Hardware Match (Beat) i7 860 + FX 580 Quadro

I'm wondering if it's currently possible to match or beat the performance of the title hardware with today's laptop processors and graphics chips? That's the Intel i7 860 desktop CPU and the Nvidia FX 580 Quadro GPU, can those be passed up by Ivy bridge and/or the GTX 680M? I'd like to avoid mobile Quadro cards, as they're hella expensive. Thanks NBR!

 

For the CPU, yeah, definitely as long as the CPU has the right clock speed. That is a 2.7GHz ivy will perform slightly better than that i7-860 an i7-3920xm overclocked would run circles around it.

For the video card, quadro FX580 = old and not a lot of cuda cores so yeah definitely blown out of the water by a 680m for gaming. however, what would you use the video card for, quadros have advantages in certain workload types so you might be stuck going with a laptop quadro anyways.

 

I would use the rig for gaming, but I'd want to be able to do compute tasks at roughly the same level or better if possible, without the thousand dollar upgrade components. I could do 3720QM, but not much higher. If I went to 3820QM I'd have to drop to 675M (which I really don't want to do). And the 580 Quadro has 32 CUDA cores according to Nvidia's site. Would it really run that much better than the 680M?

 

What i meant when i said quadros were better suited to certain tasks i didn't mean that 32 cuda core quadros could outperform a GTX680m, look up the cuda core count on the 680m and you'll understand what i mean. The 680 will destroy the FX580 no matter what you put it through. What i mean was that you might have benefited from a recent quadro vs the 680m. However, for gaming, go 680m you won't regret it, it will do anything your FX580 was doing, but better.

One more thing, ivy bridge is more efficient clock for clock than Lynnfield which means that even an i7-3610qm so even for that one performance differences will be minimal at best. With turbo boost, it will likely slightly outperform the 860. You could check benchmark data to confirm.

 

Gaming yes, but if the OP needs OpenCL or double precision floating point their better off elsewhere, Kepler GPUs are WORSE in OpenCL than the 580/675 and very limited and slow of fp64 as well.

 

Even with 1344 cores vs 32? I mean I guess it's possible, but it would have to be ~42 times worse per core for that to be the case (unless I'm missing something here). Also the 680M uses 4GB GDDR5 as opposed to 512MB GDDR3.

Even -5-10% would be ok, I just want to make sure I'm not getting a worse system is all.

EDIT: The Quadro actually only has 512MB GDDR3 RAM. Here's the entire spec sheet from Nvidia: http://www.nvidia.com/object/product_quadro_fx_580_us.html

 

3720QM + 675M seems to be the best choice from what KCETech1 is saying.

That would not be a worse system.

But you could also consider buying a quadro from ebay and swapping it out for the 675M. Ebay prices for quadro GPUs can be on par with their geforce counterpart. You could sell the 675m on ebay and get a quadro 4000m and still make some money back on that swap.

 

Yes it is, but given what the FX580 packs, doesn't take much to beat it. The 675m might not be a bad idea for OpenCL and GPGPU though.

 

I am really hesitant to buy old tech even if it would be slightly better on the compute side. I only need the machine to perform as well as the title specs, and that's just so I can do the same work on my laptop that I could on the school workstations. If I can do a bit better, it doesn't have to be the best, that's great too. Thanks guys for all your help =D

 

What kind of work are you talking about anyways, sometimes school workstation have hardware that isn't exactly necessary and vice-versa. You are not getting a worse system, that is for certain. What KCTech was referring to is that for pro level CAD or using the video card for heavy computing workloads (for example sending parts of FEM simulations to it), Fermi is much better. In that regards, a GTX580m/GTX675m would be better, but i doubt you need that kind of performance on that front, that is something only you know for certain though.

Just so there's no confusion, the OP is talking about that card: http://www.nvidia.com/object/product_quadro_fx_580_us.html which is very far from being a strong performer in today's market.

 

I'd like to point out that the i7 2630QM was as fast as the i7 920. A 2.7GHz mobile 'Ivy Bridge' i7 would completely decimate a first generation desktop i7.

Also, yes a 680M will crush a 9500GT equivalent Quadro GPU. That uses the G96 chip if I'm not mistaken... ._. Tis no contest.

 

I'd be using this for Matlab, possible CAD work, and Mathematica - in addition to games and normal usage (which should be no problem for the specs we're talking about).

If this hardware is really so far superior to the school's lab workstations, then there won't be any problems. Thanks guys.