Noob needs help! 7950 GTX vs. 8700GT... how big is the difference really?

I posted a similar thread on the Windows OS and Software board... kind of goes hand in hand with this one. Basically I've been out of the loop for a while since I'm in Afghanistan and I don't know what to get in my new laptop. I'm juggling Vista vs. XP Pro, the higher speed of the 7950GTX vs. the DX10 support of the 8700GT, etc.

What I want to know is... just exactly how much faster is the 7950GTX over the 8700GT? This new laptop needs to last me one year. I should be leaving Afghanistan around this time in 2008, and then I'll build a new desktop with top of the line everything. So with that in mind, would it be smarter for me to stick with DX9/XP Pro/7950GTX instead of going with the DX10/Vista x64/8700GT?

I like all types of games, and want to play all the new games in the future. Crysis, UT3, Hellgate: London, etc. Will the extra juice in the 7950GTX be better than the DX10 of the 8700GT?

Thanks in advance... I'm truly lost on this and don't want to make a decision I'll regret.

 

There is no doubt that the 7950GTX is faster than the 8700GT, but the difference is not that great. As you said the 8700 has DX10 support, but pretty much every game that will be released this year and next year will both support DX9 and 10 modes, so you dont have to get a DX10 card yet unless you want some moderately better looking games, which even so the 8700 cant really provide at decent framerates.
It all depends how long you'll keep this laptop, if its for a year or two get the 7950, it will provide you with and better framerates, but still I cant just dismiss the 8700, it's hard.

Here's a link to a website which has benchmarks for all the mobile versions of crads.

http://www.notebookcheck.net/Mobile-Graphics-Cards-Benchmark-List.844.0.html

Hope, this helps you in some way. What you really want is a mobile 8800 but that not really gonna happen since nvidia is going to release a new line the 9xxx series this christmas, but still you wont be able to get it on a laptop till mid next year.
Here's another link comparing DX9 vs DX10 in Crysis (Its in HD a fast connection needed or just wait abit ).

Boss http://www.gametrailers.com/player/19967.html

Jungle http://www.gametrailers.com/player/19965.html

Anyway good luck with your choice and in Afganistan.

 

I don't think anyone really knows for shure. All we have are synthetic benchmarks like 3Dmark05 & 06. I know that when I recieve my sager 5790 with an 8700GT in a few days, I'll be able to know for shure what the difference is. It'll be going through hell with actual gaming benchmarks, which is something that no one seems to do these days..

There are however tons of benchmarks of the 7950GTX.

 

On paper both cards are pretty much identical, both have 32 shaders, which is what really matters. 24 pixel + 8 vertex on the 7950 and 32 universal on the 8700. The only advantage the 7950 has its the 256 bit memory bus vs the 128 on the 8700. You have to keep in mind though that the 8700GT is not a new card its just and overclocked 8600GT, which I think is wrong that Nvidia has given it a different name trying to trick people thinking they bought a better crard. You can achieve the same speeds with an 8600 if you overclock it which I'm going to do once my damn dell finaly arrives .

 

Thanks to all of you for your help. I think I'm going to go ahead and roll with the 7950GTX. I don't really want to be messing with Vista right now anyway, so there's no reason for me to get a less-powerful card since I won't have the option of DX10 anyway. You guys were a huge help, I really appreciate it.

 

I have used the 8700M-GT before and I have also used many Go7900GTX/Go7950GTX notebooks. The latter cards are significantly faster. Even in a not-so-demanding game like Star Wars: Battlefront II, the difference was more than noticeable. The 8700M-GT handled BFII at 1440x900 at high settings with 56FPS. Not bad, but compare that to the Go7900GTX playing the same game at 1920x1200 at the same settings at 67FPS. The same thing happens in Half-Life 2: Lost Coast - the Go7900GTX is simply far more powerful when it comes to driving higher resolutions and settings.

Between the two I personally would get the 8700M-GT for the reasons that it a) uses less power, b) runs cooler, c) gets better battery life, and d) is cheaper (usually). However if you are going for ultimate performance then get the Go7950GTX and don't look back.

 

Totally agree with this, but sometimes i just can't control myself to look back.

I got myself a 8600M GT for the sake of decent battery life and decent performance. Yet sometimes i will ask myself why am i stupid enough not to get a 8700M GT when i don't really need long battery life... (Desktop replacement)

Now i'm trying hard to life with it.

Really, if what you want is power, go for 7950 as even 8700 support DX10, you will probably get low frame rate using DX10 at high setting... so what's the point.

 

I'm in exactly the same position as you, literally. I should be leaving Afghanistan around Aug of '08. I decided to go with the 7950gtx, and I am 100% pleased with it. It's handled every game I've thrown at it without a problem. Being as I'm sort of stuck here for the next year, I wasn't too worried about not having DX10 support, I'll worry about that all that once I'm back home. In my mind, the 7950gtx was a safer bet since we're sort of stuck with what we buy now, we don't the same luxury to return or go to the local store and upgrade/buy new parts.

If I was in your shoes...and I am ... I'd go with the 7950gtx.

 

I went with the 7950GTX based on the countless posts about this topic on this forum.

Basically the jist was:

Play current games now on high settings, upgrade when DX10 only games become norm

or

Play current games now on medium settings, upgrade when DX10 only games become norm as by that time the 8700 will not meet the future requirements of those games.

 

http://anandtech.com/mobile/showdoc.aspx?i=3074&p=8

 

also here is another comparison (in german but you get the idea):

7950 GTX:

Takt Chip: 575 Mhz
Takt Speicher: 700 Mhz
Speicher: 512 MB
DirectX: 9.0c
Stromverbrauch: 45 Watt
Busbreite: 256 Bit
8700M GT:

Takt Chip: 625 Mhz
Takt Speicher: 800 Mhz
Speicher: 512 MB
DirectX: 10
Stromverbrauch: 29 Watt
Busbreite: 128 Bit

Quake III Arena: 7950 GTX: 551,9/8700M GT: 561,5
Doom III min: 7950 GTX: 189,1/8700M GT: 164,6
Doom III med: 7950 GTX: 190,7/8700M GT: 158,1
Doom III high: 7950 GTX: 189,9/8700M GT: 150
Doom III ultra: 7950 GTX: 176,5/ 8700M GT: 123,6
Fear min: 7950 GTX: 405/8700M GT: 479
Fear med: 7950 GTX: 199/8700M GT: 169
Fear max: 7950 GTX: 85/8700M GT: 53

Its also interesting to note that at higher resolutions the 8700GT is limited by it's memory bus. For example when the resolution in Doom 3 was upped to 1600x1200 - Ultra High , the FPS for the 8700GT was cut in half (123.5 --> 64.4) while the 7950gtx fell by only one-third (176 --> 116.8).

 

Hmm why is this so?

How is it limited?
- At 25.6Gbps, I believe 8700GT has already much better memory bandwidth than the xbox360 chip that drives 1080p so beautifully??

Isn't that enough to drive higher settings and resolutions?

perhaps in time new drivers/firmware will solve this issues, rather than hard limitation...

 

I think your mistaken, Xbox360's titles are all 720P max res. 1280x720, which if I'm not mistaken, the 8700GT can run anything in that res on max nicely.

 

only not dirt

 

I think another decision you have to make is if portability means anything to you.

15.4 vs 17 inches.

My roommate has a 17" Dell inspiron with a 7900gs while I have a 15" FL90 with a 8600mGT.

And I really DO believe, even though my screen is higher res then his, that mine handles games better.

And im damn proud.

 

Hmm seems 8700m GT is still very buggy in running many Dx9 titles, not even "Broken sword - angels of death" from last year.
And Fps is so slow on WIC and COH in Dx10 high details even on the 163.67 driver.

Can Nvidia do something to seriously improve their firmware/drivers to our expectation of what they market the cards to be!!!

 

WIC i have no comment on WIC (I have a 8600m gt) but COH dx10 is a patch and is not very optimized. It also does not offer much except some more objects around. So you should just play in dx9 mode because the dx10 was half assed which somewhat cannot be blamed for because you can't patch a game to take full advantage of dx10.

 

the 360 also cannot make it look quite as good as a computer with a decnet graphics card. Apparently a driver just released for Nvidia imporved framerates in games by 10. so they are still optimising them apparently.

 

Got my Sager NP5790 with the 7950GTX on Thursday and just wrote up a mini review of gaming impressions for it. Check it out here if you want to know how the 7950GTX perform in the latest games!

 

you have nice results with that 7950gtx. I think some games do take advantage of that 512MB ram because i have almost same specs as you but some games are a little bit slower. (i oc my gpu almost to the 7950gtx and the processor to 2ghz with a bit faster fsb than normal coreduos have)

 

Hey, dude, nice review.

Hopefully I can make similar strides on the gaming front as you have with your specs (I only have 2gb ram though)

BTW, where can I get myself one of these (I'm based in the UK)

 

The one I'm using is the Antec notebook cooler. I bought that for my old 15.4 inch laptop last year and was surprised that my 17 inch notebook fits perfectly on that! You can probably find some notebook coolers in those electronic stores around the place... I don't live in UK so I have no clue. Just tried overclocking my 7950GTX (from stock 575/700 to 605/810) but I only see around 5fps increase in some games. Was expecting more but I'm not complaining. Yours will probably get similar gaming results as mine if you're using Win XP. And I find it quite interesting that running Company of Heroes on highest settings at 1440x900 with 2XAA gives me a few more fps than running it without any AA...

 

Thanks! Antec has a UK site, and Amazon UK sells them at a very decent price.

However, reviews are telling me that even though it fits 17", it's not good for it. Actually it's very bad, causing over heating?!

But thanks anyway - I would never have considered getting a notebook cooler otherwise (7200RPM drives will apparently produce a lot more hear than the 5400RPM drives, which on reviews my future notebook was said to be relatively cool in temp)

BTW, How is the WUXGA screen? Any problems not playing games in non native res?

So XP really helps with gaming huh?

Does overclocking fit within the warranty?

 

Interesting... I didn't know it was considered bad for a 17"... Maybe you could point me to an actual review so that I can read it? Anyway I've been using mine on it for 3 days and there is no sign of overheating. I think it actually helped to keep the fans on my notebook less noisier, which is a good thing. And even when I'm gaming heavily on it the notebook was never hot. I didn't really measure the exact temperature but from the feeling of my hands it is far from hot or overheating even when I overclocked my 7950GTX... So I guess I should say it's working very well for me here. I reckon it could be the fact that the design of other laptops prevents the cooling effect of the notebook cooler but I find it odd to hear people say a notebook cooler makes their notebook hotter...

I'm actually using a WSXGA screen but some games (definitely not RTS games) still look good even in 1280x800. You'll get 5-10% performance decrease if you uses Vista comparing to XP, not a huge amount but I always like the little extra power for my games. Not sure if overclocking the gpu void the warranty but I think it shouldn't...

 

What's the current cheapest way to get into a 7950GTX?

 

Not sure but from what I know, get a Clevo M570RU (Sager NP5790)!!! You won't regret it!

 

Just a small update for my mini review, I overclocked my 7950GTX and added the 3DMark06 results in there. Check it out again!

 

One game I didn't see in there was F.E.A.R. just in case anyone is wondering my results were:

1680x1050 with everything maxed (except soft shadows and shadow details which were just below max), 4xAA, 16xAF, with an average of 49 FPS, High was 91 FPS, Lowest was 33 FPS

Thats with no overclocking. Specs are in my sig.

 

Nice! Didn't expect it to be playable at max settings with 4xAA at WSXGA. I'm not a big fan of FEAR so I didn't try it out on mine.
Will keep updating my mini review when more new games come out!

 

I´m more biased towards a 7950GTX, but now with the latest hotfix for Nvidia cards you guys with a 8600GT or a 8700GT along with the newest vista drivers. I used the Xstreme ones now I can play Lost Planet DX10 on my desktop 8800GTX all maxed, only one option I couldn´t max before and that was DX10 soft shadows, but voila now with the new hotfix the game runs smooth as butter.

Given the 7950 struggles with Lost Planet I´m more confident now that a 8700GT handles the game fine in DX10 settings, try it out you´ll be amazed.

 

I keep getting "Invalid Display Mode: 1280x720" when I try to launch LostPlanet demo...??

 

How about running it at 1440x900 with the settings below so we can make a comparison to the 8700M-GT? Make sure you do FEAR Combat so you can do the same maps.

That was my report from the Toshiba Satellite X205 review, found here.

 

well i think we know which one is better, but i also like to see how much of a difference there is

 

found this:
http://www.gpureview.com/show_cards.php?card1=465&card2=535

Looking at the Shader Operations,
8700M GT is 40,000 Operations/sec
vs
7950's 13,800 Operations/sec (Shader)

Wow 8700M, That's almost 300% faster than 7950's!

So for Shader Intensive games like crysis, 8700M GT should perform better...

 

Updated my review with performance reports of World in Conflict and Stranglehold.

8700M GT is ONLY better in shader operations. 7950GTX is better in all other aspects. Read here. I think the 7950GTX will still beat 8700 in Crysis. The dual 128-bit (much slower than the 256-bit of 7950GTX) of the 8700 will probably kill most of the performance gained by its shader operations...

 

lots of stuff here
a new giude for this stuff^^

 

yea I know... It's the SAME thread I put in the "Read here" in my post...lol