Intel HD 4600 vs.Nvidia GT 740m GGDR3

So I have an option of either going from 8gb of ram to 16gb OR staying with 8gb of ram and having just the Intel HD 4600 .

My concern is that looking at the benchmarks that are online (may or may not be true) it seems the 740m may not be that big of a jump from what I will be doing plus it also bumps up the weight due to the 120w brick vs. 90w .

What I am asking is that is it worth it to get the 740m if I don't plan on doing heavy gaming (even with the dGPU looking at the benchmark it doesn't seem like it would be able to handle inc MMOs), I will be doing mostly video/image editing work, maybe some 3D cad work in the future, and the 4600's benchmarks don't seem that bad for my price range .

I'm basing my thoughts on the articles here which seem to be a reliable source .

http://www.notebookcheck.net/Intel-HD-Graphics-4600.86106.0.html
http://www.notebookcheck.net/NVIDIA-GeForce-GT-740M.89900.0.html


TLDR - Should I go for 16gb of Ram or a Gaming CPU if I don't plan on gaming heavily + a lot of editing work .

 

GT 740M is a good bit faster, about 70% faster. However since you said that you don't do any gaming, there will be little benefit in performance, just more weight and heat for you. However you noted that you will do some 3D work which will take good advantage of CUDA and such. Photoshop doesn't use as much GPU as it does CPU and RAM, so you should get a good processor such as i7 4700MQ atleast.

My take is that if you don't plan on moving around and carrying your laptop very often, I would go with the GT 740M. However if you are mobile often and weight is a concern, there wouldn't be too much concern staying with an HD Graphics 4600, as it is quite decent for an IGP.

 

Is there any source or place I can read up on the speeds of the 740m, I just like to see numbers to get some peace of mind when I'm buying something or if you explain it a bit more .

Keep in mind the specific version of the 740m is the slower GK208 .

Edit : Also, do Nvidia GPUs support OpenCL ?, I know they use something called Cuda but I know jack- about GPUs . The reason being is that I'm hearing a lot of future updates of production programs I'm using will be switching to OpenCL .

 

notebookcheck is the right place to look at GPUs for the sake of comparison, but you have to dig a little. in 3Dmark2013, the difference seems to be ~30% in favor of the 740m and it will only get better as the drivers get updated. nVidia does OpenCL, but the OpenCL performance compared to an equivalent AMD GPU is abysmal, still better than an Intel IGP though. nVidia has overall better driver support than AMD as well as better switchable graphics technology. Both nvidia and AMD have better driver support than Intel though.

I would still prioritize a full voltage CPU over an ultra low voltage part first, (I have absolutely no idea what laptop model you're looking at) either. Basically, assuming all else is equal, I'd go for the 740m.

 

Right, ok thanks . That's factored in that it's the GK208 model right ? With the halved bandwidth .

Yeah, I'm looking at the 15t Quad Core Haswell Envy with Touchscreen I just needed help deciding between the 16gb of ram vs. the dGPU + 8gb of Ram .

 

I.. think this model turning up could maybe explain a few different things about the bandwidth actually used on the gk107 chip as well.. That maybe all the mobile chips actually don't have more memory lanes than can be used on a "64bit" wide bus in the first place, or perhaps very nearby that..

So basically nvidia would change the layout a little bit, cut down the potential overclock performance slightly, and save a bunch of space/money on the pcb design. Without really cutting performance all that much. Or, that bandwidth performance isn't.. critical to anything to reach the level of performance these cards peak at anyway.

My guess would be that you're going to see very close to stock clock gk107 performance on the gk208 chip, in other words.

(I'd also definitely go with the nvidia card instead of 16Gb ram. Unless you're actually running huge simulation runs constantly while requiring a non-cached presentation with video, sound and so on.. there's rarely much reason to go with that, and if you need it it can be upgraded later (which is difficult with the graphics card). In the same way, if you play video/film, or use any application with 3d graphics (whether it's video editing programs, google maps, or whatever), having one of these dynamically underclocking nvidia cards will save you battery. As well as make sure the picture is drawn properly, without distortion and the usual intel issues.

When using hdmi out as well, you're going to get a better picture, and you could output overlays rendered with the nvidia colour palette and overlay filters, which is going to help a lot with grainy pictures, scaling, etc., etc.)

 

the NVIDIA 740m GDDR3 is basically a slightly souped up GT 650m which was about twice as fast as the Intel HD 4000 at 1366x768. The HD4600 is about 20% faster than the HD 4000 so I assume the gap is a bit less. However, the GDDR3 severely limits meaningful gaming beyond 1366x768 res.

 

Notebookcheck is good for looking up GPU's. Just make sure the benchmarks you are see are for the correct spec GPU you want. Also take into account from what notebook the benchmark was taken from, click on a FPS number in a bench to reveal the notebook used to produce the benchmark score.
I believe what notebookcheck have listed for the 740M is the GK107 core, and not the GK208 core. If you go by this particular spec on notebookcheck then it may not be actuate for you.

btw. The current Envy 15 models available both 15 and 17 are all 740M as of writing. I have checked may models that have been on store display using Nvidia own control panel information, all of which are showing 14 GB/s bandwidth, therefore all are 740M with GK208 cores.

 

I just got my new HP Envy 15 with the GT740m and Intel HD4600. I was impressed with Intel 4600 it scored 8880 on 3dmark 06. The GT 740m 11483 this is with the 4700 Intel cpu turbo boosting to 3320. The GT740 is the 64 bit version. I also own a HP pavillion 6047cl that is an I7 that turbo boosts to 2600. It has a HD 6770m Radeon 1gb with a 128 bit bus.IT beat the 740gt with a score of 11595 and it is is running on a slower cpu and 3 year old tech. For an onboard IGP
the Intel is more impressive. I expected better of the GT 740 than this. To me it is a dissapointment..

 

Yeah, sure. Comparing an older graphics card to a newer one using an outdated benchmark. Now try comparing the 6770m to the 740m using 3dmark 11 and 3dmark 13. Post your results.

 

See:
PassMark - GeForce GT 740M - Price performance comparison

See:
PassMark - Intel HD 4600 - Price performance comparison


Over 60% difference and not in favor of the Intel...

 

there's a clevo with a 740M that has only a 64 bit bus lol.

Review Nexoc M512 (Clevo W650EH) Notebook - NotebookCheck.net Reviews

http://www.notebookcheck.net/typo3temp/_processed_/csm_gpz1_af67a30238.png

That Toshiba one too :

http://www.notebookcheck.com/Test-Toshiba-Satellite-S50-A-10H-Notebook.98150.0.html

Damn, i thought only 730M could come with 64 bits bus. Doesn't seem to impact perfs that much though, as long as u play at 768p.

 

Though I have to wonder if that is the GK1 or GK2 .

If it's the GK1, I would wonder what the difference between the two are benchmark wise .

 

The latest Intel HD GPU's (i.e. 46xx and 5xxx series) have their 3Dmark scores artificially inflated. They may look great on paper but in real world performance it fails to meet that expectation. On the other hand Intel IGP is actually pretty good with OpenCL performance.

It's still a 128-bit bus, just SDR RAM not DDR.



Which is utterly ridiculous. I don't know what that saves them at all. I didn't even know that SDR RAM even existed any more and that it would cost any less.

 

Smaller pcb, fewer lanes, and still almost the same performance as before. So they can both sell it for cheaper than the previous version, and still have a higher profit margin..

 

What is the iGP ?

 

IGP stands for integrated graphics processor.

 

I just realized they clock that 740m with SDR +170MHz faster than stock.