Dual Hd 6990 or Dual Gtx 580

Hello there fellow NBR forum member, i need advice in choosing a GPU for my gaming laptop. Which is better hd 6990 xfire or gtx 580 Sli? I want a gpu that will play future game in years to come.

Which of this two card gives better performance? The laptop i choose is m18x and for the dual Gtx 580 i need to add 700 bucks. I need to know is the 580 worth 700? Or the 6990 will perform same as the 580.

Here are the spec of my future m18x:-
i7 2860qm 2.5 ghz (3.6 ghz turbo boost 8mb cache)
8gb 1600 ddr3 ram
750 Gb 7200 sata 3

 

The 580m is roughly 5% faster than the 6990m. Going Sli or xfire adds 0-80% depending on the game and drivers. Generally nvidia has better Sli drivers than does ATI, therefor in a dual GPU setup, the 580 will probably be a little more than 5% faster. However, whether 5-10% is worth $700 is a whole different question. I would say no since the 580 costs 2x as much but does not offer 2x the performance.

 

Also things to consider, AMD offers the ability to override tesslation settings, which Nvidia does not, which means in the future, if a game is too tesselation heavy, AMD can turn that down to dramatically improve FPS. Nvidia can't do that, but Nvidia handles MSAA better than AMD cards. Money wise, you'd have a hard time convinicing me that the 580M is worth $700 more than AMD. I'd spend that money on dual SSDs. Just me though. Both are great cards and you can't go wrong, but for the money, I just can't fork over $700 for 5%.

 

Thanks guys for the quick respons.

 

Anandtech has reviewed both the M18x with 580 SLI and 6990M xfire. Here's the link: AnandTech - Alienware's M18x, Part 2: AMD's Radeon HD 6990M in CrossFire

In my opinion, just stick with the 6990m's. Price to performance ratio is so much more in it's favor. With the extra $700, go spend it on faster RAM and a large SSD. That will show you more performance gains then the 580's.

Also if you are not afraid of opening up your laptop and upgrading things later, you might want to take a look at getting a single 6990m and saving that $500-700 for later and upgrading it to the 79x0 or 680 when they came out. The 6990m can play anything at amazing quality. I'm running BF3 at all setting set to ultra and HBAO (I'm not using AA, but at 1080p it's that that big) and its running smooth. I doubt that any game will be more demanding then it for the next year.

NoPeace - out

 

If you are scared to open the laptop then look at mythological and their free phoenix program that allows you to get a upgraded part for a small fee when that part is available or something like that.

 

dual 6990's all the way: it has the best price/performance

 

If you really dont care about money at all and youre rich as hell, go for the 580s. But then again, 2.5x the price for 5% better performance? Its just not worth it for the minor speed boost.

 

if you need CUDA, get nvidia. (adobe, dvdfab, etc)

 

Guys the price Of the dual nvidia card has dropped so much. I haven't order them yet. Now if i go with dual nvidia 580m sli i just have to add 150 compare to last price which is 700. So should i go nvidia or stick to amd 6990m?

 

Hands down the 6990's.

The 580's are just too much money when compared it to the 6990 and all you get is minimal performance.

Edit: Didn't see the above post, which states the new price is 150$ in comparison. If you're tight for money, then stick with the 6990's. If not, then 150$ for 5% increased performance isn't a steep price difference. I personally wouldn't pay 150$ for 5% and would rather spend that 150$ towards an SSD.

 

There is no definitive answer. Both GPUs are beasts and they perform well in all games. There are games that favor nVidia and games that favor the radeons.

Any one you choose will be a tremendous machine so pick the one you feel more comfortable with. You can always make a list of games you want to play and then find out which gpu performs best in those games, considering both configurations are available from lots of users in this forum.

Sometimes it wont matter if the radeon is better at a game you will never play, and the same thing applies to nvidia.

 

Yeah at $150 it is hard to say. Since the 580s are very overclockable (I run a 30% OC w/o issues), and nvidia has better SLI driver support. I would go with the 580s.

However if it was 6990s w/an SSD vs 580s w/o SSD, then I would get an SSD with that money.

 

Go for the 580M SLI. That solution is a whole lot faster than the 5% people are talking about.

Atleast that is what this review is showing:
GeForce GTX 580M SLI Vs. Radeon HD 6990M CrossFire : Flagship Mobile Graphics Go Head-To-Head

 

Yeah, they tested four games and three of them happen to be TWIMTBP, go figure. I would hardly call this a fair review, let alone even a review. The Anandtech review has a much better balance of games.

 

And here is another one with additional games:
http://www.notebookcheck.net/Review-GeForce-GTX-580M-SLI-vs-Radeon-HD-6990M-CF.60232.0.html

Dirt 3 Ultra settings: 12% more with SLI
Call of duty BO extra settings: 10% more with SLI
Mafia 2 high settings: 19% more with SLI
Starcraft 2 ultra settings: 13% more with SLI
Metro 2033 very high settings: 10% more with CF

The article says in average the SLI is 5% faster though. But that is in average. In some games it will be faster than that.

And this was before the newest drivers from Nvidia.

With the current prices I would pick Nvidia because of the driver support, stability of the Nvidia cards, and the faster SLI option. Before the price cut it was a no brainer because 6990 was so much cheaper

 

I just check the alienware landing website now they offer another 20% off meaning i just have to add $20 bucks to have dual nvidia 580m. Why the sudden price drop on nvidia? Is there another card coming from nvidia for the m18x? Is it a okay for me to buy an m18x now or just wait again?

 

Just as in Metro 2033 and Battlefield BC2 the Radeon scored between 5-16% faster performance.

Thats what Im saying. In a lot of games nvidia dominates, and in others Radeons do. Its nice that nvidia performs faster in F1 2010, but I won't be playing that. Furthermore, both are exceeding playable framerates in 99% of the games, so we are talking about 110fps vs 100 fps when one wins by 10% etc.

But now with the pricedrop, and then discount, the nvidia solution is the clear winner. I wonder why the suddenly dropped the price.

 

For $20 I would say the 580's are the better option - they're generally known for better driver support and they've got some extra goodies like CUDA and hardware PhysX. Nvidia's probably on the verge of a new release, or maybe Alienware just has a huge back stock of 580M's to pare down. If Nvidia does release a new generation soon enough to justify waiting for your purchase, realize that the $700 price premium for top-tier SLI over top-tier Crossfire is probably going to return, so this might be your best opportunity for a while.

 

CUDA would be the 'only' reason for someone to stick to Nvidia.
But if you don't need that particular tech in the first place, then stick with AMD.

Bottom line is that both 6990m and 580m are more or less equal cards in terms of raw performance, BUT, the 6990m is cheaper.

So, as I said, unless you need CUDA tech that Nvidia offers, stick with AMD and either save the cash or get something else for that $150

 

CUDA, PhysX and slightly more consistent driver support are the main reasons to go Nvidia. At $20 difference, I'd get the 580's.

 

6990 is better from what I can tell