ATI M8900 VS nVidia Quadro 4000m VS ATI 6970 Crossfire performance difference

i am due to buy a new laptop soon, used mainly for 3d applications, however i am an avid gamer and would like a graphics card option that would support both!! thanks

 

Best Gaming: 6970M XFire.
Best 3D Creation: Quadros 4000M
Best In-Between: FirePro 8900M.

My FirePro is really a 5870M Mobility Radeon re-BIOSed to work better for 3D Creation, but I can still software mod it to take Catalyst drivers and it does wonders for gaming as well!

My best bet is really go for FirePro M8900. However, if you are 3D Development heavy and you really need enhancements on that side your highest priority, then go with the Quadros as ATI's FirePros aren't as well optimized for it as the Quadros. However, your gaming performance will falter a bit with the Quadros. the XFire 6970M is the best for gaming but you won't see any improvement in the 3D Development side of things over the M8900 at all.

 

alright thanks that sums up about all i need, just one more question would you see an improvement in 3D applications if i were to get the nvidia 485m over the m8900 or the 6970? thanks

 

As long as you don't need Quadros-enhanced drivers to be used on specific supported software, the 485M can handle professional tasks easily, just not as fast or efficient than a Quadros running on Quadros-enhanced drivers with support software, but still decent. The advantage is that nVidia still enabled CUDA support on GeForce caards, so they aren't a slouch.

 

What are your 3D applications? it depends about that. Many 3D applications don't matter about if it is a pro card or not or differences are minimal so you'll be better spending that money in RAM, CPU or a better card.
With rendering going to CUDA and OpenCL a gaming card also can be much better since turn around in game market is faster. You can see pro cards that in game market would be already outdated.

 

im mainly using programs like rhino, maya and 3ds max both maya and max being of minimal use at this point in time,

 

Speaking of professional graphics cards, I have sort of the same problem as well. I'm going to be an engineering major going to college soon and in need of a new laptop. Currently looking at the Dell Precision M4600 and the Lenovo Thinkpad W520.

The options on the Dell are the FirePro 5950, Quadro 1000M and 2000M, whereas the Lenovo only has the latter two as options.

My problem is that I'm split between those laptops. Pros on the Lenovo that I see are that the screen is better (so I'm told) and the battery lasts from 7-10 hours. The Dell has the advantage of the FirePro, which is said to be a better gamer than the Quadro.

However, my gaming requirements are light. Mostly play RTS games such as Axis and Allies (2004), Command and Conquer: Generals series, CivIV, and such. I might buy newer games later on, but I won't buy a FPS PC game.

Based off of that, will the Quadro cards be good enough? Also, do you know what consumer cards these Quadro and the FirePro are based off of, by any chance? Thanks in advance for your time.

 

^^
The Firepro M5950 is of similar performance to the HD6770
The Quadro 1000M to the GT425M
The Quadro 2000M to the 128bit GTX 460M

As for what laptop you need, well there's other factors that come into play which might warrant you making a separate thread in the "What Notebook Should I Buy?" section. All 3 of them should run your games fine though

 

There are plenty of reviews on the 2000M, but nearly none on the 1000M. Most of those for both cards talked mostly about the professional applications and nothing about what cards they roughly map to in the consumer market. Thank you so much Melody for the information. Since the 1000M is close to the GT425M, I figure that it would be plenty of power for my needs (thus saving me $250 on the W520 config I was previously looking at ^.^)

I have made a thread on the "WNSIB?" forum ( http://forum.notebookreview.com/what-notebook-should-i-buy/575455-am-i-making-right-choice.html). Didn't get much help on the Quadro information, however. Again, thanks for saving me enough money for a decent SSD upgrade I was looking forward to

 

my dell precision 6600 is being delivered tomorrow it has a m8900 i was wondering if there is any chance to mod the bios to get it known as a 6970 card as i don't use any cad or 3d rendering software. it's mostly for web development and graphic design... adobe photoshop and dreamweaver + gaming.

 

It was possible to flash from a 5870m to a firepro m8800. This is due to the fact that both gpus were exactly the same. This is also the case for the 6970m and the firepro m8900. I haven't been able to find out if anyone has managed to softmod from one to the other. Most likely it will never happen so I wouldn't get your hopes up.

 

the lenovo defintely does not have a better screen, the FHD RGBLED IPS screen on the m4600 is much better

 

Check out this link from the M6600 Owners thread:

http://forum.notebookreview.com/dell-latitude-vostro-precision/580712-m6600-owners-thread-12.html

tomcom2k mentions installing the AMD reference drivers and having his 8900m recognized as a Radeon HD 6900m series card per his pic.

Don't know about performance, but if there was a way to switch between the Radeon and FirePro drivers without reinstalling them, that would kick the Nvidia cards to the curb real quick for me. Two cards for the price of one.

I am in the process of looking for a laptop and am looking at the Precision M6600 real hard.

 

Did you find a solution for your Dell Precision M6600 with ATI M8900?
I also want to buy this workstation with the ATI graphics card and would like to use the normal catalyst drivers.

 

No modifications are necessary. Just install the Catalyst drivers on the M8900 and they will work.

 

Without any restrictions concerning FPS compared to an ATI Mobility Radeon 6970? That would be great!

The only negative point is the missing use of Intel HD.
I cant understand why Dell did not made use of the Intel HD in case of an ATI graphics card. That does not make sense.

 

the IPS screen on the M4600 is better than the one on the lenovo W520

 

I want a M6600, so no IPS panel not even optional in Austria or Germany.

 

sorry, should have used the quote function. i was responding to privatejarhead, not you

 

Star Forge, do you think I would be able to just install the current catalyst drivers for my firepro m5950 and it will act like a 6770m? Also if I ever wan't to go back to the professional drivers would it be just as simple?

 

In one word? Yes.

 

Alright thanks, I appreciate it.

 

For example I just finished installing the Catalyst 11.8 Preview on my FirePro M8900.

 

I have to ask you how you managed it to get your preferred clock and memory speed on startup?

I use version 4.0.2 of Sapphire TriXX and Catalyst 11.8 Preview.
The ATI FirePro is shown as AMD Radeon HD 6970M Blackcomb X.
Any time I reboot/restart my system clock and memory speed will be stock again.

I have tried many settings on Sapphire TriXX but without success.


//EDIT:
I got it!
It was my mistake - shame on me.
I forgot to click on "...and restore clocks" setting.

 

Hi, I am aware that this is an older thread but I've googled everywhere and I could not find any information how to install catalyst drivers on my elitebook with m5950.
I really don't need the m5950 CAD drivers since I do not use the laptop for graphics and design (I'm a computer programmer) so I would prefer to have more power for some casual gaming.
Can you please tell me where to get information how to install catalyst drivers on my m5950?
The ones I've downloaded from official AMD site say that I already have the latest version of graphics driver and refuse to install new driver.
Thank you.