Ati Radeon 6990M CrossFire(dual) vs 1 nVidia GeForce GTX 580M

I'd like to get opinions on getting a Dual AMD Radeon HD 6990M, 4GB GDDR5 CrossFire vs a single GeForce GTX 580M ? Which would be a better buy or what would you prefer? Thanks

 

dual all the way

 

Obviously the xFire 6990Ms will be more powerful than a single 580M, but at the cost of complexity, reliability, battery life and weight. xFire/SLI setups can cause microstutters and other performance issues if the game and drivers do not get along well.

 

Haven't heard of Microstutters before. The driver issues with a dual setup is the biggest factor why I am leaning towards the nvidia 580m single. May i ask, what is your opinion on the screen types available. Would it be wise to go for the
17.3" FHD 16:9 Glare super clear ultra bright LED glossy screen w/ 90% NTSC Color Gamut (1920x1080) over a 17.3" FHD 16:9 120Hz 3D matte super clear ultra bright LED (1920x1080) screen ? Thank you for your opinions !

 

A xFire/SLI setup can have a microstutter because they use alternate frame rendering, which means that the GPUs take term rendering frames:

ex.
Frame 1: GPU 1
Frame 2: GPU 2
Frame 3: GPU 1
etc.

The GPUs are not perfectly synced up, so it is possible to have a bit of a hitch or microstutter develop due to sudden frame rate drops. Or at least that is how it works to the best of my knowledge. The companies update new drivers continuously which helps to minimize the problem, but it can still be pronounced, especially if the game doesn't "like" the drivers or SLI/xFire.

The 90% Gamut screen will definitely look awesome, but idk if it supports 3D, not sure how important that is to you. I also prefer the glossy over the matte finish, but that's personal preference.

 

That's only one method of SLI/Crossfire in use though. You were mentioning AFR (Alternate Frame Rendering), but there is also SFR (Split Frame Rendering) as well as SLI Antialiasing. This link explains them pretty well:

Scalable Link Interface - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The Nvidia drivers are typically optimized with profiles so that each supported game uses the mode it does best with. AMD Crossfire uses very similar methods to SLI.

As for the microstuttering mentioned before, it seems to be subjective as well. Some people are more sensitive to it that others. I for one have a hard time noticing it while others do.

Micro stuttering - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

 

Great information! Thank you to the both of you.

 

Everything I have read always says if you are choosing between 1 card that can do what you need or 2 cards that can do what you need, you are generally better off going with the one card solution. Far better compatibility across the board (read: more gaming, less screwing with drivers and waiting on patches trying to get the game to run smoothly in crossfire/sli ).

You didn't say why you were faced with this particular choice. I assume it is because you can currently buy two 6990m's for just slightly more than the cost of one 580m. However, NVIDIA dropped the price of the 580m drastically at the beginning of November, but for whatever reason Sager hasn't updated their prices to reflect this huge drop. I am guessing that it may have something to do with their Price Protection Guarantee through the end of the year.

MSI is supposedly coming out with a GT780DXR with the 580m in the next couple of weeks, and perhaps in light of the recent price drop on the 580m they will not be charging such an enormous premium. If so, I am guessing Sager will have a lot of pressure to drop their price on the 580m right after the first of the year when they will no longer have to refund money to all of the folks who paid up big for the 580m this holiday season.

I was ready to pull the trigger on a Sager w/ a 6990m over the Black Friday weekend, but ultimately decided to wait and see what happened right after the first of the year. I am thinking the 580m should be within $70-$80 of the 6990m at that time (performance wise, that's where they belong, or even closer). Of course, Sager does have the 6990m on sale right now for $100 off, so that may be hard to pass up if you think that will be gone after the first.

Just my two cents, maybe I'm wrong, maybe I'm right.

 

first of all please stop comparing dual amd cards to single nvidia! . If bulk is not an issue and the prices about the same, then why not get a amd cf and disable one card if you have issues with drivers? I am sure there is a way to do that!

 

Rick_in_ICT, you seem well informed on the 580m new price range. I couldn't find this answer so I'll ask here: Do you think Sager will allow upgrades to the new price of the 580m if they decide to lower their current price? I would hate to wait for early next year (given if they adjust the 580m price) and find out that only new orders are eligible for the reduced 580m pricing.

In terms of non dual GPU setups:

The premium of the 580m makes me consider a 6990m Instead but then I would not be able to take advantage of my adobe programs using CUDA for Mercury Playback Engine and Rendering.

I wonder will Sager really remburse the price difference of the 580m for those who ordered during the holiday sales.

Pull the plug and go for a 580m or 6990m.... (currently unsolved)

 

They will NOT reimburse you. If you order a machine and BEFORE it ships a new price is available, you have to cancel and re-order. Once you paid em you paid em, as far as I know. If an update comes out (560M replacing 460M for same price), before it ships you can call them and state you want a 560M instead, and they would comply. As for CUDA, I cannot live without it. A single 580M is pretty powerful on its own, rivaling the GTX 560TI in desktop land, just slightly underclocked. Since a 560TI can break most games at ultra settings, and for those DX11 monsters like BF3/Metro 2033/etc with unoptimized engines, you could settle for just high settings.... I would rather take my PhysX and CUDA if I used those programs that take advantage of it more often. Also, AMD is not known to be great with driver updates. nVidia is moving swimmingly with driver updates as of late, but it depends on what YOU want. A single 6990M will not outperform a 580M, so games which have SLI/Crossfire issues that'd have you disable your multi-GPU solution and force only 1 GPU being active, you'd still be underpowered in those situations vs the single card. Granted, those situations are rather rare, but it exists. And microstuttering occurs because both GPUs don't render at the same time. It stutters when you get sub-30 FPS in a game. If your game is consistently above 30 FPS you should never encounter microstuttering.

You need to think long about what you would want to do with your machine. If it's gaming-only, then the crossfire setup may be the better choice. If you use CUDA-enabled software enough that it makes you say "Ah... I love CUDA..." in a lovey-dovey fashion, then that has to be a factor in your decision as much as gaming performance would be. If you honestly believe what the guy with 5 posts on the forum about the 580M, and if he is CORRECT (I'm not saying he isn't, but he's not exactly a reliable source), then you might be better off waiting for the price drop on the 580M. For all we know you may be able to get SLI 580M's for within $100 or so of the price you would have paid for the SLI 6990M's, especially of the price of the 580M would drop to be within $60 - $100 of the single 6990M as that guy suggested it might. But it's all up to you, I'd say 1 month for an attempt at that would be little consequence.

 

Alright, thank you.

 

Looks like "the guy with 5 posts" is right says the guy with 1 post!
Nvidia dropped the price of their GTX 580m early November.
From "reliable sources":
AnandTech - NVIDIA GeForce GTX 580M Receives Major Price Cut
Big Price Cut on the GTX 580M | Best Gaming Laptop
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 580M gets huge price cut :: TweakTown USA Edition

Alienware sure looks like the way to go if anyone is after Nvidia's mobile GPU flagship the GTX 580m over the 6990m from AMD/ATI. At least Dell passes on the saving to their customers...

Any "official rep" from Clevo would care to comment? Because so far none of you have... And/if you are unable to justify why you aren't passing on price cut at the moment can you at least give people an indication of when you/Clevo are planning on dropping your prices too.

Thanks.

 

No, I think I'd still go with Clevo for a 580m. I hate Dell's customer support, and even with the 580m price cut Alienware is still more expensive.

 

Maximum PC | Nvidia: It?s Time to Kill CUDA

 

It's too bad that was written in 2009, as as far as I know, DX11 is out and there haven't been any PhysX-like APIs built in. Besides, if they give up CUDA and embrace universal laws, they have to drop their price and use leverage to buy nVidia cards based on PhysX alone, which isn't even a very widely used feature in games... That's not very promising for them. People who want to do video editing and such will buy nVidia to help with the processing. If it embraces OpenCL (which may not even be half as potent as CUDA), and AMD embraces OpenCL too, what purpose is there to buy nVidia cards for specific needs? I don't think that would help them at all.

 

I'm pretty sure all the Sager resellers are offering price protection until Dec 31.

 

Is it likely to see a 580m price cut by Sager after Dec 31?

 

Actually, the dual 6990m is still cheaper than 1 580m Simply amazing. $325 for the 6990m's vs $475 for a single 580m.
Any other opinions?

 

2009 so it isnt true?

MaximumPC was right, it may not be so good for them right away but really in the long run OpenCL will be more appealing for everyone it seems.