Mobile HD4870 vs GTX280M speculation

I don't remember if anyone made a thread specifically for this purpose, but after a heated argument in the new Alienware notebok thread, I figured it would be better to make one.

If you appeal to logic by comparing the mobile cards to desktop versions, the GTX 280M is a slower-clocked 9800GTX, so we can assume that it's almost as fast as one, and more than likely faster than the 9800GT. The mobile HD4870 GDDR5 (I doubt Alienware would use the GDDR3 version) is a slower-clocked HD4870, so it'll be slower but still at least as fast as an HD4850. Since the HD4850 roughly = 9800GTX in performance, that suggests that the mobile HD4870 is faster than the mobile GTX 280M.

 

yes i believe the gddr5 4870 is faster then the 280m if the clock speeds aren't slow.

 

yup 4870 with ddr5 will come out on top

 

I think ATI is going to win this round, they are one generation ahead on the tech and there product price is probably going to be lower.

If I am not mistaken even the GDDR3 version of the 4870 in the Asus W90 is giving the GTX280M a run for its money.

 

Maybe, but from what I've seen the GTX 280M is still faster. I think it's just a matter of whether any manufacturers will actually use the GDDR5 version in new notebooks.

 

if they were gonna use ddr3 it would already be out

and it would also work ....ddr5 is making more heat which is holding it from our system

 

I don't think so... I mean, AFAIK the only notebook out right now that actually has any version of the HD4870 is the W90.

 

Nah, I don't have the single GPU vantage record, but when it comes down to it strict benchmarks don't matter, it's how the games play. And I don't know about you guys, but I can play any game I own fluently. Hell, I just got done playing Crysis Warhead on CCC 4+, a tweaked very high mode with all the bells and whistles, and it ran fluently at native res. I nearly **** my pants when I first saw the truck explosions

 

thats because asus made those cards

 

Right... which is why I think there's still plenty of time notebook manufacturers to adopt the GDDR5 version. I also highly doubt heat will be an obstacle... just look at those 17" beasts with desktop i7's and whatnot.

 

lol have you seen the heat sink in that thing?

they had to take out a GPU to make room for the heat sink

 

I guess I was using an exaggerated example. But I don't think switching from GDDR3 to GDDR5 will create a heat problem.

 

ok. the 4850 msi and the sager with 280m needs to step up here. you can't say the asus is a 4870 becauae of the fact that it doesn't use gddr5. not to be rude but i call it fake 4870.

also gddr5 in the real mobile 4870 will beat everycard out there UNLESS THE CLOCK SPEEDS IS TO LOW. thus with all these delays ATI BETTER COME BACK BIG. IF THEY LOWER THE CLOCK SPEEDS OF THESE CARDS LIKE THEY DID 3870 and the 4850 ati WILL LOSS THIS ROUND.

ok take a look at my cards 3870 and my clock speeds are at 660 850. i have the same specs as the desktop version(which now is gdddr4 so i don't know why they gave us gddr3) i think it's 850 1050. if my clock were that high and can overclock even more we would kill every mobile card out there period. but it's not so i can't. there atu better step up.


also the 4770 cf which is 128 bit bus and gddr5 out performs the desktop 4870 4890 4850 and the 260 280 and i believe the 285. and it only cost 110 each card. everything is in the 200 and up proce range. what is my point. the memory speeds of gddr5 NOW OUT RULES THE FACT THAT YOU NEED A 256bit bus to play at HIGH RESOULTIONS.

so what it beats the 4870 With BOTH 256 bit bus and GDDR5, so where you getting at? CROSSFIRE is what killed these cards.


so what about the 4870x2? it killed the 4770 cf.

ok i have a better understanding about the desktop parts but what does this have to do with laptops? my 3870 CF beats any single mobile gpu out there but single carded, it isn't any faster then the 9800m gs. REALLY? this mean that crossfire is a very big factor INTO THIS EQAUTION. i don't know SLI scale but crossfire is a big improvent. meaning that we will not kow the results of the 4850 cf.(asus) vs the sager with 280m sli. unless we know how sli vs crossfire is.


ok, so what about the 4870 with GDDR5? these cards will demolish every card i the mobile market IF THE CLOCK SPEEDS ARE RIGHT. if i gathered my information correctly, one 4870 with gddr5 eats my mobile 3870CF. BY TO MUCH. i have to do reseach before making my judgemennt. thus the one single mobile 4870 AT THE RIGHT CLOCK SPEEDS will also do the same IF THE CLOCK SPEEDS ARE RIGHT.


right now i am currently tied with the 9800m gtx sli in farcry2 see sig. HOW DID YOU DO THAT. by modifing my own driver to my likeing. ATI's CCC SUCK less face it. it doesn't have any tweaks like nvidia. and on top of that only my cpu is bios overclocked. my gpus are stock. because ati dropped overclocking for us at 8.10. i can't go any higher. i am sure i can push 75-80 if i oveclock and find out how farcry2 works.

meaning that ati NEEDS TO DROP CCC. and remodel it to something that uses less resources and has more options. BASICALLY ATI NEEDS TO STEP UP.

Wow anny more info? YES BUT I AM LATE FOR WORK. LOL. I WILL TALK MORE ABOUT IT LATER.

 

When you break the clock limits on the Mobility 4850 in the MSI GT725 you got exactly one Mobility 4870 from an ASUS W90...and that card is performing at the level of, or better than, the GTX280M in the Sager NP5797. That's for synthetics and actual gaming benchmarks.


The only way the GTX280M will beat a Mobility 4870 with GDDR5 is if SLi scales much better than CrossfireX. If not then Nvidia should worry about it's card getting beat by the Mobility 4860 as well.

 

the hd4770 is one beast of a card, super low load power usage, overclocks like crazy.

 

Here is the Article I found

"No laptop GPU is ever going to be as strong as its Desktop counterpart. When we tested the W90 with the 4870x2 vs. the GTX280 in the 9280 ...the crisis benchmark had the GTX280 beating the 4870's by almost 10fps.

Even though something is better on paper, which the 4870's are, doesn’t mean that it is the same in the real world. Even though the 4870's might beat a single GTX280 in a benchmark, testing on the actual application (video games) shows the GTX280 coming out ahead.

Nvidia has consistently come out with good software for their graphics cards. Driver 185.81 just came out and on my GTX280 at home it increased my fps by around 10-30% depending on the game. I get to test out every graphics card on the market and I personally choose Nvidia".


Although ATI still makes incredible incredible cards at rock solid prices!

 

Do you have the link?

 

Says the Nvidia endorsed game

Everybody knows ATI has always been weak on Crysis and Crossfire almost flat out doesnt work with it. Its the worst game for these cards to compare on.

 

Ehhh anyway, Im holding off on my order of the 9280.... to see what Alienware has to offer, I'll take the new ATI's anyday! but if it isn't, then I'll take the single 280m as I have only seen great track records as of now, and I can "hopefully" switch the 280 for a new GPU later on due to the MXM 3.0

 

exactly thank you i was just goig to bring it up. CRYSIS DOESN'T SUPPORT CROSSFIRE.

if you want to see how they do right now on current gameds run farcry2, or dmc4, or fear2 or wic and ut3 and there is more games but i can't think of any that has a built in benchmark.

 

My only point being though is that look how almost every game coming out has been tailored for Nvidia, you will see more Crysis type games that have poor support for ATI GPU's

 

actually you bring up a good point. nvidia is sponsering mojority of the games that atre coming out now for pc. most games you will see plays best with intel and nvidia the way it's meant to be played. and ati has to try to make drivers for them. there is some support but not as much as nvidia.


i'm not a fanboy of eitther i am just pointing out what's going on. also dx10.1 isn't featured in alot of games because of this.

 

IIRC, the only engine which really favors ATI is the Source one and you'd only notice it on significantly weak GPUs since most GPUs can max out Source Engine games quite easily.

 

i habe heard of source. but what games support it?

 

most of valves games, like TF2, Half-Life Series, etc

 

Source games include most popular FPS games such Half-Life, Team Fortress, CS and such.

Most recent games seem to be tailored for Nvidia though as I can't recall other engines which favor ATI.

 

I would have to say/think that the ATi card will be faster and better due to it using newer tech and not borrowing from a previous gen like nvidia did. Plus don't ati mobile cards use the same hardware as desktop models, just underclocked and such? and arent they cooler running too? Maybe I heard wrong.

This is all too common, and I remember seeing synthetic benchmarks being inflated a few years ago for a certain manufacturer. It truely is a sad state of affairs.

Yeah I found the 3200 igp that was in my tablet would max anything valve had to offer.

 

what about the unreal?

 

The Unreal engine favors Nvidia IIRC since a few Unreal games such as Unreal Tournament and The Last Remnant had the "Nvidia: the way it's meant to be played" logo on them.

 

i haven't studied engines like everything else. so i may ask alot of questions. what about farcry2 because i am on par with a 9800m gtx sli with a qx9650 and my quad?

so people said it's the quad that's why we are close be everyone else is at 45 fps with the same setup so i ruled that out.

 

The nvidia seal has been on unreal games for as long as I can remember. I know 2003 and 2004 both have it.

 

The performance of the HD 4770 is why I'd rather see CrossfireX 4860s in a laptop over CrossfireX 4870s w/GDDR5.

If even the CrossfireX 4850+s in the W90 are already maxing out games then I'll gladly trade all those extra FPS over 60 Id get from adding GDDR5 for the lower heat and a longer battery life of a 40-nm GPU.

 

are you sure you want to haul around a w90?

 

i want my whitebook to have 4870 with gddr5. i will show what they can do. but i'm worried about heat. that is why project freeze was created.

but also as long as i get 1 hour of battery life. i am happy. because i know my laptop kicks ***.

 

Oh Hell no. I'm talking about a possible GPU solution for AW's new laptop or even the Whitebook/M17.

 

wat isyour current notebook now? also what settings you are planing to get. i can run benchmarks if you like later on?

 

Currently without a notebook. I've been able to wait so I have been for a Whitebook sized chassis with dual 4870s/GTX 280Ms. Neither the W90 or M980 fit the bill for me. I've been reading all the info while waiting and I know all the benchmarks so you don't have to run any (tho I know you like to ).

If the new AW offers dual GPUs in a M17x or M1730 sized chassis (~2" thick) I'll buy one if it's under $4000. Specs I'd like to see for the new AW would be the new T9900 CPU and dual ATI cards. I don't expect Mobility 4860x2 but I'd get a serious e-chubby if it had them.

I'd get a QX9300 in a machine that offered BIOS overclocking but I don't see the point in an AW chassis without an OCZ BIOS to flash in it.


I'm also in the market for an Ion netbook or a CULV/Neo in a size 11-thin.

 

Eh, it's a bigger increase than 8800M GTX -> 9800M GTX or 9800M GTX -> GTX 280M. 32 or in sli, 64 shaders over the 8800M GTX and higher clocks all around. 280M is the first mobile Nvidia card stable over 1000 mhz on the memory as well. And I've gotten core/shader as high as 660/1690. I suspect the M980NU would have no trouble breaking 17k on 06, 12-12.5k gpu score in vantage, and 30+ FPS in DX10 very high crysis at 1080p. It will be the fastest laptop for a while if GDDR5 4870 never happens.

 

Your right. Its two small generations onwards. But while there physically are 64 more shaders, you cant multiply 128 by two, it doesn't scale that well.

And I highly doubt it can get 30 fps in 1920x1080 at very high. High, maybe, not very high.

Unless you it supports bios CPU overclocking, and throw in three SSDs into RAID.

 

I can get 30 fps at 1080p on high with one card, lol

 

why does everyone keep on comparing crysis to ati and nvidia cards. crysis doesn't support crossfire. the msi with one 4850 and the asus with 2 fake 4870 got the same results on crysis. i also get the same results when i disable crossfire. 17fps average and less with it enabled. you should use another game if you want to compare the 4870 CF vs a single 280m. i don't why you want to compare them when those are on another level because of CF. compare the msi with a 4850. i haven't seen faisalhero in a while so i can't pm him to join.

 

johnksss gets 50fps i think on high crysis with 9800m gtx sli.

 

All on directx 10 with no tweaking?

 

you do know hard drives do not affect FPS?

 

I'm not comparing to the Ati cards. I'm just predicting what sli 280M could do. 30 FPS DX10 very high @1080p should be easy.

 

Yes, but when games try to access parts of the part and other info at least in the case of my cousin and a couple others I've seen they effect the performance of the game.

This is only truly true when the computer is new, freshly installed, or is really well maintained. Other wise you will start to see some performance loss. Considering most PC gamers I would expect would know how to maintain their computer to stop this from happening some don't and it hurts them some.\

Yeah and 3 SSDs won't get any better then a fresh install with a 5400RPM drive.

 

Man, that would be awesome if a GTX 280M could produce an average of 10 fps in Crysis over a Mobility 4870x2, let alone a single 4870. Anyways, here's a comparison of a single 4870 vs the GTX 280M in the NP9280.

Crysis Runs for NP9280 stock:

http://www.xoticpc.com/reviews/D900F/Crysis_NP9280.jpg

Crysis run for single 4870 DDR3 stock @ 1920x1080 very high:

http://forum.notebookreview.com/showpost.php?p=4725328&postcount=3899

At 1680x1050:

http://forum.notebookreview.com/showpost.php?p=4720201&postcount=3731

Far cry from 10fps. GTX 280M does better at high settings, and by the looks of it, the 4870 does better at very high (though the latter is pointless unless you have crossfire). Speaking of which, a GTX 280M in SLi should score around the same as a 4870x2 in Crysis at very high (1920x1080) although a single ddr3 4870 does better than a single GTX 280M at those settings.

Also crossfire does scale in Crysis, but not as well as in SLi and not at all resolutions too (for instance, it doesn't scale at 1280x1024, at least in my experience).

 

why is my 3870 single run the same as quad's 4870. i was at very high at higher resoultions? it's in tthe sig. also i used a t9400 at that time.