Gaming laptop gpu

[Eyox1]

Having a debate with hubby over what would be better in a new laptop,
Dual NVIDIA® GeForce® GTX 860M graphics with 4GB total (2x 2GB) GDDR5 - NVIDIA SLI® Enabled
or
NVIDIA GTX 880M 8GB PCIe Video (NB-FANG-204)

 

[pauls3743]

Dual GTX 860M would be more powerful but I'd prefer the GTX 880M. You wouldn't get the microstuttering of SLi or the power/heat problems associated with dual graphics cards. The dual cards would also mean a heavier laptop, even heavier than a laptop with a single graphics card.

My own laptop has a GTX 675MX 4GB, this is roughly equivalent to a GTX 560/560 TI. Mine plays most games on high or ultra, I haven't introduced it to the likes of Crysis 3 or Battlefield 4 yet.

 

[InvalidError]

The 880M has 33-140% more raw processing power than the 860M (depending on the actual variants being compared) and around twice the RAM bandwidth.

Depending on the variants and cost difference, you may be better off with the 880M. Performance is usually more uniform with a single beefier GPU than SLI/CF.

 

[pauls3743]

I had also forgotten that not all games can use SLi. For the titles that don't you would be using a single card, which is another reason for the 880 as it's starts as a more powerful single card.