GT640M in my ultrabook VS something better

Dear Fellow Users,

I've got a Gigabyte notebook, a U2442S model and I have to say I like it a lot. It's light, looks good, performs well and just feels right. The GPU it uses is a GT640M unit and I guess I can't complain about it a lot since I'm not a serious player anymore. But, I was just wondering if GT730M and GT650M are much faster than what I've got? I know that Gigabyte has some sleekbooks in their offer with those GPUs.

Are there any other ultrabooks on the market with blazing fast GPU?

Thanks a lot,

Cheers.

 

The GT740m is probably better simply because most have GDDR5 memory on them. It won't be much faster though. The 650m will be faster. Again, not by a whole lot. The 650m is from last year though so the newer laptops have the 7 series. For ultrabook/laptop advice, you should post here after filling out the form at the top.

 

Gigabyte is coming out with P34G with 760m: GIGABYTE - Notebook & Netbook - Notebook & Netbook - P series - P34G
and U24F with 750m: GIGABYTE - Notebook & Netbook - Notebook & Netbook - U series - U24F

might be worth considering. 760m definitely a significant improvement over the 640m though.

 

..actually, all of those cards run on the same gk107 chip (unless it's the newer variant with a narrower bus.. that mysteriously performs about the same..). The only difference is the bios and the clock speed thresholds set there. So, if the cooling is good enough, you could possibly get a custom nvram flash on your existing card and get at least stock clock 650m with no issues.

The problem could be that your laptop may be designed with lower heat dissipation, and that this is the reason why the 640m is chosen, since it has a lower number on the heat, on paper at least.

Performance increase.. imo.. is a bit tricky. When you don't have that much to go on, small increases can suddenly be the difference between having to constantly tweak back and forth, and between just using default "high" on normal resolutions. So going from some 1600 3dmark11 marks to 2500, that's a big deal.

And if you don't want to worry about overclocking, and so on. Then going for the new 740m chip setups with the automatic overclocking nvram, and so on, will of course be convenient.

 

The only model worth upgrading to would be one which has a GTX 760M.

 

^ True. Also, nipsen, the memories on those GPUs are different. GT640ms rarely had GDDR5 while GT 650ms rarely had GDDR3s. There was a thread on NBR comparing the same GPU with the two memory types although I don't know what conclusion they arrived at.

 

just wait for the p34g...or 35k if you want something bigger.

 

Thanks folks. Well, are there any other brands that make ultrabooks with powerful GPUs?

PS. Can you offer me any advice in this topic? http://forum.notebookreview.com/oth...-how-make-sure-battery-well-looked-after.html

 

HTWingnut already posted two suggestions. If you do not like those, please post in the relevant forum. The link is in my first post.

This is equivalent to double posting. You need to wait for at least 24 hours before bumping up a thread. For battery advice, as long as it is lithium ion, what notebook it is usually does not matter. There's plenty of threads on how to maintain batteries.

 

Mm, it's not as simple as that on the low watt designs. For example that new model I mentioned is a gk208 chip. It's essentially a gk107 chip with a different arrangement on the memory bus, fewer lines, and a narrower "width", same number of shaders.

You obviously presume that the cards will be significantly slower. But on the level these cards are, it's not really peak overclock performance that matters, but stable "acceptable" performance on the same or lower watt-drain. And what we seem to get is actually a more efficient card with about the same performance as before.

In the same way, because of the way the memory bus on these gk107 chips are used, ddr3 and gddr5 ram doesn't seem to make any difference. That the new gk208 chip could perform similarly with a 64bit bus and fewer lines, that of course fits with that theory. That with this particular construction, and specially on that performance level, the speed on the memory bus is less significant than you would think.

So maybe it's a choice between a reasonably good performer that will also perform well on battery, in the 35-45w class. Or between a higher performing card that needs it's own power-supply.

 

I have no idea what you were trying to get across. If you clocked a GT640m GDDR3 GPU to the same speeds as a GT650m GDDR5 GPU, then at 1080p the GT650m would be faster. Nothing is going to change that. Same goes for a 650m GDDR3 clocked to 650m w/ GDDR5.

The GK208 uses half the memory bus (for those chips) and switches to GDDR5 memory, effectively doing pretty much nothing. Furthermore, the GK208 uses PCIe 2.0. I am not sure if that would change much considering I doubt this GPU can be bottlenecked by that interconnect but it is still a step down. There are too many variables there to make a comparison. That is why I stuck to the 650m for comparison. When you change other things, the picture becomes more out of focus. That is why the 740m with the GDDR5 actually performs similar or on some situations even worse to the one with GDDR3. Memory transfers always benefit from transferring more data per transfer as opposed to having double the clock and transferring half the data. Notice that the throughput in each case is the same. However, the setup times for a memory transfer would handicap the smaller bus. A 128 bit bus would do more than a 64 bit bus. I bet this is the source of the performance handicap the 740m has.

Basically, the GT750m would be an (minor) upgrade. Anything lower would be a waste of money. The 760m would be an ideal upgrade. Not many ultrabooks have those and you have to break bank for the ones that do.

 

...well, have you tried? Accounting for chipset/ram/cpu differences between the kits? And adding some cooling on the light-tops so the ram-array on the gpu won't overheat? ..Basically, they typically perform within 10 gpu-points of each other in 3dmark11 on similar clocks.

The point I was making was that if you're not comfortable with overclocking, etc., then going from a 640m to a 750m or 740m is going to double your performance, within the same 30-40w draw as before. So from one point of view, upgrading to a similar light kit gpu could be worth it. Specially with the minuscule price-difference between a 640m and a 750m. And.. since the new gk208 chip &gddr5 ram is cheaper to make (you choose gddr5 on most kits because of lower manufacture costs or specific performance boosts, not overall performance compared to ddr3*), we can probably expect that card to eventually drop to a lower price-point compared to the 660m-640&650m kits with ddr3..

*(basically, ddr3 runs on similar or higher speeds externally, with broader bus options and more lanes. Just it costs more money to make, since it needs to account for error correction and consistency in a different way. In the same way, ddr3 has to use a specific interface that is often wasted copper on graphics cards. Gddr5 ram is made primarily to reduce production costs and to allow interchangeable kits between different hardware from an earlier production state of the card compared to ddr3.)

 

Ofc if you can jump up to the 760m with its cut down gk106 it pastes the gk108.

 

It also jumps up to 50-60w drains. But good idea - good alternative since it will still run well on a normal laptop powersupply.