485M vs 6970M

Point of this thread:

Point 1: When i was younger (6 years or so ago - 2005) i had a Geforce 5200. A year later, i sold that for a geforce 6600. Then, i finally got a laptop with a 8600MGS; a Hp dv9000. I got my taste of mobile gaming. ANyway, I've always been geforce. So, even with the 6970 coming out, I'm still thinking 485M.
Any reason why one should shell out more for the 485M over the cheaper 6970??
3d vision? better drivers? more games support? any reason?

Point 2: Now that many 8150s will be shipping with the 6970M, can we get GPU performance comparisons?
screenshots, 3dmark, temperatures.
Maybe i'm starting this thread way too early.

<I couldn't find a thread discussing 485M vs 6970M. So, sorry if there already is one>

 

For me, the reason to go 6970M probably would be
"why am I paying $200-300 more to get something that is of around the same performance".

I guess this thread maybe alittle too early. But, nevertheless the comparisons should start to gush in when 6970M commence sales. Eurocom Racer review should pretty much tell you the performance of it against 485M.
Eurocom Racer: Why the Radeon HD 6970M Rocks - AnandTech :: Your Source for Hardware Analysis and News

 

Below is one comparison...

_

 

I just stumbled upon this article; as i was reading, you posted this. So, you are also here in NBR eh??

ANY Chance the 485M will price drop due to competition?? It didnt so far, even when the 6970Ms came to the 17 inch clevo laptops.

 

Haha. I was surfing in this forum for awhile already.
I doubt Nvidia will feel the pressure to do a price drop.

 

So what are you planning on getting. I was ready to make the purchase of an 8150 with the 485M and stopped for two reasons
1.the intermittent freezes people are talking about.
If we are unable to fix it/if its an unfixable hardware issue, then shipping it through mucro to the US and waiting for two months would be a nightmare.

2.the 6970M. looks like babyhemi posted a great comparison. The 485M is faster but not by an amount that justifies the price.

 

I did a bunch of research on these before I bought a x7200 with 6970s in xfire. I own and have owned both manufacturers, so I am not a fanboi.

The 485m IS faster - by a tiny bit. If you want the fastest card, that is the way to go.

The 6970m IS cheaper - MUCH cheaper - and only slightly slower - at low resolutions. If you look at gaming performance at most laptop's native resolution (1900 x 1200) the 485m performance edge all but disappears. That is not a bright-line rule, but generally that is what I have seen from the various benchmarks.

I chose the 6970m. Almost same performance for far less is a big win for AMD, IMHO. Frankly, Nvidia got their teeth kicked in this time. Its good competition though, and will lead to price cuts or performance gains in the future, so its all good.

Just my opinion.

 

I have not been reading that thread that in depth. Isn't the freezes more likely due to driver issues? My friend is using 8130 since launch, I never heard him having these problems.

So you are planning to buy from Mucro? CubeHub really that bad?
Sigh. I want a Matte screen. Our resellers really CMI. Services like crap, business scale not extensive. If not for the GST and shipping costs.

 

If the prices are as suggested, there's no reason to go 485M at all.

3d Vision and Optimus aren't enabled on the 485M.

Game support is a wash between AMD and Nvidia these days.

Better drivers.. everyone argues about this back and forth, but with Nvidia recently having killed the desktop GTX 590 with what they call "bad drivers" I wouldn't give the edge to anyone.

Better performance? Kind of, look at this:
Eurocom Racer: Why the Radeon HD 6970M Rocks - AnandTech :: Your Source for Hardware Analysis and News

The two pretty much trade blows across all settings according to average FPS, and if you look at individual benchmarks, the 1920x1080 settings are actually better for the 6970M as in they trade blows far more than 1600x900 - so the 6970M actually does better at native res

As for battery life, the 6970M actually got 30 minutes more idling, and is neck and neck with internet browsing. I don't expect anyone to game off battery either

The price difference is just too staggering for me to justify the 485M for what bonuses it has to offer

 

Yeah, I know the matte screen is a beauty. But don't fret too much. Like I said a good anti-glare screen like the pleomax is going to make the glossy go away. But the same cant be said for the color gamut.

See the 95% color gamut screen photos here: http://forum.notebookreview.com/sag...-between-different-screen-options-photos.html
And here are Logical Blue One's pics: http://forums.whirlpool.net.au/archive/1652071 Download their zip file. Its worth drooling over.

Im going with Mucro because its lower priced; im thinking Cubehub charges for all that free stuff they throw (that no one in their right mind would fall for). Not only is it lower priced, but if you pay up the extra 95 SGD, they will cover any shipping to the US for major repairs.

I apologize to others if this thread has been become a "b**ing about singapore resellers thread"

Edit: I posted about the freezing issues in HWZ, but as you know, no ones got it yet here. So, i dont know what to think of it lah

 

I've always been an Nvidia guy as well, but the price difference is too big to ignore. AMD drivers are fine now, plus you get free MLAA.

My main motivation, is the the 6970M + LED upgrade = price of the GTX 485M. Why shouldn't I take 2 for 1? It appeals too greatly, to my common sense.

 

1. yeah, i read about the burnout of the GTX 590. saw a youtube video too: YouTube - Geforce GTX 590 burns @ SweClockers.com

2.But the NP8150 comes with the duallink dvi with which you can have a 120hz projector or monitor + Nvidia Kit and have 3d up and running.
yes, there is no optimus. If you read the stuff on these two threads, you wont want optimus:
http://forum.notebookreview.com/sager-clevo/567232-optimus-tech.html
http://forum.notebookreview.com/sager-clevo/550745-enable-optimus.html

 

Hi Kevin_Jack2.0. Sorry if this is too naive. Whats MLAA? <i cant google and find out cause acronyms just return junk>

What is the LED upgrade? you mean the matte screen?

I want you to have a look here http://forum.notebookreview.com/sager-clevo/567122-im-indecision-land-3.html#post7333470 and tell us in the other thread what you think.

 

In the same boat...ready to pull the trigger, just waiting for pricing and matte screen availability on a 8170. Basically opting for the 6970 + Matte screen over stock screen and 485M.

 

Morphological Anti Aliasing

 

maybe he means Morphological Anti-Aliasing (MLAA)
[TIPS] What is the Morphological Anti-Aliasing (MLAA)? - 3D Tech News, Pixel Hacking, Data Visualization and 3D Programming - Geeks3D.com

Malaysia buyer (like me) also facing a dilemma to choose whehter to order from cubehub or mucro. I've heard some buyers in malaysia have ordered from mucro.

 

Yes I'm well aware of Optimus' issues

If you read the Alienware M17xR3 485M gpu thread, you'd see 3d is a major issue with Nvidia's implementation as well.

And besides, AMD has enabled 3D support on the 6900M GPU's - though it is a lot more primitive than Nvidia's, it's duallink DVI won't be put to waste

 

People are saying the freezes are ram related... That said, if I hadn't purchased in January I'd have gone ATI this time around (I wonder if Eyefinity works on it?) Over the course of the laptop's life though that $200 becomes $.33 a day which isn't that bad

 

Thanks. So, malaysian buyers normally hang out on Lowyat right??
Neither mucro or cubehub is giving all the extra features everyone here is having. *SIGH - matte screen* And probably the 6970M will be added on their lists only a good two weeks from now - so thats another wait for us.

AH, that Nvidia's 3d is having issues with alienware is news to me.
ANd i have heard nothing about AMD 3D support. Will google.
Thats the thing: I cannot remember starting up a game and not hearing "Nvidhiaaaaaa" AMD (or ATi) never makes itself known, IMO.

 

yup, they (including me) hang out in lowyat, and some of them receive the unit already (from mucro or cubehub).

I would like to buy from them, but they don't have option to sell the unit without RAM to make the unit cheaper. And I end up buying from R&J Tech.

I was hoping the singapore reseller have lots of options to customize the laptop (eg. matte screen, barebone, etc), or sell graphics card MXM module.

 

I'm going with the 90% glossy upgrade. The screen is gorgeous.

I'll post in that thread, shortly.

 

Nvidia paying lots of money for marketing is largely irrelevant these days... AMD gained a ton of GPU market share over the past few years and so developers - especially for popular games - aren't as willing to lose out on a large chunk of the market by heavily supporting Nvidia, unlike in the past, which wouldn't matter anyways since games 3+ years old shouldn't tax any of these GPUs.

Yeah there's cases where Nvidia has a large lead in relatively recent games, such as HAWX2, but even then we're arguing 130fps vs. 70 fps

 

Let me add MAFIA II and BATMAN AA to that list. Both kick-a** games IMO.
YouTube - Mafia II by 2K Games Trailer featuring NVIDIA PhysX technology this is worth a watch. I already got a copy of this game, waiting to purchase the 8150.

And here is an entire thread where the OP wants to know if PHYSX can run with AA.
http://forum.notebookreview.com/sag...run-high-physx-batman-aa-single-gtx-485m.html

Can anyone tell me the AMD equivalent of the following Nvidia Features??
1.3D vision
2.PhysX
3.Optimus

EDIT: lets pretend im not an Nvidia fanboy. I don't want to be one! Going back and reading my posts, I felt my statements made me look like one though. Im not. HONEST!

EDIT2: "Four years ago AMD did the unthinkable: it announced the 5.4 billion dollar acquisition of ATI in a combination of cash and stock............... In the years post acquisition, many criticized AMD for blowing a lot of money on ATI and having little to show for it. "

Source: An Article from sept 2010. A good read. http://www.anandtech.com/show/3878/farewell-to-ati-amd-to-retire-the-ati-brand-later-this-year

 

Good thing I got a really nice christmas gift that will allow me to go for the 2720, 485, ssd, and the upgraded screen although I suppose it's an extremely belated gift at this point lol

I'm anxious to see if the 485 drops in price soon due to the 6970.. If it does, hopefully I'll be able to get some $ back since it'll be within the 30 day return period (which means I could just return it and re-order the same thing. Although I assume there's a restocking fee) Maybe? we'll see how mice Myth is..

 

Honestly idk, if loyalty is a good thing to have in tech. I have a really crappy IGP in my current lappy, but that didnt turn me off of nvidia, and my bro has a desktop, and tells me I should get ATI, cuz they have better drivers. and I was about to go with the envy 14 because of this, but I figured I would do my own research, and came across a great deal in this sandy bridge laptop. yeh its nvidia, but if I say a better deal with an equivalent ati card I could easily go the other way. Maybe its just because I haven't been into tech as long, but I really have no loyalties either way, seems kind of silly when the only thing that should matter is price and performance.

 

1: AMD HD3D

2: GPU accelerated Bullet Physics, its open source and works on other hardware too.

3: AMD does have some kind of switchable GPU tech, but the only thing that i could say is similar to Optimus would be Apples Intel IGP / AMD discrete switchable solution.

Extra: Nvidia CUDA? AMD Stream

 

Not to mention that Switchable Graphics for AMD is available for high-end GPUs as well, such as the HD6970M (if the mobo allows for it) rather than just mid-range cards such as the GT 540M.

 

alienware m17x R3 has switchable graphics for it's 6970.. my cousin is pushing 4-6ish hours on his while using the integrated graphics

 

That article isn't about AMD graphics doing bad - it's about AMD's business in general. AMD blew money on ATI right as their K8 line was kicking Intel's P4 butt all over the place. But right as AMD bought ATI, Intel was about to unleash the Core 2 line of processors and AMD had no counter. And, with the purchase, AMD spent a lot of money that could've been used in research & development and keeping up with Intel, because CPUs are a lot more profitable than GPUs ever will be.

But, AMD blowing money on it is starting to reap benefits for them. First, they've launched their Fusion products in the form of Zacate, and are now shipping Llano. In fact, the ATI division was the only profitable part of them for the past few years, as they crushed Nvidia in gaining market share... the 4xxx and 5xxx generations seriously beat down the GT 2xx and GT 4xx generations in sales for a good chunk of time. Trust me, I've been watching this sector for years - the discrete GPU market went from something like 70-75% Nvidia vs. 25-30% ATI after the Nvidia 8800's to where it's something like 45-55 / 50-50. Huge change in 5 years.

As others wrote, AMD has HD3D, open source physics, and in the case of switching, the GPUs have it too.

In fact, AMD GPUs use MUXes instead of routing the GPU through the IGP, which is why AMD can straight up shut down the discrete GPU when it's not in use. It requires motherboard support though, but the Alienware m17xR3 with 6970M has it and has incredible battery life.

To each their own of course, but honestly, from my perspective, the few advantages Nvidia has shown in terms of 3D, PhysX, and CUDA are very niche features, and in the games where Nvidia has a drastic developer advantage, the games aren't graphically intense enough in the high end GPU realm to matter

 

Goldmax Racer ? Sandy Bridge a HD 6970 v 15,6" balení Here is lots of benchmarks of HD6970M in our Goldmax Racer notebook. (rebranded Eurocom Racer in Europe)

 

Thanks for all that info. I am new on the Clevo scene. And i cant say that I follow GPU news.
Also this: http://forum.notebookreview.com/sag...i-switch-out-my-485m-6970m-5.html#post7339363
I apologize if the thread became a AMD vs Nvidia thing.

I don't know what you mean by NICHE features. Certainly they are not fancy nomenclature thrown about? And atleast in this i can put my foot down a little and say that I have seen enough and more developer videos talking about Nvidia sending a team over to optimize their games. I won't care to list them all (cause i cant remember many ). Ofcourse, I must say that I haven't searched for instances of AMD doing this; but then neither did i search for such instances with Nvidia; they just appear on gametrailers.com, youtube, dev diaries etc. YouTube - Age of Conan and the Dreamworld Engine using NVIDIA PhysX latest one from the NVidia channel.

EDIT: found this http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/nvidia-physx-hack-amd-radeon,2764.html good read, I think.
EDIT2:WOW, I read the whole thing. And it doesn't look like you will be using GPU-based PHYSICS features with the AMD 6970 card. They have some tweaking software that you can use but that seems to be for desktops with an NVIDIA CARD & an AMD CARD. Any enthusiasts here to tell us otherwise??? After searching a bit more, I get what you meant by NICHE. Very few games use Physx. I thought most did these days. It still remember Mirror's Edge Physx footage that stunned me.
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YET ANOTHER THREAD SUMMARY

Lets get down to the narrow topic this thread started with:
1. so you guys convinced me that AMD has 3D, some physx equivalent, and even switching with MUXes (which sounds better). This article doesnt sound so positive about MUX-switching though: Nvidia Optimus Review - Notebookcheck.net Reviews

2.BUT THE MORE FUNDAMENTAL QUESTIONs are:
Hardware Stuff: All confined to the Sager/Clevo.
(a)can 6970 do 3D on the 8150/8170? ------------ 485M can
(b)can 6970 do switching on the 8150/8170? ---------- 485M can't
(c)will it have heat issues?? So far we have heard (relatively) great temps from 485M.
(d)Heat-Sink issue??

Software stuff: This is general and not confined to Sager alone.
(d)Will some game like Arkham City coming out this year have some features that the 6970 wont show?? Can you show me the Physx explosions in Arkham city with an AMD GPU??
EDIT2: FOund out that there is NO GPU-based PHysics acceleration if you get the 6970.
(f)Driver support as s***ty as NVidia's?? still no official verde support for the 485M

PRICE Stuff:
(a)6970 wins
(b)Will 485M price-drop?

 

a) neither does 3D "on" either. i know the 485 does 3D "out" though. not sure about the 6970.
b)neither will do graphics switching
c)can't imagine the 6970 would run any hotter than the 485 assuming you use the correct heatsink. both are 100w
d)issue, idk. but resellers have told me that indeed there is a different heatsink

 

There is a high chance i will recieve my notebook next week, so if anyone want benchies, il try my best to provide them.
(GPU arrives April 10th, then a short build time = epic winning)

 

(a) Neither can do it on the screen on the Clevo
(b) Neither switch on the Clevo - and in the case of Optimus for Nvidia, they can't output it on a 120Hz screen - but switching exists on the Alienware for the 6970
(c) Can't see it being much worse than the 485M
(d) No clue

 

A 3D version of the 8170 is in the pipeline according to this thread here: http://forum.notebookreview.com/sager-clevo/567547-clevo-p170hm3.html

 

im upgrading to gtx485m sli for crysis 2 in 3d vision
just $160usd more then 6970m cf

edit
or wait gtx580m(use gf114=gtx485m oc)( "someone in china"already testing es card, nda june) and hd6990m(maybe 1120sp blackcomb xt?)
or quadro 5010m 4gb gddr5

 

You have the cards on your laptop?

 

All I've received confirmation on regarding heatsink is it's different between 5870 and 6970 not 6970 and 485m. Hopefully we can get confirmation from a Clevo builder or reseller?

 

I was told by various resellers that it would be a different heatsink from the 485..

 

It would be good to know.

You are making me cry "nda june" means what??

I think i have a few more points why one could opt for the 485M: linking back to that other thread on 485M vs 6970M http://forum.notebookreview.com/sag...i-switch-out-my-485m-6970m-5.html#post7342555

 

"nda june" means the NDA on the GTX 500M ends in June.

 

but that time maybe we can see some like notebook check post the es sample testing............then retailer put it on configuration...........the we get the card>>>>>will be few months later
now most of 485m can easily oc the core/memory, and other spec is same from 580m
if the hd6990m is 1120sp, will most of 6970m can be unlock to 1120 and run stable via bios flash? i dont think so.................

 

And 6990M will likely be cheaper than the 485M.

 

Weren't there rumors that the 6970M could be unlocked somehow to become a 6990M in some models? Was that true? Is that batch done with?

 

Wow, CF/SLI scaling is terrible in mobile applications. Is there any specific reason why scaling is so much better on desktops?

 

That took an engineering sample from a very specific batch. It was never even replicated.

 

I'm waiting for the next-gen GPUs

so I can decide what's the time to choose a new laptop with 3D and 17 screen.

now every body love 485 & 6970 , but in my 860 there's only a 470

performance significantly decreased in games like 《homefront》/1080p

no way to solve the problem (288cuda vs 384 cuda)

except waiting ...

I heard 860 could equip a 6970 , and I hope 860 can also equip a gtx570m .

485m can't be placed into 860cu . this time I support 6970 because it's quite a fair price , equal to 470 but performance up 30%+

this is my 470 oc score , just a GTS450(desktop) , please wait for powerful mobile GPUs like me

 

Hi i would definitely agree if the question was only about upgrading your current 470M.

But when the question is about buying an entire laptop now (especially when having no laptop at all like me) then its a different issue entirely, I'm sure you would agree.

 

i believe this debate has kinda been solved.. if you've got the money and like the eye candy, go for the 485. if you're on a "budget" (these are still $1600+ rigs lol) then go for the 6970. maybe use the money you didnt use to upgrade other things (ssd, screen, proc, ram, whatever..). seems pretty straightforward to me

i do appreciate the info given about physx though. didnt know too much about it before, but i've learned much between this thread and the other (similar) one

 

What hizzaah said. Unless you have absolute need for PhysX or 3D, then IMHO, you're wasting your money by getting the 485m. If I were ordering mine today, I would have gone the 6970m route and either pocketed the cash or bought a better display, especially knowing what I know now.

The 90% gamut glossy seems to have much better viewing angles than the stock or matte screens, which seems to be the biggest complaint. I love matte but the viewing angles do get on my nerves time and again. I'll probably splurge for a better screen down the road when I get the money.