So it is nearing time for my venerable MSI GX640 to be put out to pasture. It has served me well for coming on 3 years but it is too heavy, too loud, too hot and the battery life isn't great. Plus with the impending release of Haswell the time seemed right. The specs are similar to the one Anandtech reviewed back in June 2010 (http://www.anandtech.com/show/3766/msi-gx640-speedy-dx11-laptop) however mine has the i5-450M, a Sandisk Extreme 120 GB SSD and the 5850M has been overclocked to 750 MHz.
In looking for an upgrade to this computer my problem has been working out about where the performance of my GPU lies relative to present cards. Unfortunately from what I can tell Anandtech's Bench doesn't have many/any modern comparisons to the GX640 so I am left making multi step comparisons/guesstimates. Based on the specs of the 5850M and my overclock the performance should fall somewhere between a desktop 5750 and 5770. 5770 level performance is the minimum I would consider to be an upgrade (assuming there were also power saving to be had).
On the AMD side it looks like the desktop 7750 is there or thereabouts the equivalent of a 5770. Some games the 7750 wins others the 5770. This is all while using a lot less power than the older card. Based on specs AMD's current mobile equivalent to the 7750 looks like the 7850M. Comparing to Nvidia's contemporary cards the 5770 looks to be a lot faster than the GT 640 but maybe a little slower than a GTX 650. The closest Nvidia mobile equivalent to the GTX 650 appears to be the GTX 660M although if they are out and have GDDR5 the GT 750M could actually be closer.
TL;DR. Are either of the 7850M or GTX 660M an upgrade for my 5850M overclocked to 750 MHz?
Also are there any mobile cards on the near horizon that would suit as an upgrade?
In looking for an upgrade to this computer my problem has been working out about where the performance of my GPU lies relative to present cards. Unfortunately from what I can tell Anandtech's Bench doesn't have many/any modern comparisons to the GX640 so I am left making multi step comparisons/guesstimates. Based on the specs of the 5850M and my overclock the performance should fall somewhere between a desktop 5750 and 5770. 5770 level performance is the minimum I would consider to be an upgrade (assuming there were also power saving to be had).
On the AMD side it looks like the desktop 7750 is there or thereabouts the equivalent of a 5770. Some games the 7750 wins others the 5770. This is all while using a lot less power than the older card. Based on specs AMD's current mobile equivalent to the 7750 looks like the 7850M. Comparing to Nvidia's contemporary cards the 5770 looks to be a lot faster than the GT 640 but maybe a little slower than a GTX 650. The closest Nvidia mobile equivalent to the GTX 650 appears to be the GTX 660M although if they are out and have GDDR5 the GT 750M could actually be closer.
TL;DR. Are either of the 7850M or GTX 660M an upgrade for my 5850M overclocked to 750 MHz?
Also are there any mobile cards on the near horizon that would suit as an upgrade?
