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    Is there a real difference between 580m SLI vs 6970m CROSSFIRE?

    Discussion in 'Gaming (Software and Graphics Cards)' started by aliensony, Jan 8, 2014.

  1. aliensony

    aliensony Notebook Consultant

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    I've looked at some benchmarks and the 580m sli seems to perform a bit better, but when overclocked shouldn't the 6970m offer the same performance?

    Are the 580m's more expensive and if so by how much?
     
    aliensony, Jan 8, 2014
    #1
  2. Akimitsui

    Akimitsui Notebook Evangelist

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    580M beats the 6970M, you can read up on that here: http://forum.notebookreview.com/alienware-18-m18x/629057-amd-6970m-vs-amd-6990m-vs-nvidia-580m.html

    Even if you overclock the 6970M to 580M level, you will always be able to overclock the 580M so either way in raw performance the 580M will win. Then there is always the drivers, lately I have owned mostly AMD, but NVidia has way better driver support - and those drivers will give you even more of a performance boost. For SLI/Crossfire I don't know for sure, but I think it's safe to assume that 580M SLI will outperform 6970M SLI in almost everything except AMD optimized games like BF4, but with Nvidia driver updates that may be irrelevant anyways. As for price, you can find the 6970M for around $270 on ebay, and the 580M goes for at least $100+ more than that there. In the end, it's up to you to decide if the extra $200+ is worth the extra performance boost and better driver support.
     
    Akimitsui, Jan 9, 2014
    #2
  3. Jobine

    Jobine Notebook Prophet

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    SLI scales much better than Crossfire, that's for sure.
     
    Jobine, Jan 9, 2014
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  4. octiceps

    octiceps Nimrod

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    And you know this...how? [MOD EDIT: language]

    Over the years I have seen quite a few instances of CrossFire scaling >100% in certain dual-GPU configurations while I have never seen that for SLI. Of course CrossFire does suffer from more microstuttering and frame pacing issues than SLI, but that's a work in progress.

    Back to OP, 580M SLI would be a little faster than 6970M CrossFire, but it's a lot more expensive. The Nvidia tax on mobile GPU's is even greater than on desktop ones.
     
    octiceps, Jan 9, 2014
    #4
    TBoneSan likes this.
  5. Akimitsui

    Akimitsui Notebook Evangelist

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    An AMD 6990M is on the same level of performance as the 580M, and they can be found on ebay for $320, so you may want to consider that instead of the 6970M if you are worried about losing performance.
     
    Akimitsui, Jan 9, 2014
    #5
  6. TBoneSan

    TBoneSan Laptop Fiend

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    That's not true at all. Far from it in fact.

    OP - are you considering an upgrade?
     
    TBoneSan, Jan 10, 2014
    #6
    reborn2003 likes this.