7970M vs 680M in a P370EM

Hi all,

I've pretty much settled on getting the P370EM. Aside from the alienwares, this clevo is the only option I've found that is 17", has the biggest GPU options and doesn't suffer from Enduro or Optimus issues on the Linux side of things. At least according to the reading around I've done.

Problem is, I'm having a difficult time finding any performance data comparing the 7970m and 680m in the same machine. Can anyone tell me how these two compare when Enduro and Optimus isn't a factor?

If you had to choose, which would you get and why?

Thanks in advance

 

You can look at benchmarks of both cards, they don't have to be on the np9370.

Optimus/enduro make it so that your laptop runs on integrated graphics when the dedicated graphics are not needed. They do absolutely nothing when the dedicated card is in use. The problems people experience are from Optimus/enduro not allowing the dedicated graphics to be used.
http://www.notebookcheck.net/Review-GeForce-GTX-680M-vs-Radeon-HD-7970M.77110.0.html is a great comparison. It completely applies to your system.

 

If you don't care about how much you are spending, then the 680M is the better choice. It runs cooler, its faster, draws less power(?) and its based on a better desktop GPU. It is better overall (but not far better than the 7970M). 7970M is much better value for the money, and it would also be cheaper to upgrade to crossfire later on.

So if you want the best card, and don't mind spending the premium, the 680M is your choice. If you want a near equal performer for less money, get the 7970M.

 

Right, I totally understand how it all works. And on the windows side of things, AMD appears to be correcting the issues. On the Linux side, from what I've read, things are much more dismal. Reading around at phoronix leads me to believe that the dedicated GPU isn't being used. In order to avoid waiting for nvidia and AMD to fix those, I opted to bypass it altogether. Hence, narrowing down my choice to a few alienwares (because it can be disabled in the BIOS) and the 370EM (which just bypasses it all together).

Believe it or not, I ran across the link you posted a few months back. But as I understand, AMD has ironed out a few things. Which is why I was hoping for user feedback.

Thanks for your input

 

on a non-enduro system such as the p370em the 7970m and the 680m trade blows and neither of the two gpus can beat the other by more than a few % when looking at overall performance.
both cards have shown to be very good overclockers, although the 680m is a tad better in that regard since its based off a better desktop cpu as mentioned before. but even in that regard, the difference in performance is limited to less than 10%.
as for crossfire/sli, i dont have any personal experience with dual gpu setups, but the general consensus seems to be that sli scales better than crossfire and causes less microstuttering.
when it comes to power consumption and temps both gpus kick butt pretty much. with idle temps of 38-39°C and load temps of high 70s to low 80s with a 20% OC after 20min. of msi kombustor and idle wattage hovering around 25W for a single-gpu non-switchable graphics 7970m system, i wouldnt really say that the 680m would be significantly better

cheers

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