580M or 6990M

Hey guys I am about to order a Sager 8150 for college. I was wondering which one would better suit my need a 6990M or 580M. I want to be able to almost Max or Max out Battlefield 3 when it releases.

 

I think they are pretty close in performance so I would suggest you get the least expensive one. IIRC I think there is a significant cost savings on the 6990m vs the
580m.

 

http://forum.notebookreview.com/alienware-m17x/598992-580m-vs-6990-benchmarks.html
http://forum.notebookreview.com/alienware-m18x/594137-580m-vs-6990m-benches.html
The first one has the first post edited quite neatly for viewing purposes. These are, of course, Dell cards and from what I gather not the one that ships in a clevo model, but rough enough for a good glimpse.
The 6990m is a LOT cheaper than the 580m right now, specifically at mythlogic last time I checked, for the same performance power. You do not get the CUDA or the PhysX, but unless you need CUDA you will probably not miss PhysX. I voted with my money for the 6990m, but it is your call if you want to spend a couple extra hundred for similar performance.

 

Which one would you rather have running for Battlefield 3? Does CUDA and PhysX make a huge diffrence?

 

CUDA is more for image rendering and what not. If you do not do a lot of image editing work, photoshop and such, you will not even touch it.
I'm not sure if BF3 is going to be using PhysX. I'm running a google search right now, but you might be faster as I am on dialup. ; )
The one site I came across, link below, suspected that it wouldn't as they are running off a new Frostbite setup.
PhysX & BF3 - NVIDIA Forums

From what I have read I am not sure how well BF3 will run on any laptop, excluding x7200, but I could be wrong.

 

I'd go with the 6990m if it's cheaper. For some reason, I get the impression ATi cards use less power for the same performance.

I can vouch that nVidia's Optimus works well though.

 

ATi hands down.

The nVidia card is just too damn expensive in comparison

 

K thank guys! Your information really helped me. Now I've got a way cheaper laptop then I did before with some new addons =)

 

A big part of this is the ease in which you can undervolt them. Trying to undervolt nvidia cards is usually a lot more work.

 

whoa hold on there quick question: what are you going to be studying in college? if it is engineering, we use a program called MATLAB which does use CUDA and it helps quite a bit. so i f you are going to be an engineering student i would recommend the 580m or the 485m, if you are cheap.

 

Does matlab (or other software) uses automatically CUDA or do you have to do some tweaks to get it working?

 

I think it automatically uses CUDA.
But if you can, get yourself the 485M instead of the 580M.
The difference between the two cards is barely 10% performance-wise and the 485M is MUCH cheaper by comparison.

 

yes i agree and i have overclocked mine from the stock core clocks of 575mhz to 715mhz which is completely stable. so its faster than anything thats stock out there, its a 25% overclock.

 

Exactly... and I think Nvidia cards are highly susceptible to undervolting as well.
So you can probably lower the voltage of the gpu while maintaining the OC of about 20% (maybe 25% - depends on the drivers).

However, if the gpu would be used solely for gaming, and CUDA as such won't be used, then go with the 6990M.
By comparison, AMD's is probably cheaper, should be faster and runs cooler.

 

I would like physx but did not want to pay $300 for it so I got the 6990. Also I like the switchable graphics. Very powerful laptop but can get 4-5 hours when on IGP.