The Biggest Notebook GPU Lie?

So, I am sure some of you may have seen the article posted on Tom's Hardware today: Radeon HD 6990M And GeForce GTX 580M: A Beautiful Lie

For summary purposes, Thomas Soderstrom is complaining about how deceptive naming mobile GPU's the same as desktop GPU's is given the "large" performance gap. The complaint is legitimate, but I don't think very many people wander into a Best Buy and end up with a 580M notebook without knowing what to expect (if you can even find a high performance laptop in a Best Buy).

In my view, the biggest lie the GPU/OEM manufacturers are exploiting is the VRAM buffer size. I would bet that a significant higher number of people fall victim to buying a 6250M with 3GB RAM and thinking they are in fact buying a "high end" graphics card.

Regardless, I do wish the GPU industry would be a little more honest with how they try to market their products. Personally, I don't feel like we need regulation to protect uninformed people, but some honesty would be appreciated.

 

VRAM size isn't controlled by nvidia or ATI, that's down to the manufacturer. I agree, though, that consumers should be made more aware of the tricks being pulled, especially VRAM.

 

This isn't a new gripe, but I completely agree it is problem.

I wish they would just call them what their desktop version are, with a modifier on the end to denote the laptop version, which would indicate lower clocks speeds and power requirements.

Perhaps GTX560Ti ES for the 580m. 6870L for the 6990m. Anything would be better than the current situation.

Unfortunately though nothing will probably change.

 

Imformative for those who are lesser-aware of the topic.

I agree with the naming convention, as it does make sense to me in respect that "mobile" anything are always boiled down versions, because of the natural restrictions of being smaller and more compact.

It is a clear 2-minute way to inform those who are newer to the idea though, and I can definitely see how it could be taken misleadingly.
But I don't think I'd want them to do it another way, as it would be perhaps harder to track the "flagship" model and it's mobile conterpart, as it would almost seem as they were less related than they might be. The case of the ATI is a little extreme, but more recent offerings are closer to what I'd expect the difference (in relation) to be.

 

I have a huge problem with there being multiple varieties of the same GPU that can vary wildly in terms of performance. This is an issue more with NVIDIA. Case and point: The GeForce GTX 560M. The same name is applied to two GPUs but one offers notably superior performance over the other.

Who is to blame for this? NVIDIA for making multiple chips with the same name? OEMs for being less than forthcoming about what exactly is in their products? I'm genuinely curious.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

Just look at the 555m, it's all over the place too. I think they should maintain common designations between desktop and laptop also. But I think the biggest lie of them all is just rebranding the same thing over and over and over again.

 

Well I you have some guy buying his first gaming laptop. He sees his graphics card, maybe a 560M. So he googles "GeForce 560" and expects all sorts of performance, and then only realizes his mistake after he has bought it. There's always warranties, but not everyone gets them.

And also, like what HT said, aren't there about 5 different 555Ms or something crazy?

 

It doesn't bother me one little bit. Tom's Hardware bothers me more than nVIDIA's and AMD's naming conventions.

 

I don't see an issue with naming the laptop GPU's based on their relative performance. If they performed/were exactly the same as their desktop counterparts, the "M" suffix wouldn't really be necessary.

But I agree, the 555M is ridiculous.

 

Most consumers who buy pre-builds don't know any better, which are whom these companies seek. If only we can buy laptop parts and assemble ourselves...

 

I'd like to see them stop rebranding old hardware under the new version names... that's a bigger deal to me than the flagship situation

 

'm' is there for a reason, but its a good warning for those who are not aware between the desktop and mobile version gpus. on the other hand, rebranding is really troublesome, but note that these companies make gpus not for you to be happy. but for them to have a progressive cycle of money, if i were one of those gpus devs, i will gladly do the same, its not happiness but purely business.

 

/rant/

I get tired of the "it's only business" excuse. Companies exist to make money, yes they do, it's business 101. But running a business is more than just making money, maximizing profits. There's something called customers, yes humans, that are involved that have opinions, feelings, wants, needs, and desires that require more than just a company to "make money". Customers are the reason the company exists. The idea "it's only business", maximizing profits at all costs, is why our economy is failing.

/end rant/

 

I think VRAM is a much bigger problem than naming conventions. I worked as a computer salesman for a while last year, more than 3/4 of the people I talked to had the impression that 3GB DDR3 VRAM in a GT555m was better than 2GB GDDR5 VRAM in a 6990m and it was really difficult to convince and explain otherwise in layman terms.

 

Shouldn't be too hard to convince. Once they buy their 3GB 555m and try to play the latest games they shouldn't be such sheep after that. Anyone who isn't willing to listen just needs to learn the hard way I guess.

 

They should make it a requirement to have 3DMark installed on all demo units to demonstrate gaming potential

 

Like mentioned by rschauby and some other, the biggest issue is the VRAM. When I made my first laptop but almost 6 years ago I almost failed to buy some of those laptops with 'huge' VRAM with a low end GPU. In fact, where it not for finding this site I'd have failed in that trap.

In regard to the name and the flagship. It is sad companies use similar naming for the PC and laptops GPUs (plus the 'm' in the case of laptops). But this practice has been common place for quite a while, that I am hardly surprised hearing about it today.

 

Personally I don't see anything wrong since the HD6990 and the 6990m are aimed at different markets and you can't expect them to have similar performance. Besides, most laymen would look at VRAM rather than model numbers, assuming they've even heard of the desktop product with a similar name.

 

When I told my desktop gamer friends that my new laptop would have a 6990M, they said "Woa, you'll be able to play any game on max settings". Then I had to clarify that, contrary to its desktop counterpart, it only has a single core. "Oh, that's pretty misleading of them.."

 

This is like the "megapixel war" on point-and-shoot cameras

 

I nearly bought an crippled 555m till i found that it was only 128bit and not the faster 192bit, thanks to a notebookcheck review, otherwise i would not have known.

John.

 

Not really related and totally nitpicking but how in the world can anyone get a laptop in bestbuy with GTX 580M?

The "the more ram the better" belief has been here for a long while now to the point i stopped trying to explain to people i know what really matters.

 

The said systems is also one of the biggest failings when it comes to technological progression - which slows down heavily - whoever said capitalism promotes technological growth was talking nonsense for the most part.
Why?
Because instead of 'latest and the greatest', we are given mere revisions of things that came before for a long period of time which ensures profits, until such a time comes when the companies see fit to give the customers actual jump in technologies (which is again 'behind the times').
What I see in the market can rarely be classified as 'innovation'... let alone 'evolution'.

 

The only nonsense I see is right above this line of text.

Yeah, who needs things like caller ID, DOCSIS 3.0, hard drives that at one point cost $0.10/gigabyte, the Logitech G700, iPhone, Android, Kindle, Steam. Shall I go on?

I completely agree that simple re-badging essentially the same products is stupid, but to make a blanket statement as you just did is foolish.

 

I love the fact that they are wasting their time complaining about naming schemes versus the fact that the xfire/sli mobile gpu's are nearly at the same performance level as a desktop dual gpu card. I think that's the real story here that is being overshadowed by people that can't read a spec sheet.

 

What do you mean? That a sli 580m is on level of a sli 580? That seems nonsense.

After reading the article it seems they were looking for an excuse to compare PC and laptop GPUs, but frankly their argument is quite weak even for a mid-level informed person.

 

The 6990m's in xfire are ~87% of a single desktop 6990 with sli 580m's coming closer at 93%. If you read what I posted, I clearly indicated desktop dual gpu card not two separate cards in desktop xfire/sli. The test bed consisted of xfire/sli mobile gpu's with a desktop dual gpu 6990 and single desktop 580. Never in my post nor the article does it mention desktop sli 580's.


Getting back on topic though they never bothered to acknowledge that the fact that the ati 6990m is know as that due to the fact that it was released after the 6970m a few months after the 6970m's became available. At the time of the 6970m's dominance, nvidia only had their 485m out. Due to both ATI and Nvidia wanting to squeeze one more serious mobile gpu before 28nm, they had to compete with the 6990m and 580m.

 

Ah.... so it's foolish to indicate we're being given nothing but mere revisions of technologies that came before (for a decade no less) when we could have more advanced ones at same if not lesser prices?

Oh and let's not forget the artificial price fixing of technologies that's been going on since forever?
Have you even noticed that SSD's have not nearly been reduced in prices since their initial introduction to the market years ago?

The things you listed are nothing more than gimmicks for the most part (some more useful than others yes, but nothing revolutionary in the long run or to be excited about overtly).
For the love of man, laptops are still behind desktops in terms of speed/power and are more expensive in the process.

With all their indications that 'newer manuf. process will produce technologies that can be created faster, for lesser cost' should have resulted in vastly reduced prices for all components across the board... alas that hasn't happened... are they shipping materials from the moon?

Consumer based technology is a pure example of technological stagnation.
You see the frequent changes every 2 years where older techs supposedly become 'obsolete', but that's already planned, and it's not so much they become obsolete as they are 'marginally slower and slightly less efficient'.
Numerous companies have products lined up for release to the market... and they are marginal improvements to say the least... you have to wait about 4 years to see noticeable gap in performance/efficiency... unless they happen to release a change that produces more (which results in years of revisions after that).

Laptops don't even have more than 4 cores right now and batteries have been in stagnation for 2 decades.
Ivy Bridge is nothing more than a reduction of manuf. process and higher energy efficiency... yet the biggest power drain in notebooks is by far the screen itself.

 

This entirely. Who cares? I mean, if you're literally dumb enough to think "Oh a 580M is just a GTX 580 in a laptop!" then you need to stay away from laptops.

The naming scheme goes like this, the GTX 580 is the big head honcho for GPUs on the Nvidia side, well for the mobile part, the 580M is there leading the pack. The GT 520 on the desktop side is the lower end part, as is the GT 520M. I don't see how this is a problem. o_o

And I love how they bash the 6990M in Xfire not matching an actual 6990. If anything, in Xfire, they ALMOST match one. That should show people that these cards scream through games. I mean look at Crysis on MAX SETTINGS 1080p! If that doesn't scream high end, you've lost your mind.

If anything, the people who bash the naming scheme are the ones who annoy me the most, just because you all say the same thing over and over and over and over and over again. Get over it. I don't see how this is a big deal. If you inform someone that the 560M isn't the same as a GTX 560, THEY DON'T CARE!

 

But many do care... especially if they expected the gpu to be faster or on par with the desktop part, and ended up with something that isn't.
However, that's a problem resulting from insufficient knowledge on their part.

To be honest, official info from the manufacturers can be limiting at best (and misleading), and even I up until 4 years ago didn't know that much about capabilities of mobile tech, and even then, most of the information I learned was from visiting sites such as these that were able to provide concrete and detailed information.

The naming scheme is misleading.
It would be better for the gpu's to be named after their desktop equivalents (with the letter M retained) so that people would know what to relatively expect power-wise.

 

I fall on this side of the argument. AMD and Nvidia treat desktop and mobile cards as belonging to two separate segments, therefore there is no need for them to be sensical with each other, when it comes to naming GPUs.

And the average consumer of gaming notebooks deserves some credit, as not being a complete idiot. How often do you see someone make an angry post about how they just bought a new gaming notebook, and have just found out that the GPU inside is in fact not the same as the desktop chip with which it shares a name?

In all of my years, posting on NBR, I can't recall one. All of this theoretical bamboozling means absolutely nothing, if it isn't actually happening en masse in the real world.

 

Of course, that is assuming that EVERYONE who owns a laptop visits NBR and post about their experience... the point is that I think that to reach (or find) this kind of website you need a more than average desire for computer knowledge.

 

Ok, I see your point. Also, the dual gpu card concept is something relatively recent, so I misunderstood it for the regular sli/xfire concept