched it. Not the norm.



(From the anandtech review of the 560ti)

So yeah, unless you need 100,000 triangles for a wall you are good to go. You can take off 25% from the 560ti and 20% off the 6870 to compare mobile chips directly.

 

BTW, some guy over at the Clevo forums has asked the guys over at mvktech to overvolt the 580m from the 0.87 to 0.92v. Results are absolutely staggering. He managed a bit more than 560 Ti clocks on one of his cards and benched giving 17.8k GPU on single non-SLi. His overall scores are inflated due to using a 980X (over 19k) but he is doing everything physx off and we can just focus on the GPu score. Here:
http://forum.notebookreview.com/sager-clevo/595787-extreme-gtx580m-overclocking.html#post7718166
I wonder if there will be any differences hardware wise from the Clevo ones and the Dell ones...

 

When do people think we'll finally see some 3rd party 6990m benches to compare with the 580m? I've been ready to pull the trigger on a new M18x for weeks, just waiting to hear which is faster and more reliable.

 

I'm wondering the same thing but have already pulled the trigger on dual 6990s. The price increase to the 580ms was just too absurd to even contemplate. My 18x arrives Monday (I ordered 8am sharp on 7/12 when 6990s showed up for order in US with 1 day shipping). I'll post benches then. Looking forward to comparing to the 485ms in my x7200...

All we can do at present is compare between desktop equivalents, 6780 and 560ti, which are very much neck-and-neck. I'm going to go out on a limb and say, from my experience from working with 485ms and 6970ms, the 580m will have the edge in overclock-ability. That said, does this merit a 100%+ price increase? I think not.

 

Have you gotten tracking numbers or is that just your EDD?

 

Tracking and all I ordered through my EDP, so not sure if that sped things...

 

you may be the first out of the gate harmattan

 

Here you go, simply amazing article of M17x with GTX 580M. Seems like AW cooling can really handle this card. Oh, i want my beast so badly right now)

 

Looks like they got to 750mhz core/1700mhz memory... good, but not as high as I was expecting with the improved power utilization. Understood this is just one sample, but I get near that with my 485ms (725/1650). Would be interested seeing what a voltage bump could do...

Nonetheless, it's really amazing how much horsepower this round of mobile GPUs push.

 

I don't think a 130mhz overclock on the core is disappointing at all. They also tested that laptop with a 2630 <_< WHY alienware sends out test systems with baseline configurations and a good GPU is beyond me. I'm speculating in the 7000-7500 range for 2920xm owners, with 8500+ scores overclocked. Vantage with physx enabled should put us in the range of what a GTX580 SOC scores (32k+).

 

Because the processor is not the bottleneck of the system.

 

I fhttp://www.videocardbenchmark.net/high_end_gpus.htmlound this on passmark;still not showing 6990M

 

Is this the same card?

AMD RADEON HD6990m

 

So what's the bottom line? it's so confusing I admit, I never owned Radeon cards, but the benchmarks i find on the web are so contradicting...

Money aside, which card has the better PQ/more FPS? 580m GTX or 6990?

 

It honestly would be just silly to buy the dual 580 gtx and honestly my conclusion is the amd cards are better

 

But from what I read the 6990m has nothing to do with the 6990 desktop version, where as the 580m is the same as the desktop version... in which case 580m is based on a newer architecture.... am i way off?

 

since the i7 generation CPUs are rarley the bottleneck. keep in mind the 6990m may not OC as high as the 6970m because it has both higher shaders AND texture units.

 

they are both based on the newest architectures. the 580m is not equivalent to a desktop 580 ebcause it has lower clocks and less shaders. same thing with the 6990m.

these two cards should be equivalent to desktop versions of 5850 and gtx 460.

 

580M - downclocked GTX560TI
6990M - donwclocked HD6870

 

This is all very interesting, clearly I been out of touch for way to long...

So is there anything 580M GTX does better than 6990M? I mean considering everything but value (I agree the price difference is retarded but lets just say I got a great deal and they end up about even)

I haven't owned a Radeon card since the 9800 days.... had Nvidia all throughout and been happy with them, that said if I'm buying a top performer I certainly want the top performing setup....

What's the PQ and stability + driver quality on AMD? Crossfire is as good as SLI?

Also, which one runs cooler? (less noisy)

 

OK Xen, you sound very much like another semi-troll here who asks and asks which is better between the two and no matter how many times you are told they are about equal and in some games each card will be better I will give you the benefit of the doubt and say it one more time ....

the 580s support Physix and Cuda .... not very important and only used in a few applications,

The stability of the 6990s is rock hard, the 580s have had some stuttering issues but I am guessing they will be worked out with driver updates.

Currently its unclear which actually OC's better. Aside from the Overvolting extreme OCing I have seen on the 580s.... the 6990s are OCing better. and the 6990s run cooler from what I have seen.

Nvidia used to have the upper hand in drivers, this is no longer true. In fact the recent driver updates have demonstrated to me that AMD might even have surpassed NV in quick updates, open beta drivers, and ease of access.

 

there's no clear winner. There are PRO's and CON's for both. I'd say, if you are happy with your 580M's, don't worry about switching. Performance is about equal.

With temps it's complicated. Nvidia offers a single sensor while AMD has 4 and we don't know how they were calibrated, meaning there's no easy way to tell if the values read with monitoring tools are real.

In addition, Nvidia has implemented a stress test proof engine and the cards will throttle down during Furmark and other testing software to keep the temps low. This may also affect benching software but there's no easy way to tell since it's blocked from the end user.

Driver stability is also a complex matter, the Greens are no longer leading there and people from both camps are getting mixed results.

Noise level is comparable.

One thing I didn't like about the 580M's is the micro-stuttering that was more noticeable than with the RED's. There's also some latency present but I can't confirm at this point if it's GPU or some other driver related. But it is there and may be a deal breaker for those looking to use their M18x (580M SLI) for professional video/audio rendering.

 

lol, not a troll at all, I just can't understand how one cost almost double in the general market (i know what you're thinking but double the price?? I'm thinking I have to be missing something) on top of that I been googling and binging for hours and not only that i found a handful of sites that compare these but they seem to be all showing mixed data.... I'm asking (also asked in 3dRage.com) because as I said before I want to be sure where my money is going and I'm clearly confused...

Thanks for the input.

 

If you wish to know my personal opinion, I think the 6990M's win this round in most categories including performance, stability and driver support. The 485M vs 6970M was a very close match as well but this time AMD has done a really good job. As for the price, heh, not everything that costs more, performs better. Nvidia simply has a more costly tech&cert process for all the extra features that most will never use.

 

Thanks, definately big issues with stuttering and latency in the past, was a big deal with my M17x and 280M however they issues are completely resolved since A05 and updated drivers (at least I don't have any spikes at all)

I'm now thinking of getting the Xfire 6990, although I wont be saving much since I got a great discount on the actual cards, too bad I guess.

At the risk of pissing off the whole forum I'll drop this topic, thx for the help everyone

 

You're not making anyone angry by asking questions. We just have several threads open already where these same topics have been tackled several times before. Check out:

580m vs 6990m Benches
*OFFICIAL* Alienware M18x Benchmark Thread
I have 6990m cfx already but...


Bottom line: the cards are pretty much even. 580m wins in tessellation and driver support (CCC is a piece of ****) 6990m seems to be winning in overclocking headroom. They both pull around the same power. They seem to have similar temps - really this depends on how good of a paste job you have on your cards, room temp, and if you're using a cooling pad or not.
Some games favor AMD and others NVidia. Some games have terrible multi-gpu support.

If money is tight then stick with 6990m CFX. Otherwise, you have 2 choices: green or red.

 

Thanks I actually did some deep dive on those threads but honestly there isn't a ton of people with 580's compared to 6990's, or maybe they are less vocal

I guess nothing has changed since 2008, it's still very much an even battle.

 

I complained enough about the "aero bug" and I have 580m SLI on the way right now. Believe that I'm going to roast those cards and push them as hard as they can go.

 

I guess since the price wasnt a factor I may end up giving the 580SLI a test run, perhaps more performance can be gained with better drivers and some OC. we'll see.

 

Nicholaus,

You are breaking the equilibrium by going Green on nebula red machine, hehe.

 

Yea who knows what will happen... maybe I'll divide by zero and end the world with that laptop.

 

I haven't waded through this thread but in my case I chose the 580m's because I mostly play flight sims, in particular IL2:CoD and the developer has stated several times that NVidia were far more responsive to issues that arose during development and patching than ATI, and the game is somewhat optimised towards NVidia cards. I also play Combat Mission which seems to be more comfortable on NVidia's too.

Otherwise I would likely have gone for the 6990's, especially since the drivers and control suite seem to have improved so much, which was a weakness before IMHO.