Do I swap my card out for the 680m? (P150EM)

Morning all,

A quick question.

I purchased my P150EM back in Jan complete with the 7970m. I am slowly growing tired of the under utilization issues and lack of driver support, therefor am considering returning my machine and swapping the card out for the 680m instead. I have contacted my reseller and they have offered this change over for a rather competitive price.

Now providing money isn't the issue here, is this worth doing?

I realize the two cards perform as good as each other in some games but I am after consistency and solid drivers.

Please help me out with this choice!

Do i do it or not?

 

good choice. go ahead.

 

For your specific machine, yea, you're probably better off going nVidia if the price is right. I may be an AMD fanboy, but I won't tell you to stay crippled Still, what drivers are you using? I'd heard that most underutilization issues were pretty much solved ever since Catalyst 13.1, let alone 13.2 beta.
Or even better, have you tried the 13.3 beta?
AMD Catalyst

 

I'm running 13.1 at the moment.

The underutilization issues are better granted but I've read that nvidia provides a much smoother experience with the transition between say 40 and 60 fps being unnoticeable unlike the 7970.

 

If you hate it, just swap it out. My understanding is that the utilization issue is still an ongoing fix (do correct me if I'm wrong). It's getting better, but the problem is still there. It also has to depend on the game. I think older games will have worse utilization problems compare to the newer games.

 

Think ive pretty much made my mind up now. 680m has been dispatched from Germany and my laptop is being collected on Monday.

Fingers crossed that I dont regret my decision!

 

you wont. almost welcome to the 680 club.

 

Also very tweakable

Worth seeing if you can find an HM series user to sell that 7970M to since they don't have to worry about enduro.

 

Welcome to the dark side.... I mean green side.......

You won't regret it. I spent USD$300 to do the swap, and never regret for a moment.

Also, you may want to consider doing a clean reinstall on the operating system. For some unknown reason, mine was giving a little goofy hic cup until I did a clean reinstall.

 

Thanks for the reassurance guys.

The upgrade is costing me just shy of £200 so I'm happy enough to part with that in exchange for a smoother performing machine.

I am also upgrading my HDD to the seagate momentus XT 750GB which will have a nice fresh install of windows and drivers to suit the new card.

Machine is being collected on Monday as I need it at the moment to study for my Police final, really excited to get it back greener than ever!

 

Good enough. The 13.3 last few betas don't even work with 7970M. AMD is just disappointing. If price is right later, I'll upgrade to 780M.

 

I would not count on the 780M being cheap.

 

13.3 works on my 7970m just fine.. are you sure you downloaded the mobility version?
Hey OP? Was your card a good overclocker? Mine doesn't like OC's... at all. Was thinking about selling it and getting another.

 

Trudat. He's better off getting a 2nd hand 680mx or similar imo.

 

I don't think you can currently put a 680mx in a Clevo.

 

Yep agree.


Removed all ATI installs
Installed Clevo 7970 drivers
Installed Mobilty 13.3 beta

Worked Perfectly FC3 fps have gone through the roof, now getting ful locked 60fps (vsync) with max settings, haven't seen any crashing or weird artifacts. Crysis 3 bumped up by about 20%. Much improved and seem very stable for me.

 

Ah my bad. GTX 680m all the way !

 

Clock a 680M and you will get all the major benefits the 680MX offers.

 

Just a quick update, 680m installed and absolutely delighted with the results.

Have it clocked slightly on stock bios and its an absolute powerhouse.

Also I cannot fault the service received from mysn UK.

 

Congrats and welcome to the club. Hope you have apply good thermal paste along with the aluminum foil mod. Let the thermal paste sit in for the next couple of days (curing time) and then time for some overclocking. You should be able to do a min +100 to GPU and +500 to memory at stock.

 

congrats Sherlock and welcome to the 680 club

 

Machine was returned to supplier for fitting.

What tempts are acceptable for gaming?

 

Typically, it should be around 75 degree under max load with overclocking. Without overclocking, you are looking at around 70 degree C. Your max temp is totally dependent on your ambient.

 

Yeah, the 680M can run much cooler than the 7970M, max temp is throttle at 91-93C.

 

Sweet.

Absolutely loving this card.

Smashing through Farcry 3 like a hot knife through butter.

If ANYONE is considering the jump from ATI to Nvidia then all I can say is DO IT!

On a final note, thanks again to mySN UK who provided a flawless service and communications throughout.

 

Really? Mine stays stable (As in, completes 3DMark11, withstands some 30 minutes of Kombustor, plays my games) @950/1500MHz OC. I do notice some throttling and tearing in SC2 sometimes, but it's not really bothering me. I'm somewhat shocked that the computer (or rendering) slows down on some SC2 maps with lots of units. I didn't think SC2 (on ultra) could even touch the ceiling of what this generation of GPUs can do. Or maybe it's just other people in the map lagging and affecting my game. I should start a 1-player map and get back to you on it