$200 on GPUs - is it worth it?

Every manufacturer/reseller today is charging $200 more for the 7970m (compared to the GTX670m or the GTX660m) and $100 more for the GTX 675m upgrade.

The GTX 460m came out Fall 2010. I am comparing gaming performance here because, well, regardless how different the 3DMark Vantage and 11 scores are, if it barely does 5 fps better on Crysis, then there is no point of those large 5k+ numbers right?

The 460m could do Crysis on high and achieve over 50fps. Sure the desktop GTX 690 announced a few days ago does over 100 but does it really matter above 40 fps?

My point is, if the 460m from almost two years ago can still play almost all games of today fluently (if not with all settings maxed, definitely most of them maxes and definitely on 1080p), then the 660m should eke out on high for another two years-ish. Even the 7970m won't do the games of mid 2014 on high with all settings maxed out. So is the $200 really worth it? What can the 7970m do with today's games that the 660m cannot?

The $200, imo, will only keep one happy in the short interim period (~1 year from now) when on the 660m I would have to reduce some minor settings (which may or may not really make a difference) while the 7970m would still scoff at those games. However, a few months from then, the 7970m would also begin to sweat. Or do you disagree?

Then if we up it further, the GTX 675m is $100 LESS than the 7970m. The 580m is by no means an old card. It ran all on high. The 675m will do a bit better. Again, it does not outperform the 7970m but does one really need all that performance considering gamers change laptops every ~3 years?

BTW, none of these are sarcastic questions. I am not a fanboy. I will get what is best value for money - if the money required is a bit more but the value squeezed out of it is a lot more, I will pay regardless of whether it is red or green. I just want an honest, rational opinion.

 

considering its comparison to desktop cards, $200 for a mobile version is fantastic value. a couple years ago you would pay twice as much compared ot a cards desktop counterpart.

 

At 1080p? If that's the case, then you may want to stick with your 460m laptop for a few more years.

Crysis 1 is much more demanding than all the AAA games released in 2011 and 2012, particularly considering DX11 optimization features.

 

well...after running through Metro 2033 at 1080p, VERY HIGH @ smooth fps, i'd say the additional cost for the 7970m is worth it

The bottom line, if you don't care to game with everything pumped up, you don't need the best of the best. Even Intel HD4000 integrated graphics will allow you to game on lower IQ and lower resolutions

but its nice to run around skyrim with everything jacked up at 1080p ULTRA and klll dragons at 80+ fps

To me, that's what gaming is all about

 

tell me which games does the 460m maxes out?

And the min fps that it gives, on those maxed out games, I want to see if I play any of those, aside the ME series.

 

i had a 460m OC'ed to 560m speeds...it wasn't enough for AAA titles at 1080p with the eye candy on

Witcher 2 had to be played at 1600 res and much of the really neat stuff like depth of field etc had to be turned off
Crysis 2 DX11 ULtra with high res textures was too much for the card @ 1080p

i can list more

 

It's all up to your personal priorities. Personally, I'd go for a GPU that's "good enough," and spend the extra $200 on a SSD. But then again, my current laptop is good for medium @ 720p, and I'm fine with that.

 

I think $200 is an okay amount to spend on the GPU. I wouldn't go any higher than that. If you don't care for the best graphics, at least it will give you some more longevity with the machine. I find that the GPU is typically the quickest component of your machine to go outdated, so you can think of it as an investment.

I would never upgrade the GPU beyond the initial purchase though. That's just me. If you are an enthusiast who really wants to squeeze every bit of performance he can get, then sure, do whatever you want. I've seen cards like the 6990M though go for more than $400 and to me that just isn't worth it.

 

How is it different from killing dragons at 40 fps? I thought the human eye cannot see more than 30 fps?

 

You can see both here
I am not sure what they mean by "ultra". Either ways, it plays all on high provided you have a decent CPU.

 

Can you do 40fps in skyrim on a 460m @ 1080p ULTRA, 4xAA 16xAF? i don't think so....and it will slow down and get choppy in places.

 

Yes it couldn't/cannot. And neither can the GTX 485m which at the time was the best nVidia had to offer. Heck even TWO 485ms in SLI could barely do 45 on Crysis

If the best of the best of the generation cannot really do it, then you cannot compare coz at the time there was nothing available that could do what you are saying the 460m could not.

 

That is exactly what I said. Skyrim came out over a year after the 460m. I said that the the 460m couldn't do games that came out a year later on their best settings. Now what if you reduced your anisotropic filtering? I said reduce some settings that may not have that great an effect on gameplay. 16x vs 8x does not really affect gameplay imo. So a game released a year and half from today would challenge the 660m with 16x but not the 7970m. Would you say that would justify the $200 price tag?

 

I'm not an expert when it comes to looking at the details of game graphics, but I can tell that there's a difference when I play Skyrim at 60 FPS(720p) and 30 FPS(1080p). The 60 FPS is more acceptable for me.

 

60 fps at 720p will be a different experience from 30 fps at 1080p. It may or may not have anything to do with the frame rate. Also, 30 fps is getting down there. You want to keep it above 30.

 

From the notebookcheck list I only play sc2 and world in conflict, both games that I could play very well with a 4670m on high settings at 768p, they were around 30fps on that oced beast that I had.

notebookcheck plays tricks with us, there are different res in the tests

Dirty 3 768p

Crisys 2 1080p

not going to go for the entire list of games sincerely, since I only play 2 of those from the entire list, they should have put the Total War series in there, its one of the most demanding games on gpu and cpu that is available.

Gaming on 60fps and 30fps makes a great difference, sincerely. Its butter smooth with the former and not that smooth with the latter, not to mention that when $%@#$%@ hits the fan, like multiple nukes in WiC you are going to dip below that 30fps.

but for me its a non issue, I installed final fantasy 8 (1999 the good old high school days ) for pc yesterday, and was playing Rome Total War (2004), granted I played vanilla then I installed the awesome mod, europa barbarorum and that is one heavy mod, really heavy, however Im still able to push some acceptable fps, on mixed settings on it with this HD 3000

Europa Barbarorum

this is only the units available for each faction

EB Units List

its better to use recruitment viewer, otherwise you are going to think that you can recruit the argyraspides (silver shields, elite phalanx troops for makedonia, arche seleukeia) on Massalia (now Marseille), how silly rome tw is without this mod, I know Im elitist, I know. Dont care

 

i'm not a good person to ask lol...by the time games can't be played the way i want them to, a new card / laptop will be on a UPS truck, coming to my door

I think the most important part of a gaming computer is the vid card. You can get a lower cpu, you can save money on the ram and HDD/SSDs, but a gaming computer needs a powerful vid card. it is the most important component as far as games go. So if its only a $200 premium, i would do it in a heartbeat. Then as you get more cash, you can upgrade the rest of the laptop...or save cash and put money towards the next laptop

if you get the middle option in vid cards, you will be forever compromising. Lowering IQ and trying to tweak game settings for smoother fps. That's not what i want to do anymore...and with the 7970m, you don't need to do that anymore.

 

May be some day I will have enough money that a question like this won't strike me.

 

16x anisotropic filtering has very little frame rate cost, at least for most of the games I've tried. It's the 8x MSAA that kills frame rate for me.

My GPU is significantly weaker than the 460m and I can run Skyrim, DXHR, Arkham City, ME3, Sniper Elite most recent AAA games at 1080p with every setting completely maxed except MSAA.

In the case of Skyrim, I turn off MSAA and use FXAA instead, and the game runs just fine, occasionally dropping below 30fps, but usually between 40-60fps. It would probably run even faster if I reduced the shadow quality, but going from 0xAF to 16xAF has almost no visible impact.

Witcher 2 and Crysis Warhead run like crap at 1080p for me; however, even on the lowest possible settings. (Although I haven't tried the latest update of Witcher 2 - hopefully it improves the optimization.) Tribes Ascend also lagged a bit at 1080p and I had to reduce the resolution to 1600x900.

 

I'm not tech savvy by any definition, but I think the 7970 over a 670/675 is good to be more future-proof. If the 7970 laptop costs $1600 and performs at acceptable settings for 3 years while a 670 laptop costs $1400 and lasts for 2 years at those same settings, then the 7970 laptop comes out much cheaper per year. You would be spending $700/year for the 670m laptop and $533/year for the 7970m laptop. Just my two cents though.

 

With that attitude, why not go with a GT 540M and play everything on the lowest of settings? It won't affect the gameplay, right?

You spend for the best graphics card, because you want games to look their absolute most beautiful for as long as possible, and because you intend to keep the notebook for a long while or at least want it to have a high amount of resale value.

If those aren't your priorities, you have your answer.

Just realistically, we almost never have seen the opportunity to double effective GPU performance for a mere $200. That isn't something I'd pass up. That could be worth an additional two years of gaming, assuming you like to run your machines into the ground.

Also,, I'd like to see video of the GTX 460M holding 50fps @ 1080p w/ High settings in Crysis.

p.p.s - The 675M is identical to the 580M. It'll be no better or worse.

 

Try scrolling a webpage or even just moving the mouse cursor around on a 120hz screen - it'll look much smoother than a normal 60hz screen. Our brains fill in the gaps pretty well at 30 FPS, but we can perceive much faster than that.

To be fair, though, most screens refresh at 60hz, which means that anything above 60 FPS is wasted processing.

The bottom line with upgrading to a top-of-the-line GPU is that it can not only play the most demanding games a bit better now, but it'll play future games more fluidly than a weaker GPU. When the 660m is struggling to play new games with medium settings at 768p, the 7970m will be playing them at medium-high settings and 1080p, and when the 660m can't play new games adequately at all, the 7970m will still handle them for another year or two.

 

Actually it will affect game play on a GT 540. Gaming on a 660m vs 540m and 16 af vs 8 is apples.to oranges. If you can really tell the difference between games played at 16t vs 8 then either the devs wrote it really well or you ought to focus more on playing your game rather than sit andin admire the beautiful tessellation in thethe water. But that's just me.

Also, I don't have a video because I don't own a laptop with a 460m. If benchmarks on a reputable website aren't good enough, then I have nothing vetter to show you.

Also, the 675m is an overclocked 580m so I don't see why performance shouldn't improve. You need to change something or you cannot name it differently without legal problems.

The question isn't whether to spend or not. The question was whether it was worth it. The question was how much longer than the 660m could the 7970m hold out. And whether that extra time was worth the money. I cannot afford a new laptop every couple of years. That doesn't mean I won't purchase the more expensive options. It simply means I will think thrice before clicking that upgrade radio button.

 

If you don't plan to attempt to run games in 3D or extreme resolutions in excess of 1920x1080, then the 7970m will last several years.

One feature that it is somewhat promising for future-proofing is that the 7000m series incorporates hardware acceleration for Partially Resident Textures. This is likely to be helpful for games on forthcoming engines designed to accommodate consoles and TVs with 4k resolution.

 

The OP and your subsequent posts read more like "disprove the opinion I already have set" than "give me your opinion", which is why you have the response you do.

If you're one who is going to have the machine for more than a couple years, the 7970M is mandatory, because the GTX 660M will only last a couple more years. The 7970M is over 2x as fast, so it will last much, much longer. The $200 you spend would keep you from felling like you need to buy a whole new machine two years from now.

 

For me, if it was $200 more for a 7970m over a 660m, and all else was equal (I wasn't getting a thinner laptop or a different build with the 660m option), this wouldn't even be a choice. 7970m or bust. The percentage cost difference on the laptop would be relatively small. The percentage performance difference would be massive, especially for the cost. Adding like 10-20% cost for 100%+ performance increase is a good choice in general.

There is a point on the spectrum where you start adding 20%+ cost and getting back like 5-10% (if you're lucky) performance increases. No longer worth it in general. Common with high end CPU upgrades.

 

Review MSI GT70 Notebook - Notebookcheck.net Reviews

This shows how power hungry a 670m is. I would wait and get something like a 7870m as it should perform the same but take probably 120w on full load stress and probably 80w on 3dmark06. I actually lol at people who say not to get the new tech as getting the old tech will cost more in the long run on electricity bills.

Its like someone buying a 2.0 litre medium sized car 2011 version has the older engine and does 30mpg but the new refined version does 60mpg at same performance and weighs less without losing any quiality. Which one would you prefer lol. 60 mpg will save tons of money. Even though electricity is cheap you will get same performance at half as much electricity cost or double the performance at same electricity cost and consumption.

 

Other than you, I have been asking genuine questions to everyone else. No one has given a satisfactory answer. Instead of using your 8k odd posts to throw your weight around and berate me, I would appreciate it if you could enter into a polite debate.

Everyone here has been saying that the 7970m would last longer. Only one person gave me some info about there being a new technology in the 7970m in the form of id's Megatexturing.

The question is very simple. How long the 660m or 7970m will last is pure speculation. So I was comparing older cards like the 460m. The 660m is 2012s 460m in terms of where it stands in the GPU ladder. The 7970m is the best 2012 has to offer. If you compare the equivalents from 2010, the 460m and the 485m (while at the time of its release, the Evergreen 5870 was very good, the 485m beat it in Jan 2011) both cannot do Metro 2033 maxed out. So if you compare today's 660m and 7970m, is there something that is different between these two? Because if the 485m could not play games that came out in 2012 maxed out, then there is no reason to believe that the 7970m will be able to keep going for years. Or is there? That is my only question. Instead, people have been asking for proof of benchmarks or telling us how cool their rigs are because they can do certain games at certain settings.

Yeah a 670m is out of the question for me. I am not really sure why someone would buy the 670m. $100 more for the 675m (if you cannot spend another $100) is nothing compared to the performance boost. For power, they could simply switch to the 660m instead (again if they do not want to/cannot pay the extra $200). I cannot believe nVidia actually rebadged the 570m and sold it and that people are even purchasing it. Rebadging the best from the last gen is okay. Rebadging something in the middle instead of developing it new, imo, is a bit lazy and money oriented.

 

maverick rebadging full stop is not great as it fools people to buying it. We are talking in terms of performance the 7970m is future proof.

 

675m is just a rebadged 580m. Why would Nvidia have a legal problem in renaming? Its their own product. They can say they discontinued it and then issue another version with different name but its actually the same.

They are not fooling people if they are not lying in the specs.

Edit:

I think they answered you already about how long 7970 may last. Its hard to tell exactly but at least more than 2-3 years is the consensus. But regardless of the our guess on how long it will last, look at the benchmarks alone, 7970 will be performing easily therefore putting less stress on the card making its life longer. Compared to lower cards putting more effort to perform as well as 7970.

 

I carry no weight on these forums, believe me. Ignore my post count. I wasn't trying to disrespect you, so if my words came off like that I apologize. I just think that you're kinda looking at this from the wrong perspective.

I'll try to go along with your 460M comparison.

The GTX 660M is only about 25-30% faster than the 460M. Right now, @ 1080p, the 460M is only going to be good for a mix of medium/high settings, in most of today's games. The 660M will give a tentatively solid high settings, borderline. Next year, it will be down to medium settings @ 1080p

The 7970M is 3x the 460M. It will see high/medium settings in 2014.

But, okay, all of the tech aside, those of us who need machines to last have to buy for longevity. Forget all other upgrades and drop the biggest bomb in the GPU department. Think of the $200 as saving you $1500 a year from now.

 

I guess the investment thing you said at the end makes sense. I was going to go for the 7970m unless they were offering one with the 660m SLI'ed. Don't find any of that yet.

 

why are you going to another hassle for you to deal with? entry range gaming cards on sli doesnt make sense, they are going to add another layer of problem while performing quite the same as the single high end

it would make sense if you went for 2x 7970m or 2x 680m

 

Also true. They do the same as the high end card from that series. Is there any + to getting an SLI config on a GTX x60m? Or may be the x70m?

 

there isnt. Its best if you get the top of the line cards for that, there was a notable exception with the x7200 and the gtx 470m, but that was due to the gtx 480m being a not that good gpu

 

I will never touch SLI, 2 sources of break down, twice as much power, twice as much heat, twice as much noise, and the majority of games won't work in sli when they first come out. In fact many require a new driver update which puts the problem outside of the hands of the game maker.

 

well sincerely Im not going to buy any laptop over 13'' either, but I like to mess with stuff, and yes dual card setups give headaches, some more some less

 

wow I didn't know a 470m was better then a 480m.

 

he was saying that 2x470m was better than 1x480m and the difference was enough for the hassle of SLI to be worth it.

it doesn't really matter - right now, you shouldn't buy a 4xx anything. Just get a 7970m, that's a better choice than any SLI setup with laptops, unless you want 2x7970m

 

Not really by much, just 5-10%, but it did that around 75W vs the 480M's 100W.

 

Actually you are all wrong the best bang for the buck is and will always be cloud gaming. All you need to do is start your own server farm and buy a few solar panels. Then as you need better performance you can add boards. Since it is a cloud server you can game on the go. Think of it as creating your own gaming service. I don't think it would be very hard to find a outdated server farm and optimize it for gaming. Then you can just sell gaming time and make all the money back.

 

What is this I don't even.

 

your one to talk your notebook doesn't even exist.

 

I actually checked notebookcheck and the 470m beats the 480m on games.

I reckon best portable laptop wise gpu is a gt 640m or 7730m.

 

the 7970M will be more future-proof. If you're only going to have a laptop for only about a year, the 7970M is a worthless upgrade. But I'm planning to keep this laptop for another 4 years, and then upgrade, so the 7970M is definitely worth its weight in gold to me.

 

GTX 660M can play all games in 1080p. Most of them on high settings, older games in max settings, some you have to go down to medium.
7970M can play all games in 1080p, all of them on max settings, with 40+ FPS, most around 60FPS and above.

Something like that

 

I wouldn't trust notebookcheck for two GPUs that are as close as this, but there's no doubt that those two GPUs are quite close. Still, you don't want to get either, so it's sort of besides the point. Today, the choice is 7970m over SLI anything, unless you want SLI (xFire) 7970m

 

^ True. And also true for the NBC stats. They are way too close and NBC uses a weird system. What's ultra? LOL.

Also, what's up with Windows 8? Is it the dev preview or like are you one of those few that tests for MS or something?

 

You would be a fool not to pick up the 7970m...........do a bit of research and you will see how truly amazing (dare I say revolutionary?) it is. The 675m is in all honesty a joke of a card in comparison to the 7970 and doesn't even deserve to be mentioned in the same sentence. Comparing prices between the two makes little sense as the 7970 is almost equivalent to the 675in SLI, for a measly $100 on top of what is most likely already a 15-1600 dollar investment. Hell if your buying a laptop for gaming NOW and you put don't a 7970 in it well......that action can only be equated to buying a jacked up pickup truck without 4wheel drive in it.

I'm no fanboy, I support whoever has the best performance and that atm happens to be AMD.........Nvidia flubbed this series, hopefully their 700 series will be more up to par with their previous standards.

 

^ I think what you say has already been summarized several times before in several posts. Thanks for your input though.