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

I was curious, I know this OC kills the 7970m on benchmarking. But if u ocd both cards to the max, what's the fps difference? Just curious.

 

Not sure but I think the highest I've seen on 7970M is from Halogod2012 for 3DM11 with 6914, as shown in his sig. I read somewhere that someone reached 7.2k but just cant find it.
And Meaker's max is 8456 as shown in this thread:
http://forum.notebookreview.com/gam...record-8289-8700-gpu-score-8.html#post8731117

I can't say it's the max for both as I know Halogod's OC is coming from a normal AMD driver so maybe if a modded bios will come in the future, it can still be OC'ed further. Same as with 680M as the temps from Meaker's OCs looks like it can still go higher.

Maybe the difference in max OCs between the two at current available drivers is at least 1200 3DM11 points.

 

Yeah. I've seen the 3dmarks. But I was just wondering how that translates into fps in game. Because I know when both cards r at stock the 680m is like 400-500 more points but the fps on most games r pretty much even or back and forth depending on the game. So I was wondering if the two cards when OCd r still close or is this crazy OC make the fps scores on games crush the 7970m at its max OC.

 

Oops sorry read it wrong Ye that would be interesting. I think comparison can only be accurate using games with benchmarking features. I hope someone post a comparison between the two.

 

3dmark11 takes 5 minutes, a BF3 session takes 2 hours, never ever ever play under OC for a long time...

 

Did it for 680m, my benchmarks with stock BIOS and voltage at stock speeds and overclock are a good indicator: http://forum.notebookreview.com/sag...50em-review-lots-680m-benchmarks.html#benches

Stock 3DMark 11 6141 / OC 7168 + 17%

Games benchmark results:

Stock FPS / OC FPS

BF3 High: 60 / 68 +13%
BF3 Ultra: 42 / 47 +12%
Crysis DX10 Very High: 39.4 / 47.0 +19%
Crysis 2 DX11 Extreme: ~43 / 53 +23%
DiRT 2 Demo: 84.5 / 95.6 +13%
Dirt 3: 68 / 82 +20%
Just Cause 2 Concrete Jungle: 51.5 / 57.5 +12%
Just Cause 2 Desert Sunrise: 85.5 / 101.9 +19%
Just Cause 2 Dark Tower: 65.8 / 79.4 +21%
Lost Planet 2 DX11 Test A: 70.8 / 84.8 +20%
Lost Planet 2 DX11 Test B: 61.0 / 67.0 +10%
Max Payne 3: 38.5 / 46.7 +21%
Skyrim: 60 / 66 +10%
Unigine: 68.3 / 81.1 +19%
Witcher 2: 48 / 60 +25%
World in Conflict: 66 / 76 +15%
Metro 2033 High: 40.7 / 49.3 +21%

 

A reminder... the 7970m is based on the 7870 desktop and the 680m is based on the 670 desktop.
The benchmarked difference between a 7870 and 670 desktop is 30% average. (25-50% performance in games)
The 3dmark11 difference between a 7870 and 670 desktop is 25-30%.

As there is nothing cut from either chip, the mobile GPU will perform more and more like the desktop counterpart as they close in on the desktop clocks.
The only differences that would remain is in the case of the 680m, much slower GDDR5 is used and the fact that the CPU (being a 3610qm in most cases) is not quite a desktop i5 or i7 clocked at 4.0 to 4.5GHz similar to a lot of benchmarked desktop systems.

The performance of a 670 desktop gpu is well-documented and is definitely higher than the 7870 desktop gpu. Because of this, the whole concept of "it 3dmarks higher, but I don't know about games" is a little rediculous. When 3dmark is slightly higher, its not that big of a deal, when its 1200 (18%+) points higher, there is usually enough a difference where one card is listed as in a higher tier.

Let's just stop the denial factor here. The 680m owners are reversing the nerfs the Nvidia engineers made to the 670 to make it a mobile GPU, and finding they can indeed maintain workable GPUs that maintain reasonable temperatures.

On the other hand I fully agree that overclocking any GPU or CPU has risks, and that overclocking on a laptop has even more.
However, the same people who are arguing overclocking the 680m and highlighting the risks now were the people completely ignoring them when overclocking their 7970m. I think we can safely call this for what it is... shenanigans.

7970m owners/AMD enthusiasts and fanbois: Relax and stop with the stream of misinformation. You OC'd yours they OC'd theirs and they won. They also paid and arm, leg, and other appendage to do so. It isn't like the 7970m is now a slow GPU by any means, it just means the advance of technology and competition has exceeded the 7970m. As mentioned before, the 7970m remains an amazing value GPU especially at stock clocks. Indeed, I'd say the consensus among non-fanbois will still be to purchase the 7970m for enthusiast gaming unless you have a pile of money burning a hole in your wallet.

New users: please do not think the results above are typical, especially when dealing with flashed VBIOS. If you flash and OC like that, expect to carefully monitor your GPU and spend a reasonable amount of time keeping your cooling solutions working optimally.
I think everyone here would agree that flashing your VBIOS (especially with that aggressive of settings) is NOT a good idea for neophytes. If you want to do this, PLEASE do the reading and follow through with the maintenance and monitoring necessary to maintain those settings.

 

My biggest issue with the 7970m wasn't it's performance just that it would not perform as it *should* in certain games, BF3 primarily, although there are others. I'm sure this will be corrected and/or workarounds eventually.

Note that my results listed are from an oveclock using stock voltage, just bumping up the slider to 854MHz and 2300MHz. Many 680m users are now sitting comforatbly with a 900MHz GPU (vs stock 719MHz) and 2200 vRAM clock (vs 1800MHz stock) with only a 0.025V bump and sitting at peak temps of about 80C.

There are risks absolutely, but it is minimal especially the more users that flash and overclock with success the level of confidince improves greatly.

 

I over volted the 7970m using another system by the way, so when I say overclocked I mean 1.065GHz on.the 7970M.

 

*poof*
Nothing to see here

 

Notebookcheck has a great review on this if it wasn't already mentioned.

Review GeForce GTX 680M vs. Radeon HD 7970M - Notebookcheck.net Reviews

 

That review again? It's been posted before and got a lot of criticism. But assuming it's acceptable, it is showing everything in default clocks and voltages. It would be good to see how their FPS compare while on their highest stable OC since its not really advisable to play at really MAX OC.

 

On average when both the 7970M (non enduro) and 680M are overvolted the 680M is 15-20% ahead at 1080p with AA.

That's the stone cold difference of tweaked cards, if you don't like it tough, but if you want to choose between the two then you have to decide if it's worth it.

Be aware at this class of hardware adding on 20% is like adding on a GTX560M to your 3dmark score.

 

Slightly more.. but yeah, free graphics card on your graphics card! 2 IN 1

 

i just want to complicate things more:

IF someone wants to run the uber overclock (i.e., over 1ghz core) on the 680m, go with a clevo based laptop. As of right now, the 680m is gimped on the alienwares...it is no faster than the 7970m, but costs double. Alienware have a history of restricting or throttling nvidia cards for safety...last year it was the 63c power and 78c temp throttle on the 580m's/675m's...the guys worked hard to try and find solutions around it and it lead to a new heatsink and top thermal paste that came from dell. We are still trying to figure out what the deal is with the dell 680m

 

Wow that is terrible... thank god I'm buying a Clevo then.. seems like it is the coolest of all 15" and has the highest OC ability........ now if only they allowed CPU overclocking (3720QM and on) on it

 

Would be nice for those who want it, thankfully you can just upgrade to the 3920XM

But at 15" I don't think there is any alternative. This is the best 15" monster you can get, unless MSI has a model that supports this also that I don't know about, since I don't keep track of MSI that well.

 

Yep the GT60 and 16F3 will have the 680M.