Reason to get a 900m series over others?

I need to find a new laptop and I am l considering one that has one of the High-End GPUs from: http://www.notebookcheck.net/Mobile-Graphics-Cards-Benchmark-List.844.0.html

I know the 900m series is the newest of Nvidia's card, but cards like the 880M, 780M, 870m, 680m, and 775m (Ranking 33, 38,44, 50, 52 respectively) are older series that still rank above the GTX 960M(60th place).

Is there a reason to get a 900m series Laptop GPU over any of the other ones in the top 60?

 

get one with a desktop 980!

 

Wait for Pascal! But if you can't wait - a desktop 980 like he said above ;P

 

Thank you both for the replies.

I'd like to direct the question twords only Laptop Mobile GPUs.
My laptop recently died, so I need to find a replacement and can't wait for a Pascal.
nor could I probably afford a Pascal card laptop when they come out.

Is there any reason to get a 900M series over an 800M or 700M that rank in the same range as the 900M series?
Given a choice of like a 965M (42th place) and an 870M (44th place), what would be the reason to get the 900M series over the 800M series considering that they are nearly identical in performance? Does it have something the 800M series doesn't?

 

You can put a desktop 980 in a laptop now.
http://www.geforce.com/hardware/notebook-gpus/geforce-gtx-980

 

The 900m series are known to run cooler. Also, check out the max DirectX feature level that those cards support before you decide on one.

 

GTX 980s are laptop cards now.

Comparing a 870M, 880M (broken feces, never buy), 780M or even 680M to a 960M is an unfair comparison. The 960M is a bottom-barrel, entry-level gaming tier card. The 780M is top-tier midrange card from the previous gen. 870M and 680M use the same core, but their memory and base clocks are different. The 870M is almost as strong as a 780M due to its massive clockspeed increase, and it is a good tier midrange GPU of its gen. You would need to compare the 970M or 980M to these to see the difference.

The 965M, I personally find will have issues in SOME (not all) games due to its pitifully low memory bandwidth (same as the 960M) for its relatively powerful core (80% stronger than 960M), but it is still a heavy performer. The 970M however, blows away all the cards you've listed, especially with a custom vBIOS and overclocked. 900M series is also exceedingly cool. Cool enough to have the 970M, its second-best card (not counting GTX 980) shoved into thin, poorly cooled pieces of crap like the Razer Blade and Gigabyte P34/P35 and the MSI GS60/GS70 notebooks, which previously could only hold cards on the same tier as the 960M: the GTX 560M, 660M, 765M and 860M. Put those abnormally cool GPUs into a more suitable notebook and overclocking is your friend.

Also with single GPU, you get access to MFAA instead of MSAA, which is a more efficient way of bringing MSAA's effects into the game.

So yes, buy a 900M GPU if you need a laptop with some power now. They run cooler, use less power and generally overclock further (with custom vBIOSes).

 

Power consumption and heat. At equal performance (say, a 960M vs 870M), the 900 series consume a lot less power and generate a lot less heat. For a desktop, this wouldn't really matter beyond your electricity bill. But for a laptop, consuming less power and generating less heat/noise is crucial.

Pretty much what he said.

To give you an idea, take a look at the desktop Maxwell cards. A GTX 970 performs on par with a GTX 780 Ti, yet consumes less power (145w TDP vs 250W). So this generation's third-best GPU (after the 980Ti and 980) is as powerful as the 700-series' top performer. Think about that.

 

870m is based on Kepler architecture, and 9**m Maxwell cards do tessellation much (3 times?) better. Also performance per CUDA core is 40% in Maxwell compared to Kepler, but this, I guess, leads to lower temperatures as mentioned above, as cards become more energy efficient.

 

Thank you for everyone's awesome replies.
I especially liked your post D2!
Very to the point, which is what I need.

970m or 980m are clearly top and the tops of pricing too.
One of these two are the clear choice.

I'm upgrading from a 660m, so I would see similar performance with the 960m and 965m?
http://www.game-debate.com/gpu/inde...pare=geforce-gtx-960m-2gb-vs-geforce-gtx-660m says "the graphical capabilities of the Nvidia GeForce GTX 960M 2GB are massively better than the Nvidia GeForce GTX 660M"

So if it comes down to the 960m, 965m, or another series, like the 780m, 775m, or 680m, etc.

Still get the 900m series?

Sent from my Android using Tapatalk.

 

I don't want to hijack his thread but did I read this right - 980m runs cooler than a 980? By how much? Just for my own personal knowledge ;P

 

I already said there's no reason to buy the 700M or 800M series at the moment, as long as there is a good notebook you're putting it into.

There's no way you're getting a laptop new with a 780M that is cheaper than a 970M. You can find 970M machines for under $1300 with boot drive SSDs + HDDs + 970M.

If you can find a 780M machine for the same price as a 960M and it's a machine that handles the 780M well, then by all means, go ahead... but be warned that those machines are generally almost into being 2 years old or older by now.

 

Thank you for clarifying all if that.

I I'd like to spend a little under $1,000, so a 960m or 965m might be the way I'll have to go.

now that I have the GPU, I can research reviews on the models available to determine the better of the cases.

Thank you again for your help.

Sent from my Android using Tapatalk.

 

Don't buy notebook with 960M because you can buy way cheaper with 850M or 860M and overclock to clocks of 960M. It's totally same graphics chip. The only difference may be that you can't reach superoverclocked clocks on 850M as on 860M/960M but that is too hot anyways.

 

i'd budget another $500-800 and see if you can get a 970M.

 

Pascal M gpu is probably at best another 6-8 month away.

 

get what you can when you can cos if you wait you will always be waiting and never buying anything...that's the technological life!

 

Where are you buying from? If it's on the US you can find the 970m for 1kdlrs in some machines. They might be of questionable quality (gigabyte laptops) but their price is affordable.

Anyways, I believe you are better off saving a bit more and getting at least a 970m for a trully massive increase in performance. 960m will work, but as others say, it is low level gaming at this point (it can play any game right now, even if you have to dial the settings down).

from 960m to 970m is a huge gap in performance.

 

Probably even less. Take a look at P650RE - you can get a laptop with 970m for $1200-1300 - certainly worth it. And if you manage to find another 300, you can go for a P650RG with a 980m, but at this point it may be not worth it. 970m is the sweet spot in terms of performance/cost.

 

The other benefit is the newer 9xxM series laptops are thinner and lighter than any previous machines.

I would get this machine

 

Though the cooling solutions aren't so great.

Sent from my HTC One using Tapatalk

 

Cooling looks good enough for 970M and 67xxHQ.

 

The cooling on the 8677 is pretty good... Don't know what your talking..

 

With respect - I'd like to disagree. The 860/960M are excellent overclockers, and I can achieve stock 870M/780M levels of performance after overclocking, as can others here.

 

It doesn't matter if you feel it is or it isn't. It's based of the GTX 750Ti, and is an absolute entry level gaming card. It overclocks well because it is maxwell, and all maxwell cards overclock well.

Laptop cards stop at midrange, so it's closer to something like a 980M than it is in desktops with the 980Ti. But it's still a low end card, spec-wise, no matter what you do to it.

And even then, if I go based on overclockability of the 860M/960M, I could say 780Ms managed well over 1100Mhz on the core over their 773MHz base.

 

860m/960m is an entry level gaming card, but it can play pretty much any game out there at 1080p at medium settings. If you're serious about gaming though go with 970m or preferably 980m minimum, or better yet hold out six more months for Pascal. Their entry level card (i.e. 1060m will likely be on par with a 980m).

 

Crap.

What's going on with Pascal that it's so powerful? Last I remembered the 860M was about 10-20% better than the 765M. But this is a 100% leap in performance.

 

when they're out i'll grab a new pc then

 

Die shrink from 28nm to 16nm. Improved architecture. Shrinking tech by over 40%, with about same amount of added transistor with improved architecture will do that.

 

Not sure if I'm going too far Off Topic by asking this but I didn't want to make another thread if it is unnecessary.

Is now a good time to buy? Considering price mainly.
When the Pascal 1000M comes out, are the 980Ms going to drop significantly? Like below $1,000?

I freakin love this quote!

Everyone always says "Wait for the next big thing" and by the time you wait for it, there's already another "big thing" to wait for!

 

Usually stock is exhausted before the next gen hits, so you'll have to buy a used card then.

 

Nope, Clevo never reduces price on parts. A 680M still costs $800.

 

the only time you get a card for cheap is when it's used!