nVidia 880m vs 870m SLI vs K3100

I am in need of a new laptop and I will be going off to university soon so I'm thinking of investing in a high end laptop for my studies in architecture. Since I will be using a lot of AutoCAD, 3D Max, Photoshop, Illustrator, Vegas, and other heavy programs and some 3D rendering, I found the NP9377-S or the NP8298. With the NP9377-S I have the options of getting SLI 870m or a single 880m due to budget limits or the NP8298 with the K3100. All of the options will have Intel i7-4810MQ, 16GB RAM, 128 GB mSATA, and 1TB HDD. I need help choosing! Any other suggestions welcome! Thanks!

 

Whats the budget?

Sent from my C1905 using Tapatalk

 

If you are banking on your card doing workstation-class work, then the K3100 should be your deal. If you do NOT require all your 3D work to be GPU-accelerated, you could still use CUDA (however watered down it may be) with the consumer-class cards and have a more gaming-focused machine. That being said, the 870M SLI will FAR defeat a single 880M unless you're johnksss and turn an 880M into a GTX 780Ti in an alienware that may or may not be actually placed over an open AC vent (I still swear he cools his system with magic and/or 3.5 fairies instead of fans). Unless you play games that don't care about SLI, like... DayZ the Arma 2 mod. Which benefits 0% from using SLI in servers. Or... Titanfall. Which will probably never get SLI support. Or battlefield 3. Which is so limited by your CPU that I can't even get 120fps constant on minimum graphics with my system. Or CS:GO. Which happily gives me 130-240 fps fluctuating while using exactly 30% of both of my cards. Which is to say it could do this with ~60% of a single card. Which is to say a single 870M will eat that game for breakfast. Or games like the Binding of Isaac, Amazing Spider-Man 1 & 2, Final Fantasy VII & VIII steam versions, Prototype 2, Double Dragon Neon, etc which won't touch SLI with a 25.7 foot pole.

For some reason, though, Blizzard's Hearthstone uses SLI. Go figure.

Anyway, if you do not plan to frequently play any of the above games and plan to venture out and play other games that I did not list (such as Bugfield 4, Call of Duty-anything, Left 4 Dead 1 and 2, Dark Souls 2 with GeDoSaTo, Thief, Skyrim (if using ENB/RCRN, simply force Alternate Frame Rendering 2 aka AFR 2 in nVidia control panel), Fallout New Vegas, Far Cry 3, Crysis 2, Crysis 3, etc? SLI will be your friend. Yes. Bake it cookies.

Anyway, short summary: Is great GPU acceleration in workstation software very important? K3100. Is gaming more important? Yes? Do you play mostly SLI-friendly games? 870M SLI. Do you rarely touch SLI friendly games? 880M & wait for the unlocked vBIOS.

 

around $2500 but certainly less than $3000

 

The K5100M would give you the best of both worlds as it has about 90% of 780M's performance at stock. Of course it also costs a lot more than the K3100M.

 

I'm sorry, i don't really understand... what does GPU accelerated mean?
Also, if i choose to go with the K3100, is any kind of gaming out of the question?
Thanks

 

GPU acceleration means you're going to use the video card to assist the programs in doing their job. I.E. workstation-class cards like the K3100/K5100 would probably benefit something like Adobe Photoshop a LOT more than an 880M would, because they're built to aid such programs. They CAN game, but they aren't designed for gaming and will not be as good at it as gaming-class cards. The K3100 is a fairly weak GPU gaming-wise, it will perform as well as a last-generation Fermi mobile card would I believe. So in terms of gaming, your gaming performance will be severely hindered compared to the 880M/870Mx2, though you will still be able to play most games. Just not on max graphics.

 

Oh alright, thanks
And is overclocking dangerous? i heard that i can ruin the processor over time.

 

If this machine is important to your course I would strongly advise against it. Usually those courses have systems you can work on but a quadro would allow you to do 3D work on your own machine.

 

Alright, I really like the Sager NP9377-S, but xoticpc doesnt provide the k3100 for it. I found Eurocom which does have the option of installing it. Has anyone tried Eurocom?

Sent from my GT-N7105 using Tapatalk

 

If you aren't primarily gaming and just working with CADD type applications, then as an IT admin for an engineering/CADD firm I most definitely recommend the workstation card (k3100). We tried 2 generations of gaming cards from both nvidia and ATI and still despite being slightly more powerful the workstation cards always worked better.

 

Or if you want a good workstation card that can still game go for the m290x

Sent from my Nexus 5 using Tapatalk

 

copy paste from neighbor thread i wrote.

I had the same exertion when i ordered mine.
for me it was k5100m vs dual 880m.
the more i read about it the more i realized i don't need the quadro card because most of the programs ill use wont benefit much of it if at all.
in most cases (with the programs i use) the 3000+ CUDA cores in the dual 880m should give me much more power and save me time=money.

unless u are going to design a nuclear submarine or a space shuttle u don't need it.
in that case u will need the double precision in the quadro.

 

You dont get power with worstation cards, you get certified drivers that are designed for CADD work and not gaming drivers.

 

Yes, some CAD programs wont even accelerate off a standard geforce. Some do and are much slower.

 

Isn't the M290X a rebadged 8970M which was already better than the K series for some workstation purposes? Seems like the best compromise between price and workstation performance would be the M290X CFX

 

AMD vs Nvidia is application specific, applications need to be individually researched and cards chosen specifically basically.

 

CUDA vs OpenCL?

I never have done anything with workstation graphics, I had just heard that AMD's chips tend to be the best middle ground if you want price and want to be able to play some games too. Since I'm a gamer and my accelerated apps are all CUDA (plus a long-standing hatred for ATi/AMD drivers and the fact that their cards tend to have a higher failure rate), I am pretty much always team nVidia.

 

Like I said it entirely depends on what program.

 

most of the GPU rendering engines use CUDA.
and the highest amount of vRAM will allow you to handle bigger scenes.
go for the highest memory + #of CUDA cores card = 880m in this case = 8Gb vRAM + 1536 CUDA cores = Perfect!

 

This right here. We went from high end gamer cards to low/mid firepro and the performance in some CADD apps was amazing! Now if you do alot revit then that's more CPU then anything but having a workstation card still helps.

Yeah IMHO ati/amd has a slight edge in performance, but after this batch of firepro w5000 I don't think Ill be going ati/amd. Stability issues and some workstations have gone through 3 card warranty replacement/fixes.

 

Yep, low end quadro cards cost what they do to enable that acceleration. The card is only a small part of the cost, so as I said WHICH cad programs you use is what makes the difference.