AMD 7970m vs GTX 680m

concerning the HM series + 7970M: nothing is for sure yet, the only thing Sager told us is that they got it to POST and boot into windows properly, as well as stably benchmarking it with 3DMark11. they also said they had to reconfigure the GPU software-wise so as not to have to wait for an iGPU initialization, which it normally does. now, HOW they implemented that change, if by sBIOS or vBIOS or even in windows by Catalyst driver, thats still unknown. so no sense in asking "where to get modded vBIOS" n stuff yet

cheers

 

This was my concern from the very beginning. For whatever reason Nvidia in their infinite wisdom put 4gigs of vram on the card, but set the speed at 900mhz or 3.6ghz effective. This is too low

The 4gigs of vram is pure marketing. Still to this day, someone will think they have an amazing vid card because it has 4gigs of ram in it

I'm thinking more and more that you will not be able to overclock this card's vram very high at all. Its like putting 15" rims and crappy tires on a porsche (this is just an example, i don't need a gear head to point out that the brake rotors are too big on a porsche and 15" won't fit)

From the scores that matter, it looks like certain games will favor 680m, while other games will favor 7970m. i don't see a 30% gain at all...or even 15%...i can bet money that nvidia used their boost to the max during those benches posted earlier.

As far as I'm concerned, it is going to be +/- 5%

 

Those scores means nothing about the gaming performance between 7970M vs 680M. 580M SLI is 5% faster than 6990M CF, yet 6990M scores better with the exact settings as they show from your source.

580M SLI

6990M CF

Second of all I don`t trust those SYNTHETIC scores from Vantage and 3DMark11 at all. First of all because they test the GPUs at 1280×1024 which means little for these GPUs because who will run them at that resolution. Second of all its synthetic.

What I can agree on is that the low memory bandwidth may hinder its real performance. In that case a simple memory overclock may result in huge performance boost.

I still say 680M is 15% over 7970M, laugh all you guys want. I was right about the 680M being downclocked 670 while being attacked by AMD fanboys who said that Nvidia was going to release a worse GPU (which was logically wrong) than 7970M and nothing would ever beat pitcairn. We will see who is right this time around too.

 

Cloud, 3dmarks and unigine are a good indicator of how a card will play. If two cards score the exact same scores, it is an indication of where they will stand. Sure, some games will favor nvidia and others amd, but this is not indicative of the overall performance.

So let me get this right...

you don't trust vantage? wasn't it you who posted the 25K vantage 680m score from that polish site? and when others told you that it was too high (because of physX), now you dont' trust it?

 

In your case I would go with the 120hz screen then haha in my case I thing I am going to go with it as well but I'm a senior in high school and will be using it for quite awhile

Sent From My Rooted EVO 3D

 

You won't have optimus options for college... I'm headed there in the fall too, and I don't want to have this thing die on me after 2 hours.

 

Nobody told me that PhysX was the reason why 680M scored more. I managed to draw that conclusion pretty well after one guy said that 675M scored too much thank you.

And I really don`t care how good it perform at Performance score, aka 1280×1024. And I suggest people now rather test it at Extreme mode instead since we will be using our GPUs at 1080p with everything maxxed instead. The days where our notebooks GPUs were so much worse than desktop GPUs are gone . I just showed you that 6990M CF scored 10FPS more than the other at 1080p in Heaven, yet the one that is 10FPS below is 5% better in games. Another flaw in the Heaven benchmark tests done on GTX 680M and 7970M is the tesselation is disabled.

We can argue all day long but lets just wait for a review first ok. I say 15% over 7970M, you say +/- 5% over 7970M.
I`d be more than happy to admit I was wrong if that is the case

 

Yes Cloud, we know. You trust only NV marketing slides and tests where 680M is better at. We know.

 

oh boy...

Sent from my GT-I9001 using Tapatalk 2

 

I'm not arguing at all. Please don't think that we are arguing. We are just having a friendly debate, with me being cautious about what i'm seeing. Your 15% estimate is based on NV PR slides. I'm basing the +/- 5% on what we have so far from independent sources (i.e., independantly recorded 3dmark, Vantage and Unigine scores). From the way its looking, we have another 580m vs 6990 brewing here.

Do you remember this PR slide? The point is...it's just PR slides...to be taken with a grain of salt



if it is indeed a 15% across the board jump in 680m, the +$300 might be worth it. But given the ridiculous performance that we are getting out of overclocked 7970m's, even that's debatable. We don't know yet if the 680m's will overclock. My assumption is that you will probably do 10% comfortably out of the 680m's so that's another factor that needs to be factored in (my concerns about the low vram mhz not withstanding)

If it is proven that it is more inline with the 5% that i'm expecting (10% on the high end, with my opinion in the middle somewhere) then nvidia better lower their prices cause only those who see the world through green glasses will buy them

and Cloud...i do hope that there is a 15-30% increase cause then it would justify an upgrade

 

AMD fanboy locked on ............ lets just wait and see guys nVIDIA shouldn't be too off on this one

 

That's a shame really, I'd have preferred a more powerful 680M. Even if it was only 10%, but across the board, I'd go for it. Optimus > Enduro, and supposedly the driver support (I have a Mobility Radeon HD 4650 and have never had a driver issue, but idk people claim...), plus an increase in performance would make it worth it to me. But if it's really exactly the same.. There's no point in paying an extra $300.

 

The ONLY thing I care about from all the posting by Cloudfire, since he's been ranting about GPUs all of 2012 so far, non-stop...

Is when the 680M is available, will he actually buy a notebook with a 7970M or a 680M? Or is this just talk just to talk and rant? Meaning is the discussion actually productive for him in making a purchasing decision or he just wants to stir up some arguments?

If Cloudfire doesn't buy a new laptop end of this month after 680M is released, then I think he's just looking to rile up some emotions.

 

Here are the notebooks that feature the GTX 680M

 

How dare you!

Im having GTX680 in my desktop, 650M on one laptop and i have had plenty of green cards in past. Im no fanboy of either. Im being realistic here. My head isnt in "clouds" like some...


BTW. I just got emailed by mysn.de who said that 680M will very likely be in their list by the end of june. So not long to wait, if you are looking for it.

 

The discussions we had over at the Kepler thread and this would be pretty boring without me. That is my opinion. Someone got to make some noise to keep the threads and the forum alive

 

But could your noise be something other than outlandish claims that may lead someone lacking unlimited funding astray and into thinking they need this 680M so desperately?

That would be cool. You know, if you could do that.

 

even if the 680M is only 5% faster than 7970M lets be honest 90% of the games run better on nvidia so for those who are buying and can afford is worth the extra money

now I have 7970M and there is no game that I can't max out except for metro 2033 but for that I enable crossfire

 

LOL...speedy, you're the best bro

and you bring up another good point that irks me about the pricing.

Dell will probably charge $600 over the base gpu for one single 680m...but they charge $467 for 2 x 7970s in crossfire over the base gpu

Heck, they are charging more for the gtx 675m than they are the 7970m!!

Just doesn't make sense.

 

er uh, well, actually no. There exists more than enough clueless 'noise' in these forums already.

At least you're not misrepresenting the value of your contributions, judging from your self generated avatar 'title'....

seer

 

Wait a second, if you don't take at face value the results of the company itself then you are a fanboy?

Seriously?

Get a clue, you don't trust benchmarks from any company.

 

Lets revisit the previous 6 months shall we?
I correctly predicted what GPUs 650M and 660M was before they came out. GK107 and everything. I calculated the memory bandwidth and said that it was greater than the 192bit 560M and tried to tell everyone and had to correct many people. I went against the Dell ratings of 660M that the TDP is lower than it is, despite many people`s attempt at saying I was wrong. I was right. According to someone which I shall not mention there was NO WAY that 680M could be as powerful as we see now because 660M was already at 75W...

I correctly predicted what GPU the 680M would be made of. Lots of people here said that it wasn`t possible that it can be made. Many people you see posting in this thread right now said that the P4900 was correct and I had to tell them that the GPU they are seeing is the wrong one. I was called an idiot because all the "legit" websites posted it, hence it must be correct. They went on a AMD spewfest and I was the only one in this thread that was the counterweight that kept the thread from becoming a AMD lovefest like AMD would win this generation war by epic proportions.
All the comparisons between the different GPUs have been made by me long before any reviews came out.

So yeah perhaps you should take a good look at yourself before calling someone clueless.

 

680M Benchmarked

If this hasn't been posted already, here ya go...

 

yeah lol DELL prices are broken to get 680m sli over 7970m cf they will probably charge $800 more

 

Hmmmm... on the desktop side the GTX 680 scores about 2K more. 8-10 more FPS in Unigine...

Something seems odd. Me wants SLi numbers. Not single card.

 

so with a CPU pushing 27k on vantage the 680m only get 20k if they use a 3620qm the gpu may score 19k lol but those are just synthetic benchmarks of course

edit I mean 3610qm

 

21472 is the score the 7970M got with a 3610QM (M17x R4). It broke 22.5K with a 2600K but that's meaningless...

 

Fanboys or not, this round goes to AMD, even if Nvidia pays every reviewer for claiming 5% lead based on thwarted settings and "randomly" tested games, lol.

 

If the vantage scores are anything to go by then the cards should trade blows depending on the game. It's all whatever though... I expected the 680M to be faster so I guess I'll be keeping my 680 desktop system.

 

I'd still like to know if you are going to be purchasing a laptop SOON with either the 7970M or the 680M. Just curious why you would be so riled up and passionate if you don't.

It's a win for AMD because the differences in performance as you said will be negligible, depending on the game. But the high price and late entrance for the 680M makes it a loss for Nvidia.

 

It's not over until we see SLi numbers .

 

Wouldn't call anything a win yet. Many things to consider first. Safe to say that a good chunk of people who buy these grade of cards will overclock it. On paper, the 680M has more potential, being based on a more powerful chip. But voltage, TDP and this nVidia turbo boost thing will determine how well it overclocks vs the 7970M.

And although the 7970M was available first, the issue with the second batch of Clevo cards did enough damage to AMD that made customers that were waiting on their 7970M equipped systems to switch to nVidia once the 680M was announced. The conspiracy theorist in me wants to think all this was an inside job between Clevo and nVidia to sabotage/delay shipments till the 680M was announced to help boost sales. Would make a good read if true but that delay really hurt AMD's standing with customers who purchase enthusiast notebooks not made by Alienware.

Lastly, there are the "extras" nVidia offers vs AMD to justify their price premium. Some can argue that these extras more than justify the price premium because of the options. Though most buyers won't be using any of these extras during their experience with their card, it's somewhat comforting to know that options are available.

 

Guys its sad to see each other fighting over an argument that is the same each year.
People have been fighting over this since the dawn of time.

If you can, money wise, get a 680m, even a SLI system, and brag all the day long.

If youre a normal person, a student, with an average salary but you want a great card which performs enough for everything, go for the 7970m.

I love nvidia but since ive lost my job due to economic crisis i cant efford the flagship mobile gpu, and probably i will have problems getting a 7970m as well.

There are peoples who spend 3500$ on a SLI/Xfire system because they can. Those peoples should keep in mind that 3500 equals to 3 months of salary of an average person.
So instead fighting and arguing on whats the best, or fanbois - lets get things intoa context before flaming.
Im tired to see people getting mad for such useless things. In the end doesnt matter at all.
Because you know it will not matter.
Sorry to all if i am rude its not my intention, just my 2 cent.

 

Agree , well said sir

 

You speak truth there, brother.

 

obviously it will be better than xfire because of amd's craptastic driver support.

 

I'm gonna wait 1 month after ppl own the 680m to decide whether to go with 7970m or 680m.
Just so we have plenty of benches, temps, OC's, reliability & drivers etc

 

Haha oh man yeah I know, hence the smiley and the dot complication heh, same thing every year.. had my hopes high but why do I even try

read the reply above, pun intented.. or somewhat trying to be funny and obviously failing

edit: first benchmark by notebookcheck.net on the 680M in a MSI GT70 @Computex 2012
doesn't seem so promising to me...... w-t-f
oh and the MSI GX60 with the 7970M and trinity CPU

 

GTX680 is a waste of money. GTX670 is pretty much a GTX680 at a much better price. And when you OC it...

 

not a waste of money as you can also overclock the GTX 680m and have the speeds of future GPU's. It's overpriced yes, but fanbois like cloudfire will still buy it and say it's worth every penny. If Nvidia builds it, fanbois will come.

 

A10 + 7970...............

That's a strange combination.

However its the first real gaming notebook with an AMD CPU since what? a decade?

 

very strange indeed.. I had to chew it for a while, before believing it, and that it comes from MSI makes it even weirder..

if not more than a decade, intresting MSI is breaking new ground

 

its what we already are seeing...21,900 in vantage and ~60fps in UNGINE, but they are sneaky, they disabled tessellation in that test to bump the number up to 65fps just to make the 680m look better.

At the end of the day, looks like wash to me

 

Err no. 675 is a rebadged 580, which is FERMI and 40nm. The 680M is Kepler and 28nm. The 580M/675M is around 340 Cuda cores, the Kepler is around 1300 cores. The massive jump in cores says a lot in that 680M is not a 675M. And the 680M is over 50% faster than 675M according to Nvidia, no way you can overclock the 675M that much, especially since it's already a higher clocked 580M which is a higher clocked 485M.

 

he was talking about desktop and he is right

i have 670 SLI in a play desktop...both can clock to 1400core which is actually faster than what my GTX 680 could clock to

 

AMD CPU in a gaming notebook?

How long has it been since I saw that?

Still getting over that lol. But I wonder how much the graphics can shut off to let the CPU turbo?

 

it could work...and i would love to learn more about it. The last gaming amd cpu i had was the desktop FX-57 CPU way back in the day. That was the best money could buy...better than any intel offering at that time

 

Sigh... how did I miss that detail, tess is disabled. -_-

 

I think it could work too. Often times you are so GPU limited anyway. Even a low end dual core sandy level of performance is enough.

 

You can relax, notebookcheck is a baseline for the absolute worst that card will ever do. They take it out of the box... no driver updates, no tweaking, no removal of bloatware and run their benchmarks.

Notebookcheck's benchmarks are only really useful when compared to their own benchmarks. For instance, they rate the 680m ~5% better than the 7970m... which sounds about right at stock clocks. Note, please nothing at notebookcheck should be taken as gospel, just a relative "out of box" performance baseline.

I'd like to point out that some of us have the money to buy a 680m-equipped laptop, but won't do it at that price. $300 can be used elsewhere for something a LOT more useful than a 5% FPS hike.

I think the "victory" cries by AMD fanbois are premature though. The 680m has a LOT of potential.
I don't we can find an AMD fanboi who will claim the desktop 7870 is even in the same league as the desktop GTX 670. Since the 680m and 7970m are simply downclocked versions of those two cards, any closer the 680m can get to its desktop clocks will give it more of a performance advantage.

Unless pricing changes, I think even the worst Nvidia fanboi will agree the 680m is horrendously overpriced.

If the release pricing stays, and the 680m is truly limited due to the laptop form factor and heat limitations then yes, the 7970m will have the value title, and probably the "no real point in purchasing anything more expensive" title too.