GTX 580M v HD6990M

Looking at these two screenshots,



and..



The 6990M is clearly higher in scores in all but 3DMark05. So, why is the 580 rated as the faster card?

 

Review AMD Radeon HD 6990M Graphics Card - Notebookcheck.net Reviews

 

Because in games, the 580m wins in more games than not. But both are close in performance so either one is amazing.

 

Yep, that's solid proof enough that the 580 is faster in gaming. So it seems odd then that in most of the 3Mark01 through to Vantage benches, the 6990 is ahead.

 

Yeah true.

 

I've never been huge on ATI but the 6990 looks like a good card. Does anyone think its worth the extra 250 bucks to go to the gtx580 or is the difference not really going to be noticable for games/CAD/video editing work?

 

if its only games you want then stick with amd. but if you are going to be using it for other stuff like adobe premiere pro and some other animation or video editing software, there is much more support for nvidia and cuda and this is basically the premium you are paying for nvidia products.

 

I chose the 6990M over the 580M because it's faster in the games that I play. Also people said that the 6990M run hot but it runs about the same a the 580M or slightly hotter at the most.

 

Guess it looks like Nvidia will be best for me then. Is a 560m quite far off from a 580m or should I not notice much of a difference? Just wondering if thats worth spending the extra 495 bucks to get or if the 560m is an overall good card still? Or is there another model I should consider too thats got good bang for the buck?

PS, thanks for the replies!

 

560m is a whole different card. It only has 192 shaders, a narrow 192 bit memory interface, and much lower clocks... because it's basically a refinement of the 460m.

The 580m is a refinement of the 485m with 384 shaders, much higher clocks, and a 256 bit memory interface.

So uh, in numbers alone, the 580 should be twice as fast as the 560, despite naming schemes.

I went through your same thought process, but there is NO way to justify spending $280 more than a 6990M to get alleged 8% performance increases... the 6990M is more than fast enough for any application.
There's also the 485M, which is not far off from the 6990M in terms of performance, and is the same price... if you really are a diehard nvidia lover.

 

so in theory then the 485m is a better card than the 560m?

 

No, it IS faster...


IRRC the 485m is about 10% slower than the 580m...

 

thanks, I think that sums up which one I will be getting then. The 485m is the same price as 6990m but my preference is Nvidia so the 485m it is, thanks for the help.

 

Yeah definitely get the 485m, it is a great card and the 580m is just an overclcoked version of it.

Much faster than 560m etc. Just as powerful as HD6990 or in the same power range so it doesn't matter.

Besides you can always overclock yourself to get awesome performance.

 

6990M is slightly faster than GTX580M
Keep in mind the notebookcheck benchmarks are worthless if they are comparing the cards while ATI has a 1,6ghz and the nvidia one runs at 2,4ghz+
If you compare it with same RAM, same CPU 6990 will be ahead> however we are speaking over 5%
Also keep in mind the 6990 overclocks better. Go to the alienware section, it overclocks up to 860/1200