GTX 460m vs ATI Radeon 5870

Ok? The point remains there is no mandate to claim Nvidia nor ATI has a better grasp on the dual GPU market unless proven otherwise because it hasnt been done. It's just as baseless as me claiming the 6800k ATi series is going to run like butter. Both companies have committed major blunders in the dual GPU sector since I can remember.

Give me empirical proof and I'll crown a rightful king.

 

Lol and i expect nothing less from Ziddy... I am so used to seeing his posts i just smile and read on ...

He always comes off aggressive but i dont take it personally even though my G73-JW will arrive tomorrow lol..

I play in both camps so to me it does not matter i just want a good stable machine in the end and i dont care which brand its running...

 

Well if i you could not detect my sarcasm in that post of mine then im sorry....

What you say is true to the end and there is no perfect absolute winner ... They all have issues and i have yet to own or use a perfect SLI/CF laptop period... I owned the 280SLI M17x and it was stuttering mess then the M17x with CF 4870s and that had issues ... The M17 with 2x3870s actually ran darn good but Qx9300 would make the system throttle from time to time but so far that was about the best dual video card laptop i have owned overall...

My desktop on the other hand runs like butter though lol.. Might not be as fast as 2x480s but i have 0 complaints honestly... If they could pull that off in a laptop it would be a bloody miracle.. Has not happened yet ...

 

Gotcha

I have to admit since neither company can hack a dual GPU setup I've crossed off a dual GPU machine off my list of my next laptop, I've lost the faith!

 

Thats why all my machines now and for the foreseeable future will be single card machines...

If i want serious horsepower ill play on my desktop and for everything else a single card will perform just fine ...

No more super noisy , dual card problems , no battery life machines for me lol...

Atleast not for the moment ... If Alienware comes out with some super crazy awesome machine that fits all the things i want and has 2 cards and is not full of issues im sure ill jump right on it ... But that has not happened yet and i wont be early adopting those like the past...

 

The more I try to see a bigger picture the more it looks like -
Whether you spill the Red or Green blood, - it's dripping down from the same body...

 

Haha, reminds me of the good old days when ATi re-entered the high end mobile GPU market with the whitebook...



Thank goodness both companies are coming out with something though to keep the ball moving.

As for which card is better, probably the 5870M at this point because of raw gaming power. DX11 isn't taking off as I hoped (tesselation performance is less implemented and more random in games than advertised). nVidia would have the edge in driver support as long as you don't use their drivers (from experience on my HTPC rig), but wouldn't really matter in this case because single card solutions aren't as problematic as multiple card/gpu setups for the most part.

Speaking of which, great machine the M17/Whitebook was considering how most of its support came from members of this site, haha. I too told myself that I'll go for a really powerful single card setup for my next notebook ala a heavily OC'd MR5870 or a GTX 480M. But then I got an M17x with 2 5870s for a really good price

 

#1,3,4,5,8 aren't a Crossfire issue. GSOD was never a problem for Dell systems due to a unique bios but they were on Asus until very recently as well as desktop systems. The bad company 2 problem is also not unique to Crossfire but an AMD driver issue that desktop users share:
YouTube - BC2 black screen flicker It also has frequent CTD issues with AMD drivers. It took AMD 4 months to finally issue Dell a new vbios which allowed us to run updated drivers so our games worked properly without rolling lines and to assort out other issues.

All eyes are on Clevo + nVidia right now, I'm betting their X7200 with dual 480s will have a far better track record than AMD did with single or dual GPU's.

Admittedly I haven't but if AW makes them (470/480m) available for the M17x-R2, I certainly will.

 

Well Dell released one good SLI machine and that was the XPS M1730 that don´t have this stuttering and DPC latency. I am sad to hear the M17x has those, since if my M1730 breaks I will probably get a M17x on my warranty. However I don´t want any stuttering since my XPS M1730 now runs stutter free in SLI.

Also remember some games don´t like SLI at all, thereby stuttering. For instance GTA IV.

 

The M17x with 260M/280M has been discontinued. The new R2 uses a totally different chipset + 5870s so you don't have to worry about any stuttering or DPC latency.

 

been trying to find this bench, have you got a link

i suspect the real advantage of the 460m vs the 5870 is not actually in its performance. it's how much cooler it runs. newer tech and newer core, they run a lot cooler.

performance wise from what benchs i can find, they run either similar or the 5870 beating it by a small amount.

 

No dirt 2 is optimised for nvidia and its really obvios, don't see how you think it runs better on an ati card because it wont and that is a fact.

Anyways for most people who have the dilema of ati vs nvidia its really up to you. In my opinion yes, the ati drivers are worse than nvidia's because they are often unstable and perform crap i.e cats 10.7. However they occassionally make really good drivers like 10.5 and 10.6, so basically ati is inconsistent with the quality of their drivers. With ati you have to learn not to update just because its a new driver, the rule is to stick with one driver that is fully stable and gives best performance and change when a new driver is better and has been confirmed. I have never had any problems with nvidia drivers apart from the old 182 forceware.
As someone mentioned before laptop cards in the high end will all perform around the same. They will not be any better than the desktop 4870 or gtx 260 mark, simply because of power, heat and size issues. Instead of arguing the intelligent thing to do would be to look at something with a good price/performance ratio and something that doesnt overheat. So far in my opinion I think the 5870/5850m have won this round because they perform amazingly for a laptop card and are priced correctly. And those of you that think i am an ati fanboy, i am not because i own gtx 470's in SLI in my desktop

 

I think it has to do with both GPUs on one card that the M1730 uses.

 

Great to hear the DPC issue is gone with the new revision of the M17x.

Erik that is true, the 8800m GTX SLI in the M1730 is more like a GX2 board instead of separate GPU´s.

 

just imagine if you would have goten 4850 ^^



and yess suport for this laptop came from this site heck we even have two NBR exclusive Bios release for it
and after years we might have maped a way around the quad issue to bad there wont be a m17-r2 i.d take an other chasis upgrade from flex/arime over the m17x or m17x-r2 anyday

nop that issue is gone but you ahve new one aka the 5870 driver nightmare but that is getting fixed dell is roling out a new gpu bios and lots of fixes thanks to the rep in the NBR alienware section

 

While the exact opposite is true for AMD/ATI, who regularly release drivers that break old hardware and have "buy a new one" as the only tech support solution.

 

Ummm, I have a lot of old Nvidia and ATI cards, and quite frankly they all improved over time. Both brands increase in performance as time goes by, some owners with cards from both brands find problems as time goes by as drivers are optimised for newer cards (I've seen that complaint from a LOT of 8800/GTX280 owners!).

Neither side is perfect and mucks up unfortunately

 

Yeah man, Nvidia is really doing a better job keeping my 2 year old 9800GTXSLI cards up to date... you know with how I can't upgrade any drivers past 198.xx without major stability problems and apparently neither can anyone else.

The same problem exists for 260/280's as well. Any card whether ATI or Nvidia over two years old is forgotten both by company and driver engineers, just a fact of life.

 

Plz , when did BC2 not run properly? I'm getting 30fps+ at 1920X1080, DX11 , MSAA X4 AAX8 and HBAO off... on 10.8 that is..

I really do.. the combo in that machine sucks so much power that getting a desktop is more attractive.. in fact the power consumption is the main issue which is delaying it.. can't wait for the GTX480Ms to burn..

that's the problem.. NVIDIA produces stuttering cards and crappy chipsets..

Overall , i conclude that NVIDIA not worth getting.. driver quality is falling , prices increasing and cards becomming bigger and bigger and even greater power guzzlers..

 

Why do people still cling to the past when comparing drivers? Yes, ATI's old drivers were pretty bad, and NV's were just slightly less bad. For everyone who had to do something funny with the ATI .exe's, there was someone who had to hack NV .inf's.

Look at recent drivers to compare and more importantly, look at driver generations. ATI's 10.x releases are equal to NV's 200.x drivers in terms of quality, breaking things, easy upgrades and general stupidity. If anything, the only difference between the 2 these days is that NV releases a lot of beta and uncert'd drivers into the net for third parties to play with and tweak, while ATI generally doesn't. They both release official stuff about once a month.

 

Hey guys; Just have another 460m vs 5870 question:

I'm choosing between buying the G73JH-B1, or the G73JW-A1. Now, I've heard more than enough regarding the differences in performance, however, I've heard that the 460 runs cooler, so do I need to buy the IC Diamond Thermal Compound with the 460 too, or is the stock compound enough? Bearing in mind that at least at my current level of computer knowledge I'm not going to be OC'ing anything

 

Stock paste will be fine i would say as i just got mine and its certainly cooler but maybe for peace of mind and you not having to do it in the future you may want to pay someone who has done it a couple hundred times to handle it ...

Kind of a double edged sword lol..

 

People like you annoy me. If you are actually smart enough you should know that not everything a company does is a success and both ati and nvidia have a turning point every few years. A GOOD example is the gf100 core, yes it does run hot, sucks power and is expensive but there are times were the ati and it's 3xxx series were beaten by the nvidia 8 series in general. After a lot of complaints from the consumers made nvidia up their game and i think overall they are doing very well now however their timing was off. ATi had already dominated the enthusiast market and produced some amazing cards i.e 5850, at a great price. Also the new 200 series forceware drivers have been improving performance of the gtx 400 series and now it seems a gtx 470 is equal to a 5870 (desktop terms). You mention that driver quality is "falling?" This is very wrong, both sides produce some amazing drivers that are stable and give a nice boost in performance, i think that as of now the quality in drivers are almost equal with the exception of consistency from ati''s behalf. So the next time you go around saying that a company's product is not worth getting think again, because everything has it's ups and downs and its a matter of preference from each individual.

 

i say let the fight go on, keeps standards higher and gives us something to look forward to in the future rounds of NVIDIA vs ATI... errr AMD.

also sean, in terms of cuda, it's a specialized feature available on all nvidia cards, it will either be used exclusively or not at all by most users.

in terms of drivers, i think i've had more horror stories with ati then nvidia, particularly with opengl in general and the linux os 3d support (also using opengl i guess)

 

agreed, price war is always beneficial for the consumers

 

Gief 3 or 4 more competitors!

 

Hahah, not going to happen. Intel has backed down for now as it's own solutions aren't ready for the consumer level, and no one else has the expertise or cash for this area.
Companies like S3, Matrox etc really just dont have the power or budget anymore to compete in the consumer marketplace against Nvidia or AMD, which is why they focus on integrated solutions etc.

 

Another thing I wish for... That companies didnt try to rip you off so much :/ like deceptive names for gfx cards, laptop companies all trying to tell you that they are the absolute best.. But I suppose thats not just computers, thats capitalism for ya...

 

Notebookcheck isn´t a very realiable source when it comes to benchmarks.

 

ATI: never again.
AMD in general: never again.

 

Running cooler is just dependant on the cooling system. The current stock GTX460m can't match my temps on stock hehe. Hell, my O/C HD5870 is still cooler than stock 460m.

But yeah it is good news to Asus that the new card runs cool specially compared to 60% of our of the box previous G73JH.

 

Haha, come on. Better driver support? Sure, not a huge difference but better indeed. Less problems? I don't know... I have had less problems with my current HD5870m than with my previous nvidia laptops, but I never really had enough problems with any of them to care.

Physx would be cool, but I find it a super resource hog. I'd rather take the extra performance than enabling physx heh.

 

The 5870m can´t match the max GPU temp of my 8800m GTX SLI overclocked. What about Crysis maxed out at 65c and that with my X9000 overclocked to 4GHz and 8800m GTX SLI overclocked to 640/1600/950 when stock is 500/1250/800

Well I am not sure, but I assume the 5870m won´t run Mafia 2 at 61 degrees max celsius Or am I wrong?

@langamer, that is true it does give a hint of what the performance is like.

 

Heh, If I turn on my AC sure I can match those temps But woah, you got thos temps on stock cooling? pretty nice stuff.

My previous GTX260m was around 92-100C on load haha

 

It is because of overclocked CPU . All three fans are operating at full speed .

 

lol u have to be insane.. its NVIDIA nver again..

obviously , we only have 2 fans in G73 and only 1 is for GPU so temps max a lot higher but hey , 80C without loud blowing fans is certainly good enough.

 

Ofcourse , 80 C is good . But many users G73 with 5870 in Poland has much more C under load - 90 and even 100C , and then it is too much .

 

Well, it depends on the cooling system in the laptop. My 5870s idle around 35-45 and under load hit mid 70s (according to a few mins in furmark) They're cooler than my GTX285ms were!

 

Same story with my 5850 at 700/1000. While gaming I never go over 69C.

 

@ryzeki

I yes I maybe sound like I am obvious sure. However I was not quite sure but I assumed no 5870m would max out at 65c However prove me wrong But still I think you have better performance than my laptop

 

Yeah I know, I was going to be both a G73JH owner and a G73JW owner so I know about both. I also know that most G73JH came with a bad paste job, and just changing the paste correctly decreased the temps severely to which some have already temps like G73JW.

It is great that out of the box the G73JW has better temps, specially for those that don't feel like opening their laptop. Then again, the 460m is a HUGE card, so that might help.

Well, I play O/C right now around 840/1030 clocks, and for example with crysis my max temp just yesterday was 72°C. Using stock settings, and reducing my high ambient temperatures (sometimes of 100°F) I can get on the 60C easly for max load for hours

My very first benchmark runs were all on 68°C temps.

As for performance. Who knows? All I know is that this laptop kicks the living !"$#"$"# out of my GTX260m, and I really didn't expect that much difference. Hell, I am actually playing Metro 2033 in DX11/DX10/DX9 on high with 30fps+ average on 1920x1080. Trying that with my GTX260m (sans DX11) resulted in under 20fps and very choppy experience. I had to tone it down to medium and 1280x720 res.

Same for battlefield bad company 2, enjoying high settings on 1920x1080 over 60 fps, when my gtx260m couldnt even reach 50fps most of the time.

 

Really depends... I'll bet the MSI or Alienware HD5870M idle power usage be a lot closer to GTX 460M. I will admit, as a G73jh owner, the HD5870M in the G73 PowerPlay is broke. Idle is running at .95v @ 450/1000. MSI/Alienware run at .90v @ 100/150.

For now, don't think it matters what you get. The HD5870M will be phased out soon, so it's a moot issue soon. That's how long it has taken nvidia to introduce a competitor.

And even then with the HD6xxx series, I don't see a big change coming until the 32nm or 28nm architecture is introduced and I don't see that happening for another 1.5-2 years.

And in the end, even the GTX 260M/280M, HD4870M is more than enough for current gaming needs. Unless all of a sudden a lot of demanding PC exclusive games, DX11 games come out, no point. I would call Metro 2033, Alien v Predator or Lost Planet 2 be games you would be like, man I wish I could play that in DX11, frankly games aren't that awesome.

BC2 looks great in DX10 and DX9 still. And with Deus Ex 3 coming, since it will be hitting the consoles hard, my guess same story. DX10/DX9 will still look fantastic, DX11 being nice eye candy, but not so noticeable that GTX 260M/HD4870M users will be running to change their GPU.

Unless you have a really weak/old GPU, I don't see a need to upgrade... So if you have a GTX 280/285M or HD4870M, I don't see a real compelling reason to get the 460M or 5870M. I did because I was using a faulty 8400M.

 

its because of a bad paste job.. mine was repasted and nver have gone above 80C at all in any games..

 

so to sum it up, 5870M is better at performance (including DX11) while GTX 460m is better at TDP and heat?

if so i'd rather stick to a new 5870M with IC diamond paste...

i am hoping for a yes/no answer lol

 

No the 5870 is not better at DX11 period but at the same time dont use DX11 as your decision for purchasing either since these would be considered very low end DX11 cards...

From my own personal testing with both cards the 460m and the 5870 both have there strength and weaknesses in DX9 and 10 therefore leaving it more or less a tie ...

I am enjoying the 460m myself more but also not looking for a flame war which usually ensues with these types of threads ...

So just pick whatever sounds best to YOU overall ..

Good luck ..

 

i was half expecting to see numbers vs numbers..not opinion vs opinion.

 

Yep, numbers we go.
DX11, Unigine Heaven v2.1 M7820 @ stock (based on M5870):

Now if Quad could do the same test stock and OC'ed - would be great

 

I will leave the numbers up to someone else this time.. I have done it to many times in the past with posting screenshots and benchmarks etc... I am enjoying the 460m and thats all that matters for the moment lol..

Aikimox ill see what i can do tomorrow just for you BUDDY!!!

 

Worry not, m8! I'm not that deep into benching, just had a screenie ready to be posted.

Do you still play Crysis? If so, what's the max GPU temp after a couple of hours?
Mine maxes out at 74.5C for the MEM I/O.
Furmark however, brings it to 86C after 8 min.

 

I benched Crysis twice on the machine i think and that was all , i cant recall the temps off hand.. Have not actually sat down and played it because i have played that game to many times now lol.. To many other games i rather play at the moment but am looking forward to Crysis2 ..

My lowest furmark temp was 78 after 25 minutes and highest 82 i believe... You need to run Furmark for atleast 18-20 some minutes before you find your max temp because it will keep on creeping 1 degree at a time..

The card runs cool though even OCd .. I think i picked up maybe 1 or 2 degrees from overclocking if that..

If that was your max temp in Crysis after a couple hours though then you have 0 to worry about..