Is the 870m better than the m290x for gaming?

Spec wise the AMD card should be a bit stronger

However notebookcheck's benchmarks show that the 870m has better performance almost everywhere.
Some guy on another website did some benchmarks on all 700m cards and the 860m and m290x and that the 860m was within 90% FPS of the m290x, the 870m is 25-30% stronger than the 860m maxwell.

Why? is it because AMDs drivers are just bad? or are the tests flawed?

 

The M290x is a 2 year old design which has been oced and resold 3 times by AMD... Its reaching its limits... I have the 7970M which is what the M290x is based on and its quite good... However, AMD driver support is to say the least and non-exsistent for the M290x.. You will have to mod inf files at least for the next few months before they officially support it.. This is not an issue with the 7970M and hence I'm ok with it... The main issue for me is AMD haven't released a stable driver since december and the beta has not been updated for a month.. I would get the 870M if I had the choice or even better, get the 880M...

 

The heck are you talking about, Tom? There ware two betas in last two weeks from AMD, just head to guru3d and download. 870m is not stronger than m290x that's should be clear.

 

The main advantadge the R9 M290X has over the 870m is it's increased memory bandwidth which is a limiting factor in terms of performance. The 870m has better overall performance (especially at resolutions below 1080p) though. At 1080p and high AA I believe things tend to even out or go in favor of the R9 M290X due to it not being limited by memory transfer and access speeds. In the end it will depend a lot on driver performance, I say that on games that are optimized for both the green and red teams, the 870m will outperform the R9 M290X in high settings, but the R9 M290X will win at ultra (1080p, high AA) settings. They should still be very close and I believe you should get whichever is cheaper.

 

R9 M290x and GTX 870M perform the same on Ultra 1080p according to Notebookcheck.

Review Clevo P170SM-A (One K73-4N) Barebones Notebook - NotebookCheck.net Reviews

 

The 870M is cheaper, has very similar performance, and is Nvidia.

AMD is only worthwhile, when they offer the pricing advantage.

 

I had this exact conundrum and went with the m290x. The memory bandwidth is pretty big, plus I liked the idea of at least having AMD's best card. Otherwise, performance see-saws depending on what games are best optimized for. For example, with Hitman you see the m290x producing results similar to the 880m at over 30% better than the 870m.

That said, I don't think either card is a wrong choice. The 880m is undeniably a better card but the price was just too rich for me, especially for SLI. Either m290x in CF or 870 in SLI will both produce good results.

 

In europe you can actually get the m290x for 10 bucks less than the 870m.

Ignoring price, would the m290x or the 870m be a better choice?

 

You didnt listen at all.

 

LOL

Get the R9 M290X.

 

I agree with Kevin.

 

With about equal performance I would go with nvidia. Think of the children.

Sent from my SGH-T999 using Tapatalk 2

 

They're not really that equal. 680M = 7970M. 870M is a gimped 680M and M290X is an overclocked 7970M.

 

Usually Nvidia is a better choice. When 680M and 7970M came out, 7970M had a lot of problems while GTX 680M just worked without any issues. Now many of the problems might have been resolved, but there are a couple of people here who still have problems with their AMD cards.

Why did you say "LOL" on the post above when you clearly can`t read either?
There is a link posted in the previous page that shows that 870M and R9 M290X have similar performance. What 870M lacks in memory bus vs 680M, makes up for it with having faster VRAM.

 

It also has 8 less ROPs. But as the notebookcheck link shows, the higher clocks more than make up for it.

 

Yep, I think GTX 680M would be a slightly better choice if you know how to change vbios, but I don`t think any resellers are offering the 600M series anymore.

 

Honestly, if I was looking for an 870m-level laptop right now I'd be looking in the used market. The 680m is a notch better than the 870m, the 7970/8970 is about equal to the 870m at 1080p and you can find a vast array of near-new laptops with theses pre-refreshed GPUs for exceedingly good prices -- it's a buyer's market right now.

 

If used notebooks fancy him, sure, why not.
Even if he just want the graphic card, new GTX 680M`s are also available at Ebay.

But not everyone wants a used notebook though. I know I hate mine already after a year

 

I thought the only "issues" with the 7970M was Enduro with laptops with iGPU (aka Clevo laptops).

 

I don't get why the 680 would be better than an 870. Stock performance is within 10 percent of a 780m.

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That and they seem to have abnormally high failure rates.

At stock sure. But since the 870M is already being pushed really hard at stock, how much room there is left for OC is questionable. Whereas the 680M/780M could be overclocked to the moon with an unlocked vBIOS.

 

??? ???

The 870m *IS* the 680m except with 192-bit bus and faster stock vRAM and core. 870m can be clocked as high as a 680m/780m if not higher due to improvements in efficiencies. You'd be lucky to hit 940MHz (stock for 870m) with the 680m using stock voltage.

I think the 870m is the perfect sweet spot right now for price for performance. Why MSI, Razer, and Gigabyte decided to shove them in their less than inch thick machines is beyond me.

 

That's why you use the unlocked 680M vBIOS and let it spread its wings.

If you gave me the choice between a 660 Ti and 670, I'd take the 670 any day. How about you?

 

Point being is that this is a laptop GPU, and I don't think the 870m would have an issue competing with the 680m if both had an unlocked vBIOS. 680m would require more voltage and result in higher temps, and likely lower peak core speed than the 870m in the same machine. The 680m is based on the initial Kepler launch where the 870m is based on a refined Kepler 28nm tech. 660 Ti and 670 were released at the same time on the same wafers.

680m was already approaching 90C in many benchmarks at 1000MHz Core and 2400Mhz vRAM and isn't a whole lot faster than a stock 870m.

 

870M at 941MHz core and 2500MHz vram is already clocked much higher than the 680M at only 720MHz core and 1800Mhz vram. The higher clocks on 870M pulls it 10-15% ahead of the 680M. The question is how much more can be squeezed out of the 870M with an unlocked BIOS and volt mods, given that it's already clocked so much higher.

Also I'd really like to see some numbers (gaming) for 680M at 1000 core/2400 vram. That would probably convince me one way or the other.

 

You've come to the right place.

http://forum.notebookreview.com/sag...clevo-p150em-review-lots-680m-benchmarks.html

 

My 680M@1019/2500 on stock voltage doing almost the same performance in games like GTX 880M stock, so is a lot faster than 870M stock.
My GPU never hit over 82 degres in games, without fn+1. I have P150EM with tapemod, repaste and some cooling mods.

Specification
870M 24 ROPS/112 TMU/192 bit = GTX 660 TI
680M 32 ROPS/112 TMU/256bit = GTX 670.

3DMark 11, NVIDIA GeForce GTX 680M video card benchmark result - Intel Core i7-3630QM Processor,CLEVO P150EM
GTX 880M has 993/2500 and scores like my 680M OC (8700 GPU Score in 3DMark 11).

 

stop it already, 680M had its 5 minutes, today GTX860M can overclock well, GTX 780M also doing well, 880M has much better resources VBIOS, 680m will always be 680M,and the 870m is almost as fast as AD

NVIDIA GeForce GTX 880M video card benchmark result - Intel Core i7-4700HQ,ASUSTeK COMPUTER INC. G750JZA
oc via OEM VCore
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 880M video card benchmark result - Intel Core i7-4700HQ,ASUSTeK COMPUTER INC. G750JZA

Get real
GTX880M revolves with a finger in the ear for more than 1100 without changing the voltage,
GPU score of 500 points is more like 50MHz on the clock, or overclocked CPU
GTX overclocking at 1130MHz and voltage 1.018V like a good piece of silicon

 

Ouhhh, g750JZ im aiming at this one.
Only that soldered processors and asus graphics cards shape...

 

has nothing to do with what laptop graphics card, it counts what she can do,
as for me it is not important diffrence with GTX880M is not GTX680M, just as you can tell from the soldered chip can not tweak, if somebody does not bother as the laptop runs on maximum fan speed is maybe ten years to write and is effective as of the latest laptops, only someday will end voltage of the core and rotate the card,
10 percent more performance for Laptop is very much in laptops are big limitation, yes GTX680M is not bad but it is EOL, like AMD 7970M is also a good card, but also renamed, device driver likes better new name,
680M will it fit more into GTX870M, and you can tweak all

 

Please stahp with the Google Translate. My tummy hurts. :laugh: :laugh: :laugh:

LOL @ ASUS G750 Jay-Z. First artist-endorsed gaming notebook?

 

I think what he means is that even though the 680m can give similar performance to a new stock chip the potential for extra performance and tuning in the newer silicon is much greater

 

Thanks for the link, as you'll see below the results are... interesting to say the least.

Stock for stock 870M is almost 20% faster than 680M due to the much higher core and vram clocks:

This is the 870M @ stock: (941 core/2500 vram)


This is the 680M @ stock: (720 core/1800 vram)


Overclocked to 854/2280, the 680M pulls just ahead of the stock 870M (Graphics score 7270 vs 7251), and at 1000/2800 the 680M is 14% faster than the stock 870M (Graphics score 8215 vs 7221):


Now this is the 870M @ 1041 core 2800 vRAM:

Spoiler

Now that the mem clocks are matched, with a +41MHz advantage on the core, the 680M is still about 7% faster than the 870M (graphics score 8215 vs 7685). This is clearly a result of the 192-bit bus on the 870M vs the 256-bit bus on the 680M. To be fair the 680M had to be overvolted to hit 1000/2800, and the 870M is still running on stock voltage at 1041/2800. Also, drivers are probably not optimized for the 870M.

What's interesting is that the 680M matches the 870M at "just" 854 core 2280 vram, vs the 941 core 2500 vram on the 870M.

A direct comparison is not possible here, but it appears that 680M makes significant gains through overclocking -- each +130 core + 500 vram gives about 1000 point boost in graphics score. Whereas for the 870M, a +100 core and +300 vram only gives about a 400 point boost in graphics score.

So, I'd say that given a fully unlocked vBIOS and enough volts (and perhaps a bit of luck with the silicon), the 870M may ultimately overtake the 680M. But one thing's for sure: the 870M will need to run higher clocks if it intends to beat the 680M, because it has a gimped 192-bit bus. (well, the 870M is basically a 192-bit 680M with much higher clocks at stock)

 

I'd say the reverse, that the 680M being an older lower-clocked chip has more OC headroom with more options in terms of unlocked vBIOSes and a broader knowledge base. 870M is a 680M with a gimped memory back end. That's the way I see it.

 

I concur. It's the same reason why I went for the AMD 7970M over the GTX 680M, as I am now going for the 870M over the M290X.

Sent from my HTC One using Tapatalk

 

Well, I just reversed myself and switched my order to 2 870m cards in SLI. Apparently, the m290x was delayed until mid-May, and who knows if even that will stay on schedule. They are close enough in specs that it didn't make sense to wait, and with the extra money left over I upgraded to the 90% gamut display.

 

That sounds like a good decision. They shouldn't let you down.

Sent from my SGH-T999 using Tapatalk 2

 

My 680m reached 1200mhz as does my 780m.

 

Holy cow, at what voltage though?