680M is OUT!

Rep+ from me too! Just spreading the love.

 

Come on guys this happens every year AMD releases something Nvidia releases something a little bit better for a lot more money and at the end after all this hype we play the same old games at 300fps with any video card

 

+rep in 24 hours....lol

Exactly......it happening every year doesn't make it any less annoying...lol

 

It's just like the desktop side. I have both green and red GPU-powered desktop rigs and for some reason I still love red. As much as green brought it with the desktop 680...the difference is really not that large or noticeable. I'll be hanging onto my (just received) M18x R2 powered by 7970 CFX. I've waited long enough to take the plunge. I have a feeling my M18x R2 will have many different components over the next few months as I love upgrading.

 

I've had only 3 months to enjoy my 3D experience and its time to upgrade already? Damn, staying with the current tech is surely expensive

 

lol.....I sooooo agree
Not too long ago I spent 829.99 on a 4G AT&T iPad. Bought a 40.00 Targus case Targus - Vuscape Case for Apple® iPad® (3rd Generation) - Black - THZ157US then bought the Logitech Ultrathin KB Cover for 99.99 Logitech - Ultrathin Keyboard Cover for Apple® iPad® 2 and iPad (3rd Generation) - 920-004013 and a 3rd Gen Apple TV for 99.99.

I forgot to include the 300.00 I had to spend on a new palm rest and keyboard because my cat jumped up on it with claws extended. Now I understand why most of us Americans stay broke....lol.
Thank GOD for good credit.....
My significant other is gonna flip if/when a new M18x R2 arrives via FedEx.

 

Sure is! I sometimes have to skip multiple generations of tech because of splurging too much $$$ on an earlier-gen product line. Intel's X58 core i7 and nVidia's GTX 285 gpus come to mind...

 

Lol, I totally agree with you. It is killing my pocket.

 

For those of us with 7970m crossfire : Do you guys have any problem with your setup ?

Because maybe I'm just the lucky one but so far I've not had any issue with my setup. Only thing I can think of is league of legends that I have to run with only one 7970m because the interface will flicker with crossfire. But for that game even a single 7970m is way more then needed ...

other then that I havent ran into any issue yet but maybe I just havent played enough title (only played World of tank, League of legends, Diablo 3 and Smite (in closed beta test))

By reading this forum it sounds like nothing works with 7970m ...

 

Crysis 1 and 2 are having fps stability if your not using Radeon Pro. It's not because of the cards. It's because of the drivers.

 

Anyone know where this guy got his numbers from?

7970M vs 680M

 

Fake. His numbers of 7970M are all made up

 

How would you know?

 

sorry guys but everything is made up until someone gets their hands on a 680M now we can only see nvidia numbers and we don't trust nvidia the same way we don't trust amd when it comes to post numbers for their new gpu's

 

Yeah, those numbers don't seem accurate based on what I see from other bench's with the 7970m

 

Because many of those games have not been reviewed with 7970M plus he is comparing 7970M numbers with different settings than what Nvidia did with the 680M

 

But how would you even know which settings were used in that comparison? All I see are a bunch of numbers with no settings attached to them. Like others said I think the numbers for both cards are baseless until end users with the actual cards compare them.

That being said, I think the actual numbers will be close.

 

exactly, why he don't uploads a video playing those games with fraps. at max setting.

 

Current resellers and builders show the 680m priced $300 above the 7970m which in itself is a $200 upgrade so $500 above the base would be the 680m.

A) While the benchs aren't out, I doubt the 680m would provide even 1.3 times the performance of the 7970m. So price/performance is going to be really really high for this GPU (like all other nv GPUs)

B) How does nv make profit? It seems like they are losing the high end GPU market to AMD by this ridiculous pricing strategy. They have captured almost all the low to mid end GPU market which is why AMD had to bring in their Fusion stuff. But then this high end GPU market they lost out to the 6990m which was cheaper yet delivered better performance albeit marginally. And now this. Any thoughts on how these guys are deciding their pricing strategy? 'Coz I would assume this price would come crashing down a couple of months after release.

 

I imagine the price of the 680m's to be considerably higher than 7970m's too - seems to have always been the case. Last time around saw the 580m "weighing in" initially, as in the UK anwyay, the 6990m option was around £500 whilst the 580m's were a whopping £1200 option.

Prices did fall after a while but it wasnt immediately.

I'm no fanboy of either - basically I dont believe in brand loyalty, my money goes to whom ever provides the best "overall" option. Several factors go into that including cost, performance, reliability, product support etc.etc........maybe the 680m will be marginally faster, maybe it wont, but that would not be the ONLY constraint for me to consider when choosing between the two. Sheer performance is not the only reason I would buy.....that would be kinda like me buying a performance car that had a history of the wheels falling off - sure, it may be fast but it's no good if you cant drive it!

 

Good analogy about the performance car and the wheels keep falling off

 

Another article, this time official from Dell. 680m for M17x and M18x by the end of the month:

Alienware Getting Latest NVIDIA Kepler Cards to Continue Delivering Maximum Performance for Gamers - Direct2Dell - Direct2Dell - Dell Community

 

Hey Stev. What Will you do? Upgrade your machine with the 680M or buy a new one?

 

I'm proverbially "sitting on the fence" at the moment, Bro.

Thing is, upgrading is likely to be very expensive compared to getting the cards whilst configuring a new machine. I imagine around £1000gbp + for the 680m's (and that's me being optimistic! lol).....also, I spoke to my guy about the 7970m's which he can get me cheaper, so I may just wait and see what happens with 680m's when they hit.

The thing that really puts me off upgrading my R1 is that I have 4yrs warranty on my 580m's (as they were ordered with the original configuration of my machine) but upgrading to either 7970m or 680m will mean that the new cards would only have a very short standalone warranty on them - 3 or 6 mths.

I'd hate to splurge the cash on new gpu's and after that 6mths, if they melt or something like that, I am stuffed and my £1k+ has gone down the toilet.

The more I think about it, the more it probably would make sense to sell my current machine and re-order with my gpu of choice after all the "hype" has settled and we know what's what.

 

Definitely this. It doesn't make much sense to upgrade CPU/GPU in your system when resale is pretty high on them. You can get an entirely new unit with full warranty.

However, it is fun to upgrade yourself for some people - so by all means.

I'm actually debating sending mine back and going back to the Sager/Clevo camp with a single 680M. We'll see. I am so tired of waiting. It has been over a month and now I finally have my M18x R2 and it's great - but now the 680M has me feeling a bit of buyer's remorse. As does the XM CPU (seeing that you can do most OCing with the non-XM now in the R2!).

 

^^ you can do more overclocking with the non XM CPU? ^^

 

You can do almost the same level of OCing with non-XM (3720 or higher) CPU.

 

By that, you mean that the 3720 can reach similar speeds, and the 3610 can OC too, just not as far? I ask because I decided on the 3610 for my m18x r2, and had no idea that non-XM processors could be OCed at all.

 

As soon as I sell one of my m18x's I will rebuy the laptop with 680 SLI. The only reason is because I was team red on both my m18x's and now I want to try at least one with Nvidia.

I might keep one of my m18xr1 and put the 7970 just so that I can bench both machines side by side but I will need a big miracle to convince my wife

 

3720qm and 3820qm can OC via a partially unlocked multi to +400mhz each

so 4.0/3.9/3.8ghz on 1/2/3-4 core for the 3720
and 4.1/4.0/3.9 for the 3820
the 3610 does not have that partially unlocked multi

 

+rep

Thank you very much for this info!

 

Articles : Introducing The GeForce GTX 680M Mobile GPU - GeForce

 

Whoa, DumbDumb. If more than half of that is true, I may lose interest in 7970M CF almost immediately.

It will be fun to see if NVIDIA releases drivers that function properly with their new GPU hardware. Wouldn't that be a novel concept? I'm going to go out on a limb and say they "probably will" LOL.

 

As much as I would love having dual 680m's, I don't see myself upgrading soon. I really wanted to replace my ASUS G74sx (single 560m) and couldn't wait any longer. Since I can max out basically every game I've played so far (apart from Metro 2033) with good frame rates, I might give it a go in a year when my warranty expires and the price on 680m's comes down.

I know I could have gotten 7970M's for very similar price, but I would go nuts with the AMD driver issues. I would be furious to pay $3K+ for a gaming laptop without fully functional drivers. I don't feel any particular loyalty to NVIDIA, but I can't see myself buying AMD until I see lots of evidence that AMD has turned over a new leaf in driver support/quality. Not worth the hassle to me, plain and simple.

I'm pretty excited to see the real-world performance of the 680m!

On a side note, I think it's interesting they show the 3D Mark score of ~3K for the 580m (in the generational graph) and a score of ~3,500 for the 675m (in the GT-GTX 600m graph). In the limited testing I did when I first got my m18x-r2, I thought the 675m performed right around where the 580m was. I seem to remember getting around 7K in 3D Mark 11 (SLI with ~10% OC, stock voltage) and seeing a post from Mr. Fox with a similar result at similar settings (can't seem to find it now to quote - I hope I'm not mis-quoting you, Mr. Fox).

 

Bear in mind that those figures from Nvidia are based on single gpu comparisons. 3k ish on mark 11 for a single 580m is "in the ballpark" so to speak. My stock mark 11 is around 6200 ish for SLI so a single would be around 3k ish.

Basically, the 675m is a rebadged 580m so they will be extremely similar in performance. They might be a tad stronger, hence the documented improvement in scoring.

 

Right - my point is that they are implying with their graphs that the 675m performs more than 15% better than the 580m, when my understanding (and limited experience) is that it is really about the same. Maybe they are just fudging the numbers a bit to make the 675m not look like a complete re-badge...

I'll have to run some SLI and non-SLI 3D Mark 11 runs tonight and see if my memory is right (I didn't think to save any of the results and have re-installed Windows since then).

 

I think their charts say what they want them to. Same with AMD... marketing hype. We will only know for certain when we see the results here in our forums.

580M SLI and 675M SLI are performing so close to the same that is well within the margin or error or user skill set for one GPU to trump the other.

 

Well, I am pretty sure that maybe Nvidia tweaked the 580m a tiny bit to release it as a 675m and, although sometimes not the most reliable sources for info, Notebookcheck has the 675m scoring around 3500 on mark11 from 4 machines.

I dont think (well, hope) that Nvidia would "fudge" the figures just so it "appears" better - chances are it IS actually slightly better than 580m - but in typical style, they release another gpu that is still effectively, an old gpu with a different number stuck on it.

 

I'M thinking the same thing, brother Fox .
I'M also kooking at those 1344 cuda core
do the card use the cuda core in games?

 

Well if you compare the nvidia 680m performance chart to this one and match every single game, they seem to be very comparable but in most cases the 7970m comes out faster.

AMD Radeon HD 7970M - Notebookcheck.net Tech

Notice how in BF3 they try the ULTRA preset setting (comes with 4x AA) and the nvidia chart shows (no aa) so dont let that fool you

ALso, i found this review,
notice at the bottom it says
"Referencing our own database of GPUs, the Radeon HD 7970M returns about 21674 (total) and 21661 (GPU) in 3DMark Vantage. In other words, the GTX 680M may be much closer to the Radeon HD 7970M in performance depending on the task at hand. In Heaven Benchmark v3.0 Basic, the GTX 680M in the MSI notebook was able to score 1661 points with a maximum of 65.9 FPS."

GeForce GTX 680M benchmaked on MSI GT70 - Notebookcheck.net News

I think at the end, the 680m may be a bit faster but the price will be close to double. Kinda like the 6990m and 580m at the beginning. that being said, those of Us who got the 7970ms probably wont regret it

 

To follow up with our discussion earlier today, I did two different 3DMark 11 runs with SLI disabled at stock clocks and got around 3,500:
Generic VGA video card benchmark result - Intel Core i7-3610QM Processor,Alienware M18xR2 score: P3492 3DMarks

I can't speak for the 580m, but it seems like NVIDIA is telling the truth about the 675m (as far as I can tell).

I also ran it with SLI enabled and got around 6,300:
Generic VGA video card benchmark result - Intel Core i7-3610QM Processor,Alienware M18xR2 score: P6320 3DMarks

 

Here is something to compare to Nvidia's figures and Notebookcheck's figures (heck, and any other figures too for that matter lol) for the 680m.

Brother's "Speedy Gonzalez" & "PimpFinger" kindly ran 3dmark 11 benchmarks on their M18x R2 7970m xf systems, with crossfire disabled at stock. As you can see from the below figures, the 7970m at default in the M18x is around 6k. (granted, this may improve with better AMD driver support)

Speedy's result

PimpFinger's result

 

What about the nvlddmkm.sys BSOD ?
Will it still have that ?

Thats the reason i will probably be replacing my laptop with an m18x R2 with 7970 CF.

Because it seems to me one day or another, an nvidia system is bound to have an nvlddmkm.sys error.
And im sick of it.
And probably the 7970 will be getting a proper driver in the future. Allthought, to be honest, i do not understand what is the present problem with the 7970 CF. Does the CF not work proprely or what is it ?

The only reason i would be tempted to get the 680x sli in the m18x is if it would be available with 120 HZ screen.

If the 680m is 20% above 7970, a solution for me would be the m17x R4 with 680m and 120 hz screen.

But we do not have numbers yet, do we ?

 

I've not seen that error (or any BSOD) with my 675m's in SLI, nor have I seen it with my 560m in my last laptop. Is that a Clevo thing? AFAIK, if you want 120 HZ with an Alienware laptop, you either need to get the m17x and deal with the non-aluminum chassis and only one graphics card or get the awesome m18x (I'm not biased am I? )and get an external 120 HZ screen. They might be a way to install a custom 120 HZ screen in the m18x, but I'm certainly not that brave.

Hope this helps.

 

I don't regret getting it, per se. But, I do miss the NVIDIA extras already. PhysX, Cuda and Digital Vibrance are noticeably absent. The YouTube videos that I post take measurably longer (almost double) to transcode than it takes with Cuda.

The 7970M GPU is very powerful, and I am not at all disappointed in that aspect.

I really like that flaming skull avatar. Very cool.

 

Intel quick sync should be faster than cuda to encode-transcode video
Transcoding Quality: APP Versus CUDA Versus Quick Sync : Video Transcoding Examined: AMD, Intel, And Nvidia In-Depth

 

Packing up my M18x R2 now...going to re-order once the 680Ms are available. Not willing to deal with the driver hassles. Told Dell as much when I returned it - so hopefully someone will be listening.

 

Thanks, Speedy. I will look into that. I will also need to see if it is supported by my editing software, as Cuda support is.

 

If the official driver for 7970m crossfire shows up, it can be on par with the 680 m sli, right?

How dramatic of a performance we are getting for the official driver? In notebook check, batman Arkham city runs 54 fps maxed on a single card, why the few increase on crossfire?

 

The use of crossfire can vary from game title to game title - some will take full advantage whilst other games may not be optimised for dual gpu systems. Also, there is continuing problems with AMD drivers (as we know) and crossfire seems to be a sore point right now. Hopefully AMD will rectify this ASAP.