Question about GPU

I dont even know how to ask this question because I assume its either tricky or has way too many parts to it. Unfortunately I can NOT find a darn laptop that handles 64gb ram, SLI gtx 980M, and a keyboard that is actually made for a 17inch laptop not like clevo/sage that sells their 17" with a 15" inch KB. MSI is put of the picture because of the mousepad possition and because of no palm rest ( for us disabled people doesnt work ) and I already posted the reason for why not on the clevp/sager ... so now I have found a few custom ones that meet my requirements but 1, NO SLI GTX980M.

The question.... will a nVIDIA GeForce GTX 980 Desktop Version 256bit w/8.0GB with g/sync perform as good as a SLI ( benchmark, etc ) or will it still underperform against it?

Im desperate, cant get what I need and this old m17x cant be upgraded ( thank you AW for forking stuff so only ur stuff can be put there ) im stuck with dx10 and missing a truck load of good games to play

 

980m SLI performs better than desktop 980 in a properly optimized game but some people prefer desktop 980 so they don't have to deal with SLI being a headache.

 

980m sli is approx 20-30% faster than GTX 980 on average. But as i_pk_pjers_i mentioned, sli comes with some issues.
Also, if you are counting out clevo and MSI, you dont have much options left for even GTX 980 (expect maybe Asus)
On the other hand, if you like Alienware, you can get AW18 with 980m sli but it will be with 4th gen intel cpu (i dont recommend it though)

 

A bit faster; 980M SLI is on average about a 980Ti/Titan X. So 40-50% faster give or take.

 

I based my assumption o the FPS reported on notebookcheck. I know notebookcheck is not very accurate but are they that much off?

 

I don't know about each game; I was considering pure benchmarks. Though games are indeed a different story. One thing about notebookcheck is that they run everything stock, and stock doesn't always "work" (I.E. no custom vBIOSes to keep the clocks steady; not considering "overclocking"). Drivers may be another thing.

The best thing to do would be to ask @Mr. Fox to test the 980 at stock vs 980M SLI at stock with his highly clocked CPU in the P870DM he's got. He should have stock benchmarks already, so only now to run with the machine he has now, I suppose. That way we can get accurate, CPU-agnostic benchmarks for games.

 

While the GTX 980 is a very wicked MXM card, 980M SLI is a LOT more powerful than a single GTX 980 in a notebook or desktop chassis. They both do a marvelous job of playing games, but there is no substitute for the brute force of SLI performance in most scenarios. If the game or benchmark is a sloppy software coding abortion, it doesn't make much difference one way or the other.

I don't put much confidence in notebookcheck for benchmarks either, but those figures look about right. Let me gather some info from my Futuremark account for you. I don't really care about stock performance, but I do believe I have some samples to compare.

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Edit #1
OK, this is down and dirty, but GTX 980 vs GTX 980M SLI - yup... over 30% graphics performance improvement with SLI even using the stock 980M vBIOS. That's right in line with the gaming difference.

Fire Strike: http://www.3dmark.com/compare/fs/6828786/fs/6833300

Graphics Score: 13616 vs 18363 + 34.9 %​

3DMark 11: http://www.3dmark.com/compare/3dm11/10437800/3dm11/10681428

Graphics Score: 18007 vs 23826 + 32.3 %
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Edit #2
Overclocked, scaling is very similar... but even better, further widening the gap with SLI

Fire Strike: http://www.3dmark.com/compare/fs/6981659/fs/6888349

Graphics Score: 16622 vs 23039 + 38.6 %​

3DMark 11: http://www.3dmark.com/compare/3dm11/10717652/3dm11/10709217

Graphics Score: 20998 vs 30277 + 44.2 %​

Of course, this is the Über-Beastly 200W version of the GTX 980. One of the weaker versions that the BGA turdbooks will be sporting may not fare as well against 980M SLI.

 

Thanks alot @D2 Ultima & @Mr. Fox for clarifying in detail. Much appreciated.

 

Thanks folks for the detail explanations. Guess ill be stuck until clevo decides to stop being cheap and putting a 1 dollar keyboard on their 17"inch or some other company decides to do so... Or AW decides to put the SLI back to their 17" and not force to buy that bulky external crap that takes the whole purpose of a laptop ( portability ) away :/

 

Why not just buy a separate mechanical keyboard? It seems your case is rare, and most are just fine with the Clevo keyboards- I own one, it is a good keyboard. (I honestly don't know, not being insensitive)

 

And how does it fare when SLI is completely unsupported or very poorly supported? My money would be on the 980. SLI support was crap when I tried it with SLI 970 just about 3 months ago or so. I promptly sold the SLI setup and went with the single beast card. It also eliminated the slight micro stuttering that could be seen/felt on my 144hz screen. The SLI setup was great for benching and BF4 for me.

 

Yeah, I don't mind Clevo keyboards either, and this is coming from someone who owns 4-5 mechanical keyboards.