My Nvidia GTX 880M Test Run Review

Single 880m (stock) - Sky Diver test

Fire Strike test

Cloud Gate test

Ice Storm test

I have no other scores to compare it against, so I'm going to say this isn't a bad score to be fair to the single 880m. I have no desire to push my AW 18 at the minute. I'm just stress testing my single 880m in my AW 17 for now as it's easier to work with, at least for me for the time being.

 

Since I don't pay a lot of attention to the other scores, I can only comment on Fire Strike. I agree that it is appropriate for stock. It's remarkably close to a single 780M Fire Strike score run at stock clock speeds. It's about 150 3DMark points higher than what I just ran with the M18xR2 with SLI disabled, which it actually should be with higher stock clock speeds.

 

That's really good to hear. It's starting to make me think that the new beta driver restricted my modded vbios now. I'll reflash later today to see if that resolves my problem. If it does, I may update to the latest beta again and then reflash to test on that driver.

 

Here is additional confirmation for you... single 780M, no OC, my CPU underclocked 1.0GHz to match your 3.3GHz 4712MQ. Small tilt in favor of 880M due to its higher default core clock speed.

780M vs 880M Sky Diver Comparison #1

 

Not enough to justify the extra £400 for the very but surely small upgrade. Wish I had just gone for the 780m now. I'm kicking myself for even bothering with the dual 880m's too. Nvidia really did mess this one up.

 

I don't know that you would actually have the option to do that because I think 880M replaced 780M as a configuration option. But, if waiting for 880M and spending more with the expectations of receiving more is what you mean then I don't disagree.

Of equal interest, as close as I could get to matching stock 880M core clock and your CPU core ratio, this example is somewhat less favorable when the 780M is set to run at 880M core clock speeds.

780M vs 880M Sky Diver Comparison #2

The disparity in Physics score in favor of Ivy Bridge by a significant amount is also very disheartening. 3.3GHz, 4 Cores, 8 Threads, but much better performance with Ivy. But, Haswell is "efficient" LOL. All-righty then... *writes note to self* Self... remind me to not sign up for some of that next time the opportunity presents itself.

 

At the time when I frist ordered the AW 17, I had the option to purchase it with the 780m. However, with me being bone headed, I figured "it has to be better and the heat can't be that bad with this revision". Boy was I wrong hey. I think the problem that we're facing with the 880m in regards to OC, is truly to do with the fact the 880m is indeed, already over clocked to at least 70% of it's maximum output. Shame really, but like someone else already mentioned. Nvidia probably did this in order to make the maxwell 880 look outstanding in comparison to the kepler 880.

Now that score is not a desirable score in terms of spending £400 more for a GPU that's apparently suppose to run a lot more sufficiently that the 780m. Think I may sell this 880m and use it to buy a 780m.

Edit: you would think the the 780m clocked at my speeds like for like, would actually be near to exactly the same as each other. I guess not. It's either that, or you just have really good luck brother Fox.

 

Your score isn't bad.

Result

My core was overclocked to 3.79GHz (it only runs 3.79GHz on four cores even though the boost is 3.9GHz, I've tested it time and time again) but we're within striking distance of each other. This was after installing the new beta... I don't have single card results for the rest of the benchmarks.

I am disappointed in these cards for sure... making matters worse is the insanity throttle that occurs... But if you turn around and sell it on eBay and it suddenly throttles on that person, you're going to have PayPal or whoever issue a refund and make life hell for you.

Such bull. Seriously... nVidia pulled an AMD. I said it once and I'll say it a thousand times more. This really sucks.

 

What's truly disturbing is 780m vs 880m under the same conditions. The 780m has substantially more performance. What a crock!
On the gaming front the 8gb vram isn't such a bad deal as I'm sure we're going to see lazy console ports using up more than 4gb ram since Devs aren't going to be working around the consoles unified RAM.
I really want AMD back in the game, if not to offer a viable alternative, at least to keep these filthy pigs honest. I hope they can release a mobile card that utterly decimates nvidia present and future offerings.

 

I disagree with the bolded comment. I think this is flat-out irrelevant. It's not near the overclocking limit (unless you are talking about limit with stock voltage). If that were true, 780M would have the same problems and it obviously does not. John and svl7 have already provided examples that the 880M has overclock limits that exceed that of 780M and some amazing benchmark examples. (See opening post.)

I think the answer is an easy one... NVIDIA just screwed it up. It's not a simple "rebranded 780M" and the behavior we see proves that it is not. But, it might end up fixed and make a strong comeback that exceeds our expectations as driver development and possibly vBIOS changes occur. It took a while for 780M to be massaged enough to soundly spank 680M.

I'm glad I was not taking a drink of something when I read that. I would have spewed or choked, LOL.

Maybe they have been practicing and working on a secret weapon for the past 3 years or so. I'm not going to hold my breath on that happening, but NVIDIA definitely needs to be motivated to do something worthy of maintaining respect. Doing just barely what they need to do to get by reflects a flawed ethos.

 

I hope you're right Mr. Fox and this does get sorted... because I can't even begin to imagine what the sellers are going to do when all of these cards get sent back to them as defective when the flag kicks in.

Fortunately my flag hasn't kicked in yet but I did have the driver crash 4 times while sitting on the desktop yesterday doing nothing... As in I had a black screen and it came back up and I saw the driver has recovered message and had to click it off four times.

It wasn't overclocked at the time and I don't appear to be throttled but yeah... I'm scared to do much of anything with these cards because of that crazy throttle looming.

Even worse, nVidia's new beta actually crashed on me with lovely pink artifacts with a known good overclock yesterday (system froze - it was Watch Dogs though so it could very well be the game's fault, not nVidia's). Not too impressed at all right now, my 260Ms went way past 280M clocks out of the box, no volt mod or anything. These things are pushed so much out of the box that they don't even have enough voltage to boost!!!

 

I still can't help but think john and svl7 may have received cherry picked 880M samples. There's just no explanation as to why even with the modded vBIOS, people are having issues with the 880Ms left right and center whether in Alienware or Clevo systems. Something has to be broken.

 

If you recall the review john made, he says he had to roll back drivers because he hit the throttle himself. He says something to the tune of "something makes the card perform worse than an Intel 4000 and the only solution was to go back to and old driver" in his review.

Here it is

 

I know, but even for people who didn't get that nasty flag things still appear to be broken for whatever reason.

 

Yeah... I really wish I could get the 780M...

I wonder what is going to happen when people start filing RMA for this throttle issue though?

 

I have a feeling its happening already. Its just a hunch right now but I might be able to shed light on that soon.

 

As sad as I am to say this, I hope there's a massive RMA wave so nVidia is forced to come clean with their dirty antics and stop beating the (now zombified) dead horse that is Kepler.

 

Would be nice to know... Lets face it, eventually everyone with the 880M is going to end up having that flag set... my driver crashed 4 times yesterday just sitting at the desktop without any overclock and who knows what the crash threshold is, I could be just one crash away. :\

 

Well I figured out why my 880m GTX in my Clevo P157SM-A was performing poorly it was the NVIDIA driver to be more specific I believe optimus or some other power saving addons in it are not working correctly for me. But 337.50 does work but it does throttle not that big of a deal though.

What was getting before 337.88:
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 880M video card benchmark result - Intel Core i7 4900MQ,Notebook P15SM-A/SM1-A

What I'm getting now 337.50:
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 880M video card benchmark result - Intel Core i7 4900MQ,Notebook P15SM-A/SM1-A

That was with stock clocks and it did throttle a little bit but the core clock was above 900 the whole time. Much better than the crap I was getting before.

 

What do you get with the new nVidia 340 driver? 337.50 may very well just not have the flag checking that 337.88 does. Since older drivers are obviously not optimal, can you try this driver?

Drivers | GeForce

 

Ok, I can't even flash back to the modified vbios. ID missmatch I'm now seeing.

My procedure

- Flashed back to my stock rom
- Attempted to flash the modified vbios with nvflash -6 cus.rom
- Miss match, type YES in caps.
- Typed YES in caps and ERROR ID miss match

The new beta driver must have done something. It's the last time I ever take an update from Nvidia again. I honestly don't know how to solve my current problem now. My stock speeds are fine, but I want the ability to over clock my 880m on my AW 17. Since updating to the latest beta driver. It's crippled my modified vbios and in turn has also restricted the ability to flash Svl's 880m rom.

 

Wow! That's not good. If you use DDU and go back to 327.23 can you flash the svl7/johnksss vBIOS? Hopefully, this is a NVFLASH glitch or user error of some kind. If NVIDIA rolled something out to block vBIOS mods, that is extremely naughty and unacceptable.

You are getting this error trying to flash in DOS or Windows, or both ways?

If you only did this to your Alienware 17, be sure the modded vBIOS is applied to both GPUs before you update the driver on the 18. If push comes to shove you can swap one of the 880M GPUs with the better vBIOS already on it from the 18 into the 17 and then flash the 17 GPU and leave it in the 18.

 

I'll give that a go now. What's worse, my stock clock is back 954 from 993 which is what I was boosting to with the modified vbios same old stock clock fresh out of the box. I'll keep you updated.

 

Does the system make a difference in all of this? And has any one pulled apart the new drivers looking for the code that does this? maybe it can be shut off?
Decompiling the exe might help in that regards..

 

Ok, managed to resolve my problem. Slv and John's vbios flashed ok after I uninstalled the Nvidia driver. I've now reverted back to 337.88. I somehow, now have a better score (stock speeds) in Sky Diver.

Here's yesterdays score - score

Here's today's score after the above procedure - score

 

In this case, you would need -5 -6 cus.rom. If the vbios is of a different manufacturer.
In some rare cases. -4 -5 -6 cus.rom

 

I don't know what happened, but brother Fox's suggestions via PM really helped me out on this occasion. Let me start from the very beginning.

- I installed the latest beta driver
- It removed my ability to over clock, even though I had your vbios flashed to my 880m
- I flashed back to my stock vbios
- I then attempted to flash your vbios, which didn't do well all thing's considered
- I took to Google for some answers
- I attempted to flash your vbios again, but this time, with all 3 commands that you suggested here. That didn't go down well (failed again)
- I then uninstalled my driver via DDU
- I then flashed your vbios. This time it passed without any problems what so ever
- I then went on to install driver 337.88
- All went well
- Brother Fox suggested that I disable (secure boot)
- I disabled (secure boot) and then proceeded on to uninstalling the 337.88 driver via DDU again
- I restarted and then installed the latest beta driver
- I now, still have the abiltiy to over clock thanks to brother Fox and you

I'm going to go ahead and run some test in 3d mark with some slight over clock settings. I'll post my results in a few.

Big thank you to you brother Fox. You, John and Slv are true stars in this community. I appreciate every bit of work you guys have put into this place and over at tech inferno.

Edit: My scores with the below settings

Settings

Nvidia Inspector

1103mhz core clock
3000mhz memory
1.050 V

Fire Strike - score

Sky Diver- score

Cloud Gate - score

Ice Storm - score

Funny enough. I unlocked an achievement (free upgrade) after running Fire Strike.

Below are my results with stock settings

Single 880m (stock)

Fire Strike test

Sky Diver test

Cloud Gate test

Ice Storm test

I can most likely push more out of this card, but I need to know wether or not I can repaste with liquid ultra on this AW 17 3 pipe heat sink? My temps during the testing with over clock settings, was on average 83c. I would like to at least drop that down a few. Can anyone recommend some really good cooling pads as well please? I'm U.K based. The last pads I purchased 0.5mm from Phobya didn't go as planned. They were extremely thin in height compared to the stock pads that came with this AW 17.

TIP - in the testing I've done above. I would recomment from here on out that anyone running UEFI. You should take Mr. Fox's advice and disable (Secure Boot). It seriously restricts your system.

 

I have always hated Secure Boot. I consider it an absolute pile of digital rectal cancer in the world of high performance PCs... filthy crap that has no merit anywhere except in business situations were data security is mission critical. It enables draconian controls to be implemented by OEMs. I always recommend disabling it and using Legacy Boot or UEFI with Legacy Option ROM. Micro$haft is a driving force behind this filth and Windows 8 is the gateway to hell in this regard. We may soon see the day that systems will not function without Secure Boot and potentially even insane Gestapo crap like "expiration dates" that will be built into firmware that allow the OEM to brick their machines at a certain age to force adoption of more restrictive firmware updates or all-out system replacements. We're talking Hitler-grade planned obsolescence folks... essentially zero ownership rights much like we already see with this Secure Flash dung that comes at no extra charge on the new Alienware systems. Want to run Linux? Sorry, that particular flavor of Linux is not supported because they have not paid the extortion fee to Micro$haft Mafia for a "signature" authorizing you to do that. Want to use Windows 7? Sorry, it doesn't support Secure Boot so we cannot allow the code to be executed on our hardware.

But, credit where it is due... I was chatting in G-Talk with Brother DumbDumb this evening and he mention a friend that works for Apple computer telling him the 880M cards will not function correctly with Secure Boot enabled and if you have an M18xR2 you need to use an older BIOS. (I am guess at least A09 or A10, but probably nothing newer on the M18xR2). I was going to post that here and got side-tracked. I got a PM from Brother nightdex and suggested disabling it, and here we are now with his 880M finally showing signs of life.

 

Damn straight brother Fox. Thank you very much for all the help tonight. I appreciate it.

I would seriously recommend posting that information up asap. It comes in handy for anyone with an 880M. I'm still picking my brain on how to remove the throttle flag, just in case I get hit by that flag in the near future.

Oh, why your here. Can you let me know what cooling pads are best to use and also, if liquid ultra can be used alongside the 3 pipe heat sink in the newest revision AW 17 and 18 please?

 

I have used Liquid Ultra on CPU and GPU without issue. As long as the heat plate on the heat sink is copper (not aluminum) it will work exceptionally well.

A word of caution on Dell GPUs. The area around the GPU die has small surface-mounted components. On Clevo GPUs those are under a protective plastic shroud. DO NOT get Liquid Ultra on those components. You might even want to fashion a plastic shroud to fit in that area to mimic what Clevo did.

Here is a single 780M Fire Strike run at 1177/1500 using my M18xR2 http://www.3dmark.com/compare/fs/1792534/fs/2317743

Notice how much higher the Physics score is compared to yours and how little weight the CPU performance has on the overall score. This is one of the reasons I don't like 3DMark (2013) as much as 3DMark11 and Vantage. It's too "fluffy" to be as useful as 3DMark11 and Vantage are. If you don't have a powerful CPU and a high Physics score, your overall score will be much lower with 3DMark11 and Vantage. Even Fire Strike doesn't give enough weight to CPU performance in the overall score.

 

I have 3D Mark 11. You seen my scores right? I have no doubt in my mind that my CPU in the AW 17 is very poor when it comes down to chasing numbers. I will upgrade it eventually. I just can't justify spending £450 on a mobile cpu. I can get a high end i7 desktop CPU for a little less than that.

 

Im going to talk to him some more and see what he says.. but we shall see..glad disabling the secure boot brought your score up..and is making the cards run better.. he said some other stuff also but i forget lol.. ill talk to my buddy again and run it by and take notes.. as this was awhile ago and i didnt want to post it up since i dont currently have 880s.. oh almost forgot.. Brother Fox he said any machine with secure boot running they will act like garbage..

 

No, I haven't seen them. Do you have new scores for 3DMark11?

I like using the stock GPU thermal pads. They are very good. If you don't have them any more, I would use the Fujipoly Extreme System Builder 1.0mm thermal pads.

 

Secure Boot is the worst thing ever invented by Microshaft. It's clearly all about the money these days. Technology will never succeed at this rate. Technology isn't built entirely on the foundation of money. Greedy fools, that's what they all are. Thanks for speaking to Mr. Fox in regards to disabling Secure Boot.

This is the score I was referring to brother Fox

Results - 3D Mark 11

Setup

View attachment 112831

View attachment 112832

 

It was similar to 337.50 probably would notice more of a difference playing games that the driver was optimized for.

340.43
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 880M video card benchmark result - Intel Core i7 4900MQ,Notebook P15SM-A/SM1-A

337.50
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 880M video card benchmark result - Intel Core i7 4900MQ,Notebook P15SM-A/SM1-A

One more thing the temps are lower with 340.43 vs 337.50 when idling or just web browsing in case that matters to someone.

 

That's looking good. Thanks.

 

I'll see if I can push both the CPU and GPU a little more. Hopefully I can push this single 880m just a tad over what the 780m can do at full over clock potential. I don't really want to try this on my AW 18 (dual 880m's). Could you just imagine the feeling of losing over 2k's worth of a laptop... Damn that would hurt like hell. I fell sorry for Aritoshed. That guy deserves a break as far as I'm concerned. Did he try disabling secure boot?

 

The more I read this thread, the more I don't want to get a 780M/880M... I think I'll stick with the 7970M and overclock it if need be..

 

No reason just before a new gen anyway, worst time to upgrade from a decent card.

 

Update guys. The latest beta driver has yet again restricted slv's vbios. I installed EVGA Precision to make sure it wasn't just Nvidia Inspector acting up. Boy was that a bad idea. For some strange reason. I move the slider for the memory in EVGA and instantly EVGA freaked out and maxxed out all the sliders and then my CPU hit 80c. I instantly restarted my system. I then tried Nvidia Inspector again. That didn't work in the slightest. I've since reverted back to 337.88. I've had no problems since reverting back. I really hope Nvidia resolves this problem with this driver. Oh, I should also mention that I had to yet again, uninstall my driver via DDU, in order to flash my stock back and then flash the modifed vbios back. All in all, I wish I never bothered now. I still have secure boot disabled as it helps a lot. Thanks for all the help brother Fox.

Edit: I've done some playing. Nvidia Inspector works again now. I've not even done anything to get it working either? Weird stuff going on here guys - NVIDIA GeForce GTX 880M video card benchmark result - Intel Core i7-4712MQ,Alienware 04WT2G

1093/3305/1.50V

Edit 2: Found out what's causing EVGA to freak out. I have 8 instances of Voltage Tuner running. I didn't even bloody start the damn program. I took to google for some answers. I couldn't find an answer to resolve the problem. Every answer that was giving for this problem, was "uninstall and install MSI Afrerburner as EVGA is bloatware". I can't see that, as both programs were created by RivaTuner right?

 

Probably just some kind of odd glitch going on there. I use Precision X exclusively because it has more overclocking features for 780M and 880M (including voltage control) compared to Afterburner. You can use Inspector for the same thing and create batch files. I just find Precision X easier to use and faster, plus 10 profiles available compared to Afterburner's 5 profiles, Power/Temp targets work right with Precision X, etc. If Precision X is giving you trouble, I would uninstall/reinstall and if it is still giving you fits, just get rid of it and use NVIDIA Inspector.

MSI Afterburner and EVGA Precision X, as their names imply, are made by competing companies. Both use RivaTuner technology. Afterburner has a screen recording feature, but other than that they are very similar and both have their pros and cons.

 

I've posted up the same over at Tech Inferno in hope that SLV sees my post. Hopefully, a minor tweak to vbios may resolve my problem for good. EVGA is still giving me a hard time. It's either the most recent update, or Windows 8. Either way, I've got rid. I'll stick with NI from here on out. I feel more comfortable using that.

 

Your gpu reaches 92c? That's not hot?

 

OK... it's time for NVIDIA fans, 880M owners and others to act... if you're pissed about what you're seeing and experiencing, head on over here (link below) to make some noise and show your support for comrades that are being screwed over with an expensive GPU that runs like crap! Everyone waited and waited for a vBIOS mod from svl7 and johnksss and kept quiet for way too long instead of screaming. A vBIOS mod is nice, but it should not be necessary for a 880M to function normally. The fact that it still doesn't is more than ample evidence that NVIDIA screwed something up in a big way. The time for being nice and patient about this is over now. Even if you don't have 880M, please chime in and help create a stir about this. NVIDIA needs to fix this, right now. Unless people start making a big stink about it they won't have any reason to. Tell them how much money you spent expecting something awesome and how disappointed you are in their failure. Then go start an RMA process. Even if the OEM that sold you a new machine with a defective product installed in it refuses to honor the RMA, if enough disgruntled customers start asking for their money back NVIDIA will hear from the vendors about it and it won't be a nice "Geforce Experience" for them. Move it guys... please.

Nvidia crippling the gtx 880ms with there new drivers (look for a nvidia response.

I suspect my comment today might mysteriously disappear from their forum. In case it does, if anyone wants to quote my deleted post, here is what I said:

 

Put it this way. If we don't all stand together and fight this. You may as well all be ready for future M series GPU's to run just like the current 880m. That's not my idea of fun to be honest. I may well be a number chaser now, but I still game on my 880m's. I paid for these cards as I thought they were the latest and "greatest". It appears at the moment that the 780m is the latest and greatest.

 

I got mine up the +160 core/+450 mem but my PSU failed.

 

What wattage is your PSU? Also, what version of EVGA are you using? The latest one caused me nothing but headaches yesterday. I had a total of 9 voltage tuners running, even though I didn't click on Voltage Tuner.

 

330W that came with the machine. Really has me pissed right now because I ordered two and they didn't include the adapter to use them both because they swore its not needed... well yeah obviously it is because I have a dead PSU now... >_<

EVGA version is v4.2.1.2143 (15-05-2013) - latest that they had on their site.

I use it on my 780 Ti on my desktop too and don't have any issues, I saw that weirdness that you had. The only thing I can think of is you inadvertently clicked in the tiny box for it to set your GPU with Windows. Otherwise, I have no clue. Its been much more stable than Inspector or Afterburner for me.

 

I didn't mess with any settings what so ever. I just changed the memory clock. It's annoying.
But there again, so is windows 8.1.

 

My 880m's will come on monday, I will keep you guys updated.