Nvidia 640M LE vs old 9600M GT

So after three years I think it is about time to get my current notebook replaced. I'm currently thinking about ordering the new Sony S15 with the 640M LE GPU. I like the looks of this notebook and it is relatively light also .

I like to play some games every now and then, probably not the most demanding games but this are the games I like to play at the moment:

• Anno 2070 / Anno 1404
• Diablo III
• Tropico 4
• Skyrim

My current notebook with the Nvidia 9600M GT 512MB GDDR2 isn't able to play all those games on 1080p resolution. I would like to have a new notebook that is capable of casual gaming. I'm not expecting to run all games on 1080p with high details, but medium details should be possible.

How is the performance of the 640M LE compared to my current 9600M GT (GDDR2)? I did check Notebookcheck.net but I can't find a good comparison between the new 640M LE and the old 9600M GT. Will there be huge performance gains between these two?

 

Yes the difference will be big, also consider that your new system will most likely have a much faster CPU and ram.

Should be a noticible boost.

 

The 640M LE is close to twice as fast as your 9600M GT.

 

NVIDIA GeForce GT 640M LE - Notebookcheck.net Tech

Don't get the 640m le. Try to get a gt 640m proper version kepler or even better gt 650m gddr5 version like msi ge60 have or m14x r2.

Trust me a gt 650m gddr5 is twice as fast as the gt 640m le and the 650m gddr5 version can play games at 1080p.

 

Cubic X mentioned he/she is not a heavy gamer. The 640M LE is more than fast enough for the games he/she listed. The 640M is only 15% faster than the 640M LE.

 

lol 640m is around 50% faster the the 640m le. Also if the sony 640m le is 40nm then the proper 640m should lake less power or even if it is the 28nm le fermi card the proper 640m should still take less power.

 

@Cubic X
I'm sorry I don't have any of the other games available to test, but Diablo 3 will run fine on the Kepler based GT 640M LE.

Sounds about right, comparing my above LE experience (1600x900, High onAA), with notebookcheck benchmarks of the 640M (1366x768, High onAA = 62fps)/(1920x1080, High onAA = 34fps).

 

The 640M LE is Keplar based (28nm).

Thanks! It seems to run great.

 

Not even close, where are you getting your benchmark scores from? And, as Cubic X stated, they're both 28NM.

3DMark06:

640M: 11373
640M LE: 9509

NVIDIA GeForce GT 640M LE - Notebookcheck.net Tech

NVIDIA GeForce GT 640M - Notebookcheck.net Tech

 

3DMark06:

640M: 11385
640M LE: 8543

 

Again, where are you getting this? Note that I linked my source.

Sent from my HTC One S

 

from your source. 1280x1024 3612qm for 640m 11385 score 3dmark06 vs 3520m 8543 score for 640m le.

Its not really fair to get an average from a 1024x768 score of 11578 is it.

 

Either way, it's not even close to 50% faster. And, the 3612QM is a much faster CPU than the 3520M. We know that the CPU plays a good part in the 3DMark06 score. The 640M 3DMark06 score at 1280x1024 is closer to 10189. The 640M is about 20% faster, not even close to 50%.

 

sorry got mixed up 630m being 540m. Anyhow 640m le fermi is a 555m that performs similar to a 640m le but takes more power.

 

the sony has the kepler variant, would you kindly get off your high horse, and get your facts straight. the 640m le will do fine and is much faster than the old 9600m gt.

 

The 640M LE will blast the 9600M GT especially the DDR2 version. It's a very nice gpu for light to medium gaming for thin notebooks i'd say considering its low 17W TDP. Also there's the possibility you can overclock it to a classic 640M GT level if needed. It's the same chip, just underclocked.

For 1080p gaming, i'd pass though. It's more a 768p gpu imo.

 

The gpu is about 50% faster on 3dmark06 then mine.

 

thats irrelevant you should compare vantage scores, also the 9600 gt scores 5268 in 3dmark 06, and maximum 1712 in vantage. the 640m le scores 9509(81% faster) on average in 3dmark 06, and 5528(223% faster) in vantage. additionally it scores 1350 in 3dmark 11, which is great for a mid range laptop gpu.

 

I don't play dx10 or dx11 games so 3dmark06 dx9 scores is what I check.

Standard 1280x1024
Vaio SV-S13A1Z9E/S 3520M 12288 MB 500 - 570 / 900MHz 2048MB DDR3-VRAM ForceWare 296.18 8543

The scores you look at are wrong. Its like benchmarking my laptop at the lowest res and beating something like a 650m and saying mine is faster lol. Thats your logic.

Anyway I look more at shader model 3 as the games I play are shader model 3 games dx9.

Best Budget Gaming Laptops Review.: Review Lenovo Ideapad Y480 Core i7+GT 640M LE good worth for money.

Lenovo%2520Ideapad%2520Y480%2520Benchmark%25203DMark%252006%255B7%255D.jpg (image)

I will run it at 1280x720 and see the gpu scores.

edit: I just ran 3dmark06 at 1280x720 and got total: 6058 score sm2 score: 2647 sm3 score:2571 cpu score:1727. Although I did not run the feature or batch tests. sm2 score 4401 and sm3 score of 4168 means with a fast cpu helping it:

640m le is 66.2% faster on sm2 and 62% faster on sm3. Not much I say. I reckon my 9600m gt and 620m are very close.

 

i dont think anyone cares about dx9 performance. and besides the 640m le will completely anihilate the old crappy outdated/ recycycled/ renamed card that is the 9600m gt. not to mention its much more power efficient and will come with optimus for increased battery life.

 

funny thing is my card is only 1 and half years older then fermi cards that people still buy. My plan is to buy a kepler card like 640m or 650m. I didn't want to get crappy fermi card.

 

What do you guys think about the AMD 7730M? According to Notebookcheck the 7730M performs about the same as the 640M, so I think it will run my listed games fluently on 1080p with medium details?

 

7730 is indeed about as fast as 640M and both have around same potentsial while overclocking.

About 640M vs 640M LE vs 650M. They are physically identical Kepler GPUs. If you have patience to download the latest AB, you can very likely bring 640M LE perfomance up to 640M or even 650M levels.
Few 650M come with GDDR5 memory and those are superior to DDR3 versions of the card. However, if you click the link in my sig, you see that even the DDR3 version has very nice perfomance while running overclocked.


I will test the 640M LE OC capability on my incoming S15 as soon as i get it.

 

I'm done with desktop replacements so the S15 that I ordered a few days ago will suit me fine. From the comments here, it looks like the 640LE will be a decent card for 1080p gaming on medium settings. I'll probably be playing Guild Wars 2, Torchlight 2, and maybe a little BF3. If I decide that I'm going to get back into hardcore gaming I'll buy a desktop.

Supramium, I think your sig is wrong. Shouldn't it be 2012 instead of 2102 fo the Sony?

 

I wonder where people get these numbers... the 640M LE only differs from the 640M by clock speed really, it is the same part just underclocked. (The kepler version at least, which is the vast majority of them)

Any discrepancies of >20% can probably be explained by a DDR3 640M LE vs a DDR5 640M or something along those lines. It's important that you know what type of ram you're using in these 3dmark benchmarks y'all post, otherwise it's pointless to compare them.

@OP the sony uses a DDR3 640M LE. That is not nearly as high performing as the DDR5 version in the Vizio for example, you could probably pick a vizio up for a relatively comparable price. And I think the Vizio looks better etc.

Sony also forces drivers from only Sony, you can't install fresh drivers from Nvidia usually.

 

You can get around that

 

yeah it is 20-30% on the kepler one.