"Meaker" I hear you ask "Should I go with the 680M or 7970M?" Well...

That depends

Here are my thoughts, like many things in life it comes down to budget and preference to certain facts I will share.

The 7970M can't be flashed in the EM series systems, you either have to use another system or send it off to someone who can. Otherwise you are stuck with the default bios.

The 680M is expensive for its performance, especially at stock, are you sacrificing other things for this performance? I would take the 7970M and a 256GB SSD over a 680M and mech HDD unless I had plans to soon move to an SSD.

If you can't stomach any bios flashing then these cards are remarkably similar, so your cash I think is going towards two things, more mature drivers for switchable machines and better power consumption (when not volt modded).
Their base clocking range is very similar and they both scale well with frequency so they stay close.

If you want the pinnacle of modern graphics technology AND are willing to flash the 680M is there for those willing to put the effort in to extract it.

In the end guys, much like notebooks as a whole, there is no one size fits all, just be honest with yourself and throw out brand loyalty or other such nonsense, take a long hard look at the facts and decide which better suits your needs.

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If you want my opinion on any aspect of these two cards feel free. If you post fanboy type comments in this thread I will mock you, you have been warned.

If you are unsure about which best suits you, feel free to ask, but I will call out those trying to turn it to a shoot out and I will ask you to stop posting in this thread. If you continue I will ask for MOD intervention.

 

So you're saying the 7970...

*runs away*

 

Is still very much relevant and not a poor man's choice yes.

 

Well said Meaker. I agree. You've tried them both, so you've seen first hand. Out of the box performance is very comparable. Even out of the box overclocking performance, despite the limitations (primarily +135MHz and clock speed fluctuations) the 680m has better overall performance. But you do pay the premium for it. In the end though, if you decide to update the BIOS it seems to be a very powerful card that can significantly outperform the 7970m

 

But it looses any power consumption lead it had at that point

 

I'm almost certain on getting an MSI GT60 0ne with the 680m and am wondering how risky it would be for me to flash a vbios to my new system to get better performance. I have no experience in doing this so please put that into account.

 

If its a 4GB 680M you get, it should work

 

See that's the thing... It makes me nervous when you say it "should" work because I want to be 99.9% sure it will work and I don't want to brick my new machine. What is the process of flashing a vbios anyways?

 

No one here will ever say "will" because there is the small chance that something goes wrong and you brick your card.

I have never had a bios flash go wrong, but others have.

No warranties, no guarantees, if you are not willing to take a risk then walk away.

It's actually an MSI Vbios we are using anyway so there wont be compatibility issues.

 

Meaker speaks the truth. Amen.

There will always be risks involved with flashing the GPU

 

Is flashing a vbios as simple as running an installer or is there more to it?

 

It involves creating a USB boot stick and entering a couple of commands.

 

Thanks for answering all of my questions as I'm a noob on the subject . Can you still update your drivers and swap out hard drives without worrying about breaking anything?

 

BIOS flashes are permanent so I could move it to another system and it would behave the same way. Drivers still see it as the same model, much like a factory overclock card.

 

Is a vbios for the Dell 680m in the works? I think all the Alienware folks would love some of that 8000 gpu score action.

 

I'm Going with the 680m. No, not for the brand name, but for its temps.

picking a card over temps might make some people cringe, but i don't care.

I'm sure ill be happy with my choice.

 

Hi Meaker,

Is flashing the 680m vbios similar to flashing the vbios of 570m? I have flashed the 570m before to increase the voltage.

Also, is it alright for you to send me the 680m vbios?

 

Flashing under Windows environment is fine too - at least for my case - you just need to disable the protection to backup/write your eeprom.

 

After 3 7970m card (Dell replaced them) my system would still not work as designed especially with the card constantly downclocking - disabling ULPS didn't help & and I couldn't overclock at all.

I eventually got Dell to replace my system and fit it with the GTX 680M for free (even though it costs more) I only had to sacrifice my Blu-Ray drive down to DVD drive.

680M can overclock like a monster too though, right?

 

hi Meaker,

is 680M running with the tweaked vbios and oc will cause its life expectancy to be shortened significantly?

 

with a milder overclock, you are probably not going to lessen the life too much...however, running at these insane clocks (his clocks used to set the over 8000 3dmark11 score are actually faster than a desktop gtx 680) *might make the card less reliable over the longterm. Its usually not the GPU that is the issue, but a supporting part like a voltage regulator. The parts aren't made to run at a 45% overclock over stock.

it is only recommended to run at these clocks for a short period of time like for benching...for everyday, set the clocks lower.

My rule of thumb is to not overvolt. worse that happens if you don't overvolt is if you overclock too high, the computer freezes or you bsod. So you set the clocks lower and everything is fine. Once you set the voltages higher...you run the risk of bad things happening. We had a rash of 580m cards on the .92v vbios that went bad recently on the alienware forums. So overvolt with caution

 

Flashing in windows is riskier though. Might as well be as safe as possible when dealing with a $800 card imo.

 

How can you reduce the 680M life expectancy when this overclock barely increases the temperatures by 2-3C? The temperatures when gaming with this overclock is 80C, FAR from any danger zone or any heat that hurts electronics.

You can`t compare this GPU with 580M since that Fermi card was hot as hell, even at stock speed. Of course you will lessen its life with an overclock and voltage modding if you add that.

 

I think you can damage some of the components, for example I work with accelerometers for aircraft and if you feed too much voltage into them you can damage some of the components also same thing for diodes and their forward voltage max i believe.

But i believe as a rule of thumb for an engineer you plan to use something with a good factor of safety over the actual design parameters you will be running at.

 

bro, do you really think that running a card overvolted and at a 45% overclock won't have any adverse affects on its longevity? The capacitors and regulators aren't meant to take that kind of abuse.

It is great that these cards can run this high and score over 8k in 3dmark11...however, for everyday, set the clocks and voltages lower.

In fact, i will go as far as saying that for everyday, overclock all you want, but use stock voltage if you want the card to last

 

An analogy would be like running too much electricity through a lightbulb. Pop!

 

There is a HUGE difference between giving a lightbulb 400V or a 12V LED 230V, and giving the GPU a slight bump in voltage.

Put it this way,
GTX 560TI which the 580M is built upon, have a load voltage of 0.950V.
GTX 580M, 0.87V. The mod Slickdude talks about ups the voltage to 0.92V. Thats a difference of 0.03V. Pretty close huh?
You should also consider the fact that 580M is the most Nvidia managed to squeeze out of Fermi.

GTX 670 which the 680M is built upon, have a load voltage of 1.175V
GTX 680M, 0.9870V. This mod we are using for 680M ups the voltage to 1.012V. Thats a difference of 0.163V. Compare that with the situation between 580M/560TI.
680M is the beginning of the Kepler architecture, not an improvement like 580M was.

If anything, its Nvidia who is downplaying the potential of 680M to milk the cow even more with the upcoming 685M in my opinion. The VBIOS voltage should be perfectly fine for the 680M. We see that with the very low increase of heat

But yes, there are still risks with building your own VBIOS and feeding your GPU with other voltage than what Nvidia give you from the scratch. After all, they have probably tested this GPU through many things and many hours. So yeah, use this VBIOS at your own risk
If you are unshure what this mod could affect your GPU in the long run, do like Slickdude says, run it with stock voltage and overclock it +135MHz. Or do a smaller bump in voltage/frequency

 

Couldn't have said it better myself. Only way to tell is to see if the card ends up failing over time. Hope he has warranty

 

yes, that .87 to .92 voltage increase (that tiny 0.03 increase) caused a rash of dead cards in alienwares...just ask widezu...he bricked 3 x 580's that way. Or Geo, etc...

cloud, please don't try to rationalize this...i don't want a newb coming on here and thinking he can run 1ghz core and 1.2ghz vram on the 680m and it will last forever. for everyday, overclock all you want, but do it at stock voltage. The supporting parts of the card were designed to run at that voltage.

 

Well lets just wait and see then. I still think this voltage/clock bump is within the safe zone considering the voltages and the temperature. But like I said, its not within the specifications by Nvidia so thread with caution.

We should see tons of dead 680Ms in the future then, since there is a lot of interested people in this mod. Can`t really blame them
But yeah, this vbios is for the hardcore people. Not casual gamers, since the 680M by default give a lot of performance anyway

 

That's the die though. I highly doubt the mobile chips are using the same VRMs as the desktop reference models because that would just be overkill and an unnecessary cost.

The "lightbulb" in this case would be the supporting parts, not the core. Also, note that voltage and frequency will increase the power load, not just the voltage. (e.g. overclocking the gtx 680) Imagine what a Meaker-level OC will do.

 

The 1v bios is nothing, you are silly if you are scared of it.

 

The way I see it - it's good to know you have that power under the hood when you need it, just don't hit that gas pedal before you actually need it, that's all.

 

Thats what the magical downclocking is for

 

We started nice.. and ended no where.

As far as I understand the 680M creates the best experience for people who want to take their shot, ok

But really.. as it stands now the 7970M is cheapest for the price heh

 

Now I'm no tech genius nor will I ever claim to be. But I am an electrical lineman that deals with voltage on a daily basis. And as far as I have seen on overhead and underground power grids. Adding excess voltage, or taking to much away for that matter, is never good for anything that uses electricity. And using the argument that its just .05 or whatever amount of voltage is kind of misleading because its not that much voltage but your also talking about nanometers. I mean, take your stereo or tv u have in your home. The wires in there r much much bigger but try pumping 10 more volts through it and see how long it lasts. At least that's my non techy thoughts on it from what I've seen in my job.

 

When I get mine, I think I'll play it safe and keep away from overvolting and such for a year or two, then see whether it has had any adverse effects. If it hasn't, that's splendid, and then I might do it myself to squeeze out some extra performance.

 

The way I see it is I personally have no interest/need to overclock anything as I could care less about benchmarking, but it's great for those who do.

Long periods of gaming(1+hrs) on any significantly OC'd card in a laptop is not a great idea no matter how you look at it. When you talk about the kinds of OC's the 680m is seeing you are venturing far into dangerous territory in my opinion.

I plan on this card lasting me at least 3 yrs maybe more so doing any OC that will shorten the cards lifespan isn't on my list of plans at the moment, hence the 7970 was the best choice for myself.

 

convert to percentages and plug that in. If 11v blows up a 10v cable it was made extremely poorly with no tolerance.

 

As long as you got warranty I wouldn't to much about it. How is the clevo warranty?

Sent from my Samsung Galaxy S2 running Resurrection Remix

 

does messing around with vbios and oc void Dell Alienware warranty?

 

Not that I have ever seen. I personally would just be vague to be on the safe side and say that my computer shutoff and now it gives me the beep code for the gpu.

Sent from my Samsung Galaxy S2 running Resurrection Remix

 

That rule of thumb is usually 125%.

Here, Here!

Bingo! Unless your monitoring temps on vrms, etc., one doesn't know what the voltage increase is doing to the card as a whole. The core temp does not speak for the entire card.

 

What custom vBIOS for the 7970M would you recommend flashing?

 

Lol you little girls can be afraid of 5% overvoltage if you like.

 

i currently dont need to overvolt... but i would be insterested in a Vbios that stopped clock bouncing without increasing voltage. do you think the clock bouncing will be fixed with drivers?

 

Not sure how much for electrical but for every design, there is always a factor of safety allowed.
Its normally bigger than 5 or 25% as mentioned earlier.

In my profession for example, designing concrete structure takes in a 1.7 factor of safety for live loads and 1.4 for dead loads plus other applicable loads like seismic, hydro and wind. Its like 70% and 40% more load to be considered for the design. I'm not saying that it must be the same as in electrical, I'm just saying there is an allowance. Though it doesnt also mean that its OK to get near that limit.

I know, I made it more confusing

Seriously, I think that's why OC'ing comes with the risk, challenge and the thrill. If you are not up for it then dont OC. I guess Meaker just wants to make the best out of the card. I think I'll do the same if I have a 680M.

 

8k gpu score is tempting but at the same time, don't do it if you are not prepared for a black screen...

 

If only the 680M was cheaper and not "underclocked"

 

Well since overclocking is never a guarantee of success more than a few % more than stock, it will vary. Especially with a new release tech they are usually very conservative with their estimates to make sure it works. As the technology matures, they typically raise the clocks (which nvidia is known to just rebadge as a new GPU), but chances of overclock are usually much higher too.