Notebook Critic

I had a brief time with both Nvidia 280m SLI and AMD Mobility RADEON 4870 Crossfire setups for my Alienware M17x notebook. This seemed like a good opportunity to test the competing video systems on the exact same platform.

Between switching from Nvidia to AMD GPUs I reinstalled the factory OS image, in this case Windows Vista x64 SP2. Here are the specifications:

• CPU: Intel Core 2 Duo T9600 (2.8 GHz, 6 MB Level 2 Cache)
• RAM: 4 GB DDR3 (1066 MHz rated for up to 1222 MHz)
• Chipset: Nvidia aka 9400m G (Nforce 730i)
• GPU:
  • Two Nvidia Geforce 280m 1024 MB GTX in SLI
  • Two AMD RADEON Mobility HD 4870 1024 MB in Crossfire
• HDD: Two 500 GB 7200 rpm HDDs in RAID 0

Drivers used:

• Nvidia 195.62 ‘Verde’ Mobility Drivers with latest SLI Profiles (Batboy)
• AMD:
  • Catalyst 8.6 (Dell Default) with Crossfire Profile 10.3
  • Catalyst 9.12 (Mobility Modded) with Crossfire Profile 10.3
  • Catalyst 10.3 Beta Mobility Driver with Crossfire Profile 10.3

Nvidia drivers were set to default and the Catalysts were set to ‘Balanced’ with AI set to standard.

Regarding the GPUs, yes newer hardware is available from Nvidia and AMD (285m which is the 280m clocked higher and the RADEON Mobility 5870 which is about 20% faster than the 4870 but not available in Crossfire version yet).

Test Results (read the numbers, the results are less dramatic then they appear):

1920*1200, AA off, Detail Very High, Bloom On, Dynamic Shadows On, Motion Blur On, Distortion ON, Volumetric Fog On, Spherical Harmonic Lighting On, Ambient Occlusion On, Physx Off

DX 9, 1920*1200, Na AA, Real Tree Very High, Fire, Very High, Physics Medium, Vegetation Very High, Shading Ultra High, Terrain Ultra High, Geometry Ultra High, Post High, Textures Ultra High, Shadows Ultra High, Ambient High, HDR On, Bloom On

1920*1200, 4x MSAA, 8x AF, Multicore Rendering On, Shader Detail Very High, Effect Detail High, Model/Texture Detail High, Paged Pool Memory High

DX10 Mode, 1920*1200, AA 4x, Motion Blur On, Shadow Detail High, Texture Detail High, Overall Quality High

[Update] I had initially posted a score of 74 FPS for the 280m SLI setup, but that was recorded from a FRAPs run rather than the game’s built-in benchmark tool. Therefore I removed it as this is not a fair apple to apple comparison. If I get a chance to put the T9600 back in the M17x I’ll update this chart. I would expect the result to be 55 FPS at these settings.

1920*1200, Graphics Detail Very High, AA 4x, Texture Detail High, Frame Buffer Effects On

1920*1200, Maximum in Game Settings, 8x AF

1920*1200, In Game Settings Max, 2x MSAA, Post Processing Medium, Batboy's SLI Update

[update] Codemasters released a patch for Dire 2 in early March 2010 that enables SLI support in the game. At these same settings the score went from 37 fps to 51. So the RADEON and Geforce are tied in this test too.

1920*1200, AA off, AF 8x, Car Detail High, Shadow Detail High, Track Detail High, Motion Blur Medium, Texture Resolution High

1920*1200, 4x MSAA, All Other Settings at Maximum Quality

Conclusion

There isn’t a clear cut conclusion to make. In most games the performance is too close to call, five frames per second either way is not going to be perceived by most people (unless we are talking about the difference between 19 and 24 fps, which we aren’t).

In some cases there are clear victories – like Dirt 2 for RADEON and Need for Speed: Shift for Geforce. Your choice when selecting between these two sets of cards should depend on the games you like best. My personal favourite Mass Effect 2 seems to favour AMD with its high average frame rate, but it was one of two games that had distracting frame rate slow downs in-game that completely negate the win in my opinion. What specific games were affected by the RADEON slow down?

• Dragon Age Origins dipped to 10 fps consistently during tests on the RADEONs
• Mass Effect 2 dipped to 5 fps consistently during tests on the RADEONs
• In both cases the Nvidias never dropped below 30fps (Mass Effect 2) or 52fps (Dragon Age)

[update March 26, 2010]

After running the RADEON 4870s is Crossfire for a number of days in a variety of games and with four different drivers I am going back to the Nvidia 280ms. There are a number of reasons:

1. In certain games like Dirt2 and GTA IV I experienced noticeable slow-down. I though this might be heat related, but the problem vanished as soon as I installed the Nvidia cards. I put the RADEONs back in and the problem returned. There are a number of possibilities:
   • Poor crossfire implementation in specific games
   • heat throttling
   • voltage issues causing a brown out
2. Geforce Dirt 2 SLI performance was fixed by Codemasters in a patch (early March)
3. I prefer the Nvidia drivers. This is personal preference.
4. The 280m cards run cooler by 5-10 Degrees.
5. Hybrid SLI is a nice feature.

In benchmarks the RADEONs are same or faster than the 280ms, but I don’t ‘play’ benchmarks.