Nvidia 675M

I'm trying to choose between the Nvidia 675M and Nvidia 680M (since AMD's 7970M seems to having issues with current drivers/Enduro/heat, at least on the Sager NP9150). If the FPS benchmarks from notebookcheck.com are accurate then I am quite content with the 675M's performance (50+ FPS in pretty much any game on high settings).

The problem is, I am not sure how well the card will do with next year's games (looking at Company of Heroes 2 in particular). I'd prefer the laptop to last at two years for casual gaming purposes and I can spend another $400 on the Nvidia 680M, if that's what it takes to make the laptop live another year. Any input would be appreciated, thanks.

 

i say go for the 680m, the 675m, while plenty fast is only a good option if you dont have the money for the 680m, and the 680m can be heavily overclocked.

 

NVIDIA 675M is just a rebrand of the GTX 580M and it's a power hungry card! GTX 680M and AMD 7970M are the new gen cards and performs about 100% better than GTX 675M. Fermi also tends to run hotter, Kepler is 28nm so it runs cooler.

If you're looking for casual gaming check out the GTX 660M. It's kepler and enough for a casual gamer.

 

GTX 675M is also a powerful card but its a huge difference between 675M and 680M though.

I`m not shure but I don`t think the 675M will be able to play the latest games 2 years from now. Well it probably can, but you must lower the settings it to pretty low levels in the years to come.

Like the one above me mention, if you are a casual gamer and don`t care about the high visual settings, 675M will be enough. I would have bought the 680M if you are investing in something new now: Its a lot cooler than Fermi (675M), it draw way less power and its much more powerful

 

I would go with what aduy says. If you have the money for a 680m, purchase it. If you are going to be pushing it with the $400 price tag above the 675m then go for the 7970m. While it has issues, it still beats every other GPU except the 680m. If you STILL are not convinced and the $400 price tag of the 680m is a problem, the get the 675m.

This sounds all too familiar.

Firstly, remember that few care about electricity when they are gaming because a couple hundred watt-hours costs under a few cents in most countries.

Secondly, your fabrication process concept is incorrect. I would suggest you read up on transistor operation. A smaller fabrication process actually generates MORE heat per transistor because the resistance is higher as the gate width decreases. The reason a 28nm chip runs cooler as compared to a 40nm chip is because the physical size of the transistor decreases by 30% and you don't need 30% more transistors to get a higher performance boost. If you have a similar chip size, you are spacing transistors out further and are dissipating heat better.

This I will agree with. It would help to know what you plan on doing. You mentioned playing games on high. That is not 1080p I believe (because the 675m cannot do all games at that resolution).

 

If you get the 675M when you could have afforded the 680M, you will probably end of with buyers remorse and / or wasting money buying an upgrade later on. You have already mentioned the possibility of upgrading to a 680M later too.

I have seen the performance of this card in my P170HM (no longer feels like laptop) and how cool it runs, I don't think there is a question which one I would go with. In fact, if I couldn't afford the 680M, I would still go for the 7970M over the 675M regardless of the reported problems.

I am not sure there is any such thing as casual gaming. one day you may come across a title you love that happens to be heavy on the resources. You could be playing Pacman and Tetris for a lifetime and then discover BF3.

 

Thanks for the replies. By "casual gaming" I mean that I want games to be able to run most games on high settings (i.e. don't really care much about having the best/ultra graphics, but I want to enjoy the game in good detail) at 1080p (I think this is a bit overkill for a 15" screen but no other resolutions are offered). If the 675M runs hotter than the 680M then I think I will get the 680M.

 

Get the best card you can afford, always.

The 675m will likely play games at least until the next-gen consoles drop (as in Xbox 720 and PS4, Wii U doesn't count) with no problems on basically max or near max settings. However, the 680m is faster, will play games faster and has more headroom for the next generation games that are going to start to trickle out in late 2013 and early 2014. I expect the 675m to start hitting a wall in 2014 with some games needing medium or even lower settings to get playable FPS. Just the shift to dynamic surface lighting and such with Unreal 4 is going to really demolish current cards. Games are going to be twice as demanding, so a card that is twice as fast as it need to be today will be just good enough.

 

680m hands down if you can afford it. But don't pass over the 7970m, similar performance to the 680m for a few hundred cheaper.

 

Even my GTX 485M ran hotter than my GTX 680M with max temps being 12 - 16C higher. The 680m idles around 4C cooler too. I think I heard that the 680M draws a lot less power during load / use too but thats to be expected with 28nm.


My GTX 485M would max out at 86C - 89C during Crysis 1 compared to the 680M's 72 - 73C.

Of course, your temps will depend on ambient, type of game, GPU load, how well you or someone did the paste job etc. However, fact is, the 680M runs cool, especially compared to previous gen.

 

Well that settles it then. Getting the 680m. Thanks for the advice.

 

Congratulations on your new laptop with a great GPU! You will enjoy gaming on it.

 

Thanks, I didn't know that. I will do more research.

 

maverick1989 I just have to lol with your persistent electricity doesn't cost much. 680m takes on average 70w less then the 675m and best of all I believe the 680m runs cooler and performs around 50-80% better on most games ans synthetic benchmarks. Plus you can oc it by 40% and still take less power consumption over a 675m and perform at least 100% better up to 130% better ta same power consumption. Kepler seems great wants you crank up th unified shaders. Shame nvidia rebranded. The k4000m should take around 50w less then the 670m should perform better then a 675m. I know its a 100w tdp but actual power consumption should be very low.

In essence a 675m on sli performs similar to one 680m and takes what 210w more to run then a 680m machine. Thats massive like I think 20p per day if you are a hardcore gamer so around £73 in a year.

 

Also you have to take into account 680m really low power consumption wise is replacing a 560m type card in essence. Thats why 680m oc so much as it has a lot of headroom. Something like the 650m is really replacing the 540m and the 640m is replacing the 525m etc. The 660m is replacing like the 55m. Thats why the 700m series will be interesting as there a lot of rebranded cards in the 600m series like 620m 630m 670m 675m and some semi rebranded like on a 28nm process.

Nvidia could easily have decided to release the 680m as an 8000 3dmark11 card but they are putting low power consuming cards first then have something for the revision in the 700m 28nm card series.

 

You have got to stop with your tree hugging rants. Isn't that why you got banned in the first place?