GTX 880M or wait?

I know this question has been posted a few times but I want to see what people think about my particular situation.

I'm looking to sell my desktop (Core i7 2600K GTX 480SLI) and I wanted to get a laptop that could get somewhere close to it's performance level. I use the desktop at the moment for regular gaming and video editing. Part of my income is derived from flight simulation video editing so having the best GPU I can get is a real bonus, which is why I was all set on getting the Asus G750JZ with the GTX880M until I saw the thread about the possible Maxwell replacement for the 880M. My fear is buying a GPU right at the end of its life cycle and the 880M and the GK104 strikes me as just that. I don't think I will be able to replace the laptop for years to come so I want it to last.

My question is What realistic time frame do people think the replacement for 880M will come out in, and what kind of performance boost are we going to be looking at (I know its hard to tell as we've got no real specs as of yet) finally do you think its worth me waiting or should I just go with the 880M? Thanks.

 

Nobody should buy a GTX 880M right now. Unless you really need a new notebook today, just wait. GK104 and Kepler are soon to be dead and forgotten.

Realistic time frame on GTX 870MX, GTX 875MX and GTX 880MX is August-October. Looking very plausible in this time frame.

 

That's a nice rig, IMO better than any laptop you can get ATM. Why do you want a desktop?

 

Well I built the PC quite some time ago and I've itching to do something for a while now. I've still got no real complaints about performance my only issue is the fact it's a full size ATX case and boy oh boy do the 480's kick out some heat, having the PC on is like having a loud room heater on. But the main reason I'm moving to a mobile platform is the fact I'm starting aviation college some time late this year and will be moving back and forth from different sites I was simply going to downsize the PC case. When I started looking into modern laptops I was really impressed with the performance level you can get these days, the current 880M (I think I'm correct in thinking the 880M is basically a 680 with slower clock speed/memory speed?) A single 880M and the JZ people have brought the clocks to the same level as a 680 (dependent on the silicon lottery pick of course) and a 680 performs in the ball park of 480SLI so I was happy with that, but I just don't want to rush into things and I never liked the idea of buying a card based on something from 2012 I'm just not sure how long I can last

 

Thanks for the reply. I think I'm going to try and hold out, waiting until October is doable but any latter than that and I will be moving out so I will "need" the laptop then.

 

Could be earlier than October. Just hold on and hope

 

880M is a great card and the MX I doubt will increase performance by any noticeable amount in games.

 

It's a good point,I've been trying to convince myself that over the past few days but this system is going to have to last me years and any gain now might become the balancing factor in playable and not playable in a few years time.

 

Kepler and gcn 1.0 are 2 + years old. If you can wait you will be rewarded.

Then again inmany games your 480 sli will not outperform the single 880 in fact it would be the opposite. Still I would wait if I were you.

On the go from my iPod touch

 

Thanks. After thinking about it I'm going to take your advice and hold out, I just hope it's worth it

 

Well there is always something bigger and better around the corner lol.

Still for now Kepler and gcn architectures do not need or deserve any more investment. Been milked dry already!


On the go from my iPod touch

 

After looking it seems this next refresh might be one of the biggest for a while. I wouldn't wait if we knew the next cards would be just another refresh of the same architecture be that now or when the 880M originally came out.

 

I'm still in the refund window for my 880M machine. Anyone think it would be worth it to return and grab the next iteration? Or is it not worth the effort and questionable ethics?

 

It all depends if you want to wait but from what I can see prices for 880M laptops are going down by the day, so it might be a good idea to jump ship now while you can and start fresh with a new architecture.

 

Depends how long you are prepared to maybe wait
Could be 1 month, could be 3.

 

The thing is, there's a chance they might not even release the 880mx with laptops. Then we would have to wait until after March sometime when they eventually release the 980Ms and I can't wait that long. Need something in the next month!

I really need to pick between the convenience of a gaming laptop all in one, vs a fantastic gaming desktop + ultrabook. I can't find any decent ultrabooks with an i7 maxwell cpu, 1080p+ 17" screen(ideally), and 16gb ram. Higher resolution screen would actually be more attractive since I would just use the laptop for everything other than gaming/graphical. If the screen is good enough I could use it as a multimedia laptop.

I'm quite lost indeed!

 

If that happens then simply just grab the upcoming M295X AMD GPU. Coming soon and will be better than the 880M

You then just slot it into your M17x R4 and be done for a couple more years.

 

I have an Alienware 18, with a 4940mx +GTX880m in sli on the way.

 

Nvidia is currently making 4 Maxwell chips. GM107 (GTX 860M) and GM108 (GT 840M) are already released. GM204 and GM200 are being worked on. You can`t find any other entry on Zauba.com from any other chip. So if GM204 isnt going inside notebooks, it means GTX 880M will be the highest end from Nvidia for maybe an entire more year because thats the realistic time frame it takes to design and manufacture a new graphic card.

New mobile cards are coming from Nvidia (N16E entries in the other thread). These are max 3 months away. GTX 880M is part of the N15E series. Just trust me that they have moved on to a new series because obviously new and better cards are arriving. GTX 880M is already a rebrand of GTX 780M. They can`t do another one.

R9 M295X is coming out very soon. It will most likely beat GTX 880M by a good margin.
Nvidia isn`t gonna let that card have the market alone for an entire more year.

Then there is this, from Zauba.com




I wouldnt buy an Alienware 18 with 880M SLI at this point. Not with R9 M295X (already confirmed real) and GTX 880MX coming so soon.

 

I didn't realise that the M295X was that close, has anyone else confirmed it's really that close? If so I might go with a 295X system dependent on what resellers put them in. I really want to get a G750 system but I cant see ASUS using AMD for the GPU. Oh and the price for the G750JZ went down yet again even more sign they're trying to clear the stock.

 

http://vr-zone.com/articles/amds-new-mid-range-tonga-gpu-debut-next-month/79909.html

They are pretty reliable when it comes to dates and information about upcoming products

 

Unless you absolutely need something now, wait for the next gen GPUs. I always found the most rewarding experience when buying a new gen of high end GPUs, specially with a die shrink. I saw a huge upgrade when going from 9800m GS to HD5870m, but hardly any change between 9800m GS and 260/280m GTX. Then going from HD5870m to 680m was huge again. 680m, specially OCd, was not as big to 780m but still a nice upgrade. But those specific jumps always bring a smile to my face, just remembering the massive performance difference

I am so happy with my 780m, so I am very much looking forward to the next gen die shrink GPUs. 680m and HD7970m rocked the world when they came out.

 

I feel that GTX 680M was the only high end GPU that was really worth it on current generation. GTX 780M was slightly faster, but had only 192 more cores. GTX 880M is pointless because its just a GTX 780M.

 

Exactly the feeling. I wouldn't trade my 780m, but the actual surprising performance increase I got was when I bought the 680m. It was a huge increase. 780m is just the extra kicker to enable a setting or two that I had to reduce to keep 60fps.

Besides, overclocked 680m and 780m are even closer.

 

Thanks for the reply. I'm finding it really hard to wait as I got paid today but I will try and hold out for the next gen as it seems this jump might be the biggest jump for a long time in the mobile market.

 

You can do it! Save it and forget it exists, so when the new gen comes out, you can pay immediately hahaha.

 

I'm trying but I'm a man obsessed, I check the product page everyday and the forum like once an hour not sure how much longer I can last but I want to get the right thing.

 

Soon my 6 years old M15x will crush yours then haha!

Impatience....880M GTX SLI = throttling. Good luck. A single M295X will probably perform the same or better....and cost you far less...

Same goes for Maxwell when it finally arrives.

 

I might just keep this. They will fix the issues with a driver update.

 

It takes a desktop GTX 780 or AMD 290 to match SLI GTX 480s (mildly overclocked). Translated to laptop parts, you would need at least SLI GTX 880Ms (which are essentially desktop GTX 760s with more RAM and lower clockspeeds). As for your 2600K, assuming its at 4.5Ghz, you'd need at least an i7-4920XM at 4Ghz to match it. All up, you're looking at around $3000-$4000, I don't know how much you're gonna get for your desktop but that price completely blows the idea of price-performance out of the water, which is essential when considering your income is derived from your hardware.

If room heat is an issue and you're doing video editing, stick to your current desktop and upgrade to a semi-professional Titan Black (hell you can even SLI them for $3000), a professional Quadro or even a Firepro. Seriously, your ROI (even with the ridiculous Quadro pricing) would be a lot better than a $3000 laptop. You can even consider building a barebones grunt box for $1500 i.e. computer with an extremely powerful CPU such as the i7-4930K or an 8 core Xeon but not much else, basically does the rendering/transcoding so you can work on another project at the same time on your main machine (which you can upgrade with a Titan Black for gaming).

The only reason to go laptop is if you go on a lot of trips and need the rendering power to travel with you.

 

Actually even a 780M is a good 50% faster than a desktop 480, so a 780M SLI laptop will blow desktop 480 SLI out of the water.

 

You're underestimating the big-die Fermis. The 480 and 580 were seriously fast cards for their time despite the heat and power consumption. Marksman30k is right. 480 is around 660 performance and 580 is around 660 Ti. I think 780M/880M are both a little slower than 760, which would also put them around the 660 Ti range. So 780M/880M SLI is not significantly faster than 480 SLI to warrant an upgrade, I'd guess 10-15% at most.

 

Well according to Notebookcheck, the 480 has a graphics score of 5014 in 3DMark11, while the 780M scores 7691 on average in the same benchmark, which is where I pulled the 50% figure from.

The desktop 480's 3DMark11 score seems to be corroborated by Tom's as well.

This is one of the few examples of a single GTX 480 run in 3DMark11 I could find on Futuremark, and in that case the 480 had a 6767 graphics score.

However, the 480 in that example was heavily overclocked, while the 780M was ran stock. Even in that case the 780M still lead by 13.6%, so I'm inclined to believe the 50% performance jump is real. (although I'll admit this doesn't account for score improvement through driver optimization ie the 480 may score higher with the latest drivers)

 

Like you said, they're not comparing the same drivers and versions of 3DMark. For instance, in the last year, my Y500's 3DMark 11 score has increased by 1000 points due to a combination of driver and 3DMark updates despite keeping the same clock speeds. So to think that my puny little 650M SLI can beat down desktop GTX 480 is laughable at best in spite of what the 3DMark scores say.

I'm less inclined to believe synthetics than I do actual games, especially a 720p test such as 3DMark 11 Performance that won't indicate the sizable advantage in ROP throughput and memory bandwidth that the 480 and 580 enjoy over the 780M and 880M.

 

No, your numbers make sense. However, the fact that you need SLI 880ms to exceed the performance of SLI GTX 480s considering the cost is uncomfortably close to a Titan Black (or at least much more than a 780Ti) is the real issue.

 

Now correct me if I'm wrong (which I really might be as I'm new to the mobile GPU market) but I was working on the assumption that the 880M was a slightly underclocked GTX 680, and if you bumped the core/memory speed to the same clocks you would get desktop 680 numbers? If that's the case then I know for a fact a single 680 performs about the same as 480 SLI in games, I was blown away by those numbers performance numbers at the time . The main crippling constraint on the 480's is the 1.5GB memory which over the past few months has been maxed out on new titles and will only become more and more of a problem.

I saw someone mentioning driver improvements, sadly Nvidia stopped caring about the 480 a long time ago now. When I get new drivers they cause problems or reduce performance on older titles so I just stay away now.

 

What is your point? It will still get blown away by the next gen gpus

 

The 880M (if) when it runs properly, is more or less equivalent to a desktop 670. You're a long way off from desktop 680 performance, and I don't think it's possible with a single 880M as it's already been pushed to the limits.

And yeah that 1.5GB of vRAM pretty much limits you to 1080p, and even then some modern AAA shooters will eat that up in a heartbeat.

 

Thanks for the reply. I was working on the assumption the 880M had a fully unlocked GK104 but was just downclocked . If and know this is just pie in the sky thinking the 880M ran at 680 clocks it would run like a desktop 680 as it's got the same core with the same architecture or am I missing something with mobile GPUs. I'm up to speed and have been around desktop GPUs for years but mobile GPUs baffle me.

 

Yes it is an unlocked gk104 however you just can't match the thermals of a desktop card. That is why the 880m can't clock up to match the desktop 680 easily. It will throttle when you reach the necessary clockspeed to achieve parity with the 680.

Stick 2 in sli and you are limited even more. Unless you radically overhaul the cooling forgoing any kind of warranty in place. Something I have done to my old m15x to allow my 920xm to stretch its legs with an overvolt.


On the go from my iPod touch

 

Just waiting on a more answers regarding the performance of either the new AMD card of the 880mx.

If the mx is maxwell, but near enough the same speed, with maybe a 10-15% increase then there's no point waiting

IF AMD release their new mobile GPU in the next 1-2 months and it's more than 20% faster then it might be worth considering.

I hate having to wait for leaks, or for them to announce something, which halts so many things. Desktop gamers have it so easy, parts wise.

 

Aye, thats why I do serious gaming in the desktop, easier on the wallet and sanity. The biggest issue for AMD at the moment is that they don't have an architecture that can rival Maxwell for performance/watt which is critical in the laptop space. Their only 2 GPUs that are more powerful than Pitcairn don't scale very well in to the low power envelope since they were designed for large TDP, high performance. As good as it is, Pitcairn is really showing it's age at the moment as it was never supposed to be pitted against the GK104/114 which is slowly maturing on the mobile side to have a higher percentage of the desktop clockspeeds. If AMD were really desperate, then a special cut-down variant of Tahiti with GCN1.2 and a 256bit VRAM bus may show up but I doubt this. NVIDIA may win this round and maybe price gouge for a generation before AMD can respond in kind.

 

880M = 660 Ti according to NBC: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 660 Ti - Notebookcheck.com Technik/FAQ

670 is one SMX short of the 880M but it makes up for it by having ~1.1 GHz core and 6 GHz GDDR5, plus it'll OC to levels no mobile GPU can dream of (easily exceeding stock 680). And not throttling helps as well.

The gap between 660 Ti and 670 is bigger than between 660 - 660 Ti and 670 - 680, that's why Nvidia rolled out the 760 to slot in right between the 660 Ti and 670.

And yeah, the 1.5GB VRAM is probably the most restrictive thing about the 480 and 580. People were already maxing it out in BF3 Ultra when these cards were new. The 3GB versions were much less common.

 

They never had a reason to develop a new GPU until HAwaii and now Tonga. Since we are not going to see a die shrink, the best we can hope is GTX770ish stock performance due to TDP limits. Which is still a nice bump in performance, but obviously not the ultra jump from a die shrink+new architecture.

To be honest, pitcairn entered the battle in the mobile space at basically 100% performance, while nvidia had nothing at the moment except to use a slightly cut down GK104. Pitcairn held it's ground well enough, and it is very competitive even if it can't reach 780m.

Tonga can bring a bump in performance at the same TDP but since it wont be a die shrink, I doubt we will see anything more than a 880m+

 

The funny thing is due to SLI scaling, even though a single 780M is slower than a 660Ti, 780M SLI actually matches a 690 in performance. At least according to J.Dre. I'm still scratchig my head to this day, but I'll take his word for it.

 

Yeah that's definitely off the mark. SLI is SLI, regardless if it's a dual-GPU card or separate cards. When the 690 came out, every reviewer who tested had it performing identically to two slightly underclocked 680's, which is exactly what the 690 is supposed to be.

780M SLI can't match a single 780/Titan most of the time, while 690 beats 780 Ti/Titan Black. The only cards ATM that can beat 690 are Titan Z and 295X2.

 

Returning back to the thread subject....doing a small research yields the following:

580m (announced 29.6.2011)
680m (announced 4.6.2012)
780m (announced 30.5.2013)
880m (announced 12.4.2014)
880mx or 980m (?????)

The guess is by April 2015.

However, I would like to believe otherwise...if it comes within next month or two, it would be great!

 

I'm starting to think that early 2014 is looking more likely now due to the fact people are hearing talk of GTX900M series GPUs, granted we might still see a 880MX like we did with the 680MX, if you look at it from a marketing point of view they really only just launched the 800M series we all know the 880M is just a rebrand of the 780 but the normal public are none the wiser. I'm moving more towards early 2015 for a 980M that will blow the 880M out of the water and maybe in the next few months the R9-M295X that will probably take the performance crown from the 880M but only by a small margin maybe 10-15%.

 

The next high end mobile Nvidia gpu seems like it will come out several months away, maybe even in 2015.

 

AMD has a ShadowPlay equivalent in the Raptr Gaming Evolved App DVR or MSI Afterburner w/VCE. And don't forget about Mantle.