Decision Time! 675MX or 7970M?

I'm looking at the P170EM & P150EM and the price difference between the 675MX and 7970M is minor enough to be equal (at least at my local reseller, YMMV). The only thing stopping me from going 7970M is the enduro problem. Now that the new drivers are out (13.1 & 13.2beta):

1) Are there any utilisation issues left? If so, is it broad (eg. "most DX9 or D10" games) or specific (game X, Y and Z).
2) I understand that 13.1 and/or 13.2 fixed F1 2012 (which was fully broken before?). Are there any other games fully broken?
3) Have all the BSOD, crashes and similar random errors been resolved? (I cannot stand these types of problems)
3) Which GPU would you recommend or buy for yourself, assuming that price is the same.

BTW, the 680M is currently out of my league.

Thanks

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UPDATE:

Thanks for the advice everyone!

I'm ordering tommorow (Pay Day!), and I'm going with the 7970M! The drivers are looking pretty good now and I have plenty of games to catch up on while waiting for new drivers.

Can't wait!

 

hmmm....how urgent is it that u get a new machine right now? no, lemme rephrase that question: how anxious are u to get ur fingers on a new machine right now? cuz even tho most people here talk about "HAVING TO" buy a new machine "RIGHT NOW", they mostly just "WANT" it right now

anyways, long story short: if u can wait just a few months, then ull be able to get a machine with haswell and next-gen gpus and until then ull be able to save up some extra cash for an even better equipped machine i know, lots of people would argue that theres always "something better just around the corner", so theres never a good time to buy. but if u ask me: best time to buy is when new tech is released. that way ull make sure that u get the longest time out of ur system being cutting edge and also avoid buyer´s remorse. same goes for worst time to buy: that being right before new tech comes out. and ure dangerously close to that time now

just saying!

aside from that, i guess it really depends on how much patience u have. if one glitchy game and one BSOD is enough to bring u over the edge, then by all means go green. but if u dont mind a bit of tinkering but insist on the best bang for ur buck, then go red.
performance-wise, id put the 7970M about 30% above the 675MX, which would probably stay the same when both cards are OCed to the max.

in the end, it depends on ur willingness to put in a lil effort or not!

cheers

 

My friend has a P150EM, and he says that 13.x drivers solved most of his BSODs (12.11 beta caused many BSODs and CCC problems) and utilization/FPS (although he only plays a few games like FC3, GW2, BL2, and Tropico 4).

Even with possibly a few minor issues left, the 7970M is still significantly faster, so I'd recommend that if you need the laptop now.

 

I would argue the opposite, if I had to choose between a last gen i7-2840QM versus a this-gen i5-3360M (or whatever), they would both be around the same price (within $30-$40 depending on new, used, etc), but one would obviously overpower the other by almost double (I just checked ). That said, I generally buy the latest AND most expensive so I get the best of both worlds. But then again, I'm an AMD guy, so my latest and best translated to a $1200 laptop

 

I assume the GX60 uses enduro right? Have you had any issues?

In general i am interested to see who can add some more info to this thread. I'm in the same position. I want the 7970M because it's so much more powerful than the 675MX but i seriously don't want to mess around with stupid driver and utilization issues in older (DX9) games. If i can't play DX9 games normally, there's no point in even buying a newer laptop.

 

I totally agree with everything you've said & especially with your 2nd paragraph since I'm in that boat also.I might have to return my 9150 that I just ordered due to that but patience isn't one of my strong suits when it comes to gadgets.

To answer the OP's question, I would wait it out since Haswell is coming. But you are probably going to get a great deal now with new tech looming, though if I had to choose, I would take the risk with the 7970m.

 

How´s that A10 behave? Does it make too much bottleneck with the 7970m? In most reviews it says it does..,,

 

It's pretty even for me. If the 675MX is cheaper by $50 or more, the 675MX is a really great deal. Many resellers have it at $100 less than the 7970M, and in that context, price/performance is actually better for the 675MX. If the 675MX is the same price or more expensive, definitely go for the 7970M. When Enduro drivers are perfected, current GCN mobile cards will be quite the series, but even now the 7970M beats the 675MX. A fully optimized driver could take many months to be developed and released though though, as AMD still has general GCN bugs and optimization issues to deal with already. Those fixes will of course apply to the mobile cards as well, with AMD hardware rep Thracks confirming this to me just recently. There is a dedicated driver team for the mobile series, so there is always something being done for mobile cards.

I can tell you that with the Catalyst 13.1 WHQL driver, I have had zero BSODs with my 7970M. Performance is still great but there is a lot left to be improved, especially in terms of utilization in many specific games. If you bought the 7970M and installed 13.1 WHQL, you can expect a stable experience, but don't expect every game to run perfectly. Most games will run fine, but new games like Far Cry 3 and Assassins Creed 3 are having some issues, though that kind of applies to all GCN cards and not just mobile.

 

Performance on the 7970m should keep improving. Chances are that whatever HD8000 cards are released, they won't be much different from the 7000 series because GCN is still pretty new, so ati probably won't abandon the 7970m in terms of driver updates for a while. Enduro is a work in progress, but the worst seems to be over. The 675MX doesn't have the potential the 7970m has, but it is a solid performer, and consistently so.

 

The bottleneck is marginal. Battlefield 3 (never tried it myself), *allegedly* GTA IV (I get 30FPS minimum with max everything and high res texture mods), Guild Wars WvW (never tried it, but apparently cpu intensive), and ArmA II CO (had to turn view distance down from 10,000, otherwise everything else at maximum with 30FPS+).

I've never had Enduro issues, I started with stock MSI driver, went to 12.12, then to 13.1. 13.1 drivers are icing on the cake, I can play most games up to 2010 on the APU maxed without even needing the 7970M. Kick on the 7970M and it's like strapping extra rockets to your jet pack.

I have the GX60 in my sig, so I'm not running intel anything (happily), and I only paid $1200. There is an upgraded processor coming out soon I plan to swap in - assuming (pretty certain) they are keeping the same socket type - that uncreases CPU performance 20-40%. At that point, there won't be any issue.

FYI the A10-4600M benchmarks at the same performance as an i7-640 and Core 2 Duo whatever the high end Extreme Edition branded one was. But as I said, I don't play BF3 or GW2, and GTA4 and ArmA II are the only two other games people have had "cpu" issues with that I know of, and they run fine for me with very minor tweaks in the case of ArmA II. And let's be real here, ArmA II CO is hell on any machine

I have not found a single other game that required me to turn down a single setting to maintain 25FPS+ nor have I encountered anything that felt "jittery" - hardware physx emulation aside. I even was able to benchmark Batman Arkham City on maximum everything including *hardware* physx acceleration and pull 16fps with physx on max and 22fps on physx medium, 60+fps physx hardware acceleration off. That shows both how big a hit running physx hardware acceleration on a non-nvidia system can drop performance as well as how powerful the system is. Physx max settings requires a dedicated GTX280, medium requires a dedicated 9800 <-- right in the settings.

 

How much do you like tweaking? With some love and effort since the 675mx core is a bit downclocked you should be able to get a lot out of it.

 

right, but on stock voltages w/ OC the 675M isn't going to come anywhere near a 7970M assuming the 7970M is working right. Even with an overvolt i would think it would be hard to match the performance of a stock 7970M let alone a lightly overclocked one. That's why this is such a tough decision... 675MX and your stuff works, 7970M and you may have to deal with some games running terribly.

 

That's why I said how much do you like tweaking because it will take some effort but when pushed it will use around the same power as the 680M does when oced and so should still be fine for 24/7 use.

 

Lol modifying a 220W alienware power adapter to allow for more overclocking is NOT in my plans.

 

Not required unless you plan on overclocking the CPU along with it.

 

Good to know. There still aren't a lot of people posting their overclocking results with the 675MX. So i'm not really sure how far i can expect to push it on stock volts, let alone an overvolt

 

This is my assessment of the 7970M currently.

Enduro is still a work in progress.
- AMD boasts they have Zero-Core tech that only uses 3W of power when idle, except at least on my machine, Zero-Core almost never works. If Zero-Core is working it should say 0mhz, 0mhz since it shuts down almost all of the GPU. Instead, even on battery I see 300 batter, 150 core.
- The applications profile thing is annoyance. AMD really needs to make it simpler, anytime 3D is being used, 7970M should be working and not allow Intel to be used. It's stupid that Intel is often the first to be activated for 3D unless you specify in profiles.

Drivers
- AMD is working on them and I give them credit for that. But right now, AMD is still working backwards, meaning they prioritize desktop first since desktop has more marketing for PC Gaming. But that's because PC Gaming sites are still living 10 years ago. Why they insist to do all their benchmarks and reviews on desktop only when the vast majority of their readers are gaming on laptops.
- AMD still doesn't want to give priority to notebook users who are the majority of their revenue. It's a disgrace.

Game Development
- The current most frequently used and most publicized engine is Unreal Engine 3. This is a problem since Epic Games doesn't make any efforts to work with AMD. With half decade gone, UE3 still runs garbage on AMD, it still has dynamic shadow flickering and striping issues and Epic Games is still incapable of creating a physics engine so all UE3 are packaged with PhysX. Even something as simple as AA still broken on UE3 for AMD, and that is by choice, would seem they purposefully tell the engine to ignore AMD GPUs. Suffice to say, Epic Games kneel before Nvidia still.

If you can get over that, 7970M is a great performing card. But Nvidia definitely has had 3 year head start on AMD. Nvidia Optimus is working better than Enduro and their features are working. Even desktop users are complaining that Zero-Core is broken. And Nvidia has had developers kneeling before them for nearly a decade before AMD has had even a chance since ATI were pushovers previously.

The biggest issue for me is AMD Management.
- AMD is going broke. They have sold away their fabrication to the Middle East. It seems most of their investors are from oil. And they are outsourcing their business to India.
- They are still continuing to try and gain more of the market share for desktop and server products. Which is STUPID since low power servers are the priority right now, AMD server products are high power consumption and desktop sales are just dropping. Really anyone who buys a desktop for home use is now just plain weird. I can understand if you need a workstation if you work from home, but I'm talking about entertainment and home use. Tablets, phones and notebooks. Yet AMD continues to ignore this market segment and continues to provide little support.
- AMD has a rep who posts frequently with dedication on an overclocking forum. But they don't have a rep on any of the mobile tech forums.
- REALLY? Is that really where their priority is? Their priority is marketing for overclockers? C'mon, they are the smallest segment ever! It's the most useless segment too, it's not gaming, it's not work, it's not server, it's not mobile and yet that is where AMD's focus and priority is.

Nvidia on the other hand has been working on Optimus for 3 years. They have Epic Games and Unreal Engine face to balls for almost a decade now. They just announced a mobile gaming device, it's stupid, but at least demonstrates Nvidia's business savvy. And they already have phones using their car wreck called Tegra. Yeah Tegra sucks huge balls and terrible, but at least Nvidia has a product out in the wild.

I guess overall, 7970M may be the last AMD product for me. I can't stand by a company that continues to hire brainless management who continue to think it's good business policy to provide the worst support in the industry for mobile users. Doesn't make sense to me at all. AMD is a sinking ship to me. I've been a fan of ATi/AMD for almost two decades, but I can't do it anymore.

I say go with the 675MX or wait for the next 7xxM. As great as AMD's engineering and hardware is, their management and driver team are seriously demented.

As you can see above, my gripe isn't that 7970M isn't amazing and awesome. It's AMD itself. AMD management and how AMD does business. It's a sinking ship that maybe, it shouldn't be rescued, just let it sink.

 

You'd need to overclock the 675MX's core clock by another 92% (1152.34MHz) and another 33% for the memory clock (2400MHz) to reach the situation you need a PSU larger than 180W, that's with an i7-3740QM plus 2 HDDs plugged into 2 usb ports, a 5.1 channel analog headset and a mouse.

 

With the 3740qm running at 3.9ghz on all 4 cores (with the modified bios on the P150EM).

 

I have always been a big fan of AMD's price/performance ratio and a fan of their products previously, but I agree with an earlier post that AMD's financial and management problems are becoming impossible to ignore. PC game performance is all about the continued cooperation with devs and AMD is too broke and too mismanaged to get into that. I won't buy AMD cards anymore.

 

Dell in Talks to Go Private

I wish AMD would do this.

Sounds like something AMD needs too.

 

I voted GTX 675MX. I'd rather buy the stable, sure thing. I'll overvolt and overclock it, then sit back and have a relaxing session of gaming, while the person who chooses the 7970M is forced to worry and take the time to monitor utilization all day. And if something is wrong, what can you do? Oh right, wait for an AMD driver update. And what if you need AMD to issue an Enduro tweak every other time a new game comes out? Nah, I'll pass.

I do expect an "Enduro 2.0" this year, and at that time I'll re-evaluate the technology. I'm just not messing with this version, ever.

tl;dr - You know in advance the hardware is not performing up to snuff, so why pay for it?

 

I have the 675mx, and I love it. Keep in mind, this is a forum populated by the brightest mobile geeks in the world, who expect, nay DEMAND, the absolute best performance. They also have the expertise to fix it themselves.

If you demand the best, and are willing to tinker, the 7970 is basically the most powerful card out there. You could get lucky and have 0 issues, you could have a nightmare. it's a gamble.

As for the 675mx, I chose it because
1) I am happy running games at one notch below maximum (only game i have to do this for currently is Metro 2033 - everything at highest settings with AA, etc down one notch)
2) I'm cheap. There, I said it.
3) I am smart and tech savvy enough to find this forum, but i am not savvy enough to deal with reinstalling drivers, OS, etc
4) Time. I want to be able to come home, start up my computer, and game. I only have x hours per day/week/month to game, and I wanted something that worked, worked well, and wouldn't have any problems.

My 2 cents, get the 675mx. Since it is a clevo, you can always upgrade to the 680 with minimum hassle. When the next gen GPUs are announced/released, prices for the 680 will go down.

 

As everyone else has said, the AMD card sounds like a driver nightmare. Really depends on you. When you buy that new game do you want to spend the first day tweaking or waiting for driver updates or just jump right in? I am sure nvidia has its issues too, but it there is a higher chance you will have issues with the AMD card

 

I'd say go for the 675mx. I've been a fan of AMD very long time is why I chose the 7970m and really despise Nvidias business practices. But right now, 675mx seems to provide great performance for the price.

 

Thanks for the advice everyone!

I'm ordering tommorow (Pay Day!), and I'm going with the 7970M! The drivers are looking pretty good now and I have plenty of games to catch up on while waiting for new drivers.

Can't wait!

 

By the way, what were the prices for either card in your case?

 

PM me if you need advice setting up your machine. Be happy to help step by step.

 

Hi, I just bought a Clevo p150em with a 7970m. What are the steps I need to take? I comes with Windows 8 pro, but I still have a legal copy of Windows 7 pro laying around. It Is a nice configuration with a 240GB samsung 830 and a 1TB Harddisk. (external bluray).

I also see you have a nice overclock on your 7970m. How did you manage to get these results, and how about the heat?

thanks
demaarten

 

I can answer a couple of those, there are a few video bioses (vbios) for the 7970M that raise it's voltage a little that let it break 1ghz and not produce too much more heat. The program most people use to overclock is MSI afterburner which you need to start with 3d running already or assign it in the CCC to the AMD card.

I would stick with windows 8 just now as it actually makes overclocking easier.

 

Thanks Meaker for the reply,

you can always PM me for more details regarding the Vbios.

I will do a clean install of windows 8 when I get the clevo this week. Any things I should take into account when setting up the machine (like hulawafu77 is considering).
I also read that to update the bios, I need to be in pure dos mode. Does the windows 8 DVD have this option, or do I need to burn a dos boot CD. (It has been ages I went into pure dos mode )

thanks guys

 

why is windows 8 better for overclocking?

thanks