GTX480 vs HD6870

[sms1295]

I'm looking at purchasing a laptop. I have the option of the HD6870 or the GTX480. There is also an option for a HD6970 card. The laptop will not come with a 3D bundle. What card would be the best between the HD6870 and GTX480 in terms of performance, heat, and power consumptions? What would be the advantage of selecting the HD6970 which is a 250 upgrade option?


Thanks,


sms1295

 

[Lonyo]

The GTX480 has 352 shaders (approx. GTX460 level) but at only 425MHz core (vs 675 stock for a GTX460), so it ends up with around 2/3rds of the core 'power' as a desktop comparison, closer to a GTS450 than a GTX460.
It also has ~76GB memory bandwidth, between a 450 and a 460.

The HD6870 is 800 shaders at 675MHz giving it slightly more shader power than a desktop 5750. It has half the TDP of the 480 (50w vs 100w) and ~57GB memory bandwidth, less than a 5750.

The 6970 has about 30% more core power (shader * clock) than the 6870 and a TDP of 75w and 115GB/s memory bandwidth.

HD6870 will probably be a little slower, but a lot better when it comes to gaming power use and heat. Don't know about idle, but both of them will clock down a lot under idle and will likely be similar in idle power use.

What screen resolution does the laptop have?

 

[sms1295]

I’m sorry I listed the wrong card. It is a GTX 460M. The display will be 1920X1080.


Are driver more available for one than the other.

 

[dma0991]

Here is a good table for you to see where these GCs stand in terms of performance.

Mobile Graphics Cards Benchmark List

Fermi's are generally a little hot compared to AMD counterparts but they do offer good performance though.

 

[cotak13]

If you want to play dragon age 2 you might want to make sure the, if you were picking nvidia, that it works ok. Cause looks like the AMD stuff's still doing better in that game. And I expect in mobile it will be similar.