Radeon HD 6990M And GeForce GTX 580M: A Beautiful Lie

[dontknownotsure]

Yet my Aspire 5500 keeps running on and on and on ...
Why do i need powerful laptop when i have kickass pc with more bang/buck ratio.

 

[blazorthon]

[citation][nom]noob2222[/nom]There is absolutely no reason why it could. you have 2 - 100W parts vs a 375W part. Whats the max power draw in a mobile platform? The specs between the two themselves aren't even close.This entire article itself stinks of AMD bashing, while almost priaising Nvidia, especially after looking over the original 6990M vs 580M article.http://www.tomshardware.com/review [...] 22-12.htmlThe Nvidia system pulls ~30 watts more from a power draw rated at 100W than the 6990M.And exactly what market does these laptops even cater for? The laptop itself was $7000 with 2 6990M or $7600 with 2 - 580M cards.Considering thats Most likely going to be less than 1% of all laptops sold, I guarantee whoever buys something that extravagant will be doing their homework first, or just has more money than brains.[/citation]

The problem with it not beating the 6990 is that it's name implies that it would. We don't expect two 100 watt parts to beat a 375 watt part that has a superior architecture but you missed the whole point of the article. The point is that the names on the mobile GPUs are ridiculous and misleading. Nvidia is "almost praised" because they are the lesser evil in this. Their mobile 580 makes a lot more sense than AMD's mobile 6990.

Seriously AMD, you have a part that shares a name with your best video card yet the mobile one has one GPU (the 6990 moniker implies two like the desktop 6990 to anyone whom usually plays on desktops), is slower than the mobile 580 even though the desktop 580 is slower than the desktop 6990 and the same goes for the power usage difference. The mobile 6990's single GPU is slower than one of the desktop 6990's GPUs. AMD's 6990m was a naming disaster.

 

[noob2222]

[citation][nom]Crashman[/nom]Hmm, a little miffed at focus on AMD's part? Nvidia's been in the spotlight before, it's the guiltiest party who gets the attention. If you find that hard to believe, perhaps this will help:http://www.tomshardware.com/review [...] ,2353.html[/citation]
right up till you look at power consumption and efficiency. 580M looks like crap there, but as long as you ignore it, guess you can focus your attack on AMD. http://www.tomshardware.com/review [...] 22-12.html
but ya, amd could have named it the 6970M instead.

 

[coldmast]

Fools, the naming scheme isn't for performance, it is for cost ;P

 

[alidan]

what i want to know now is what is the cost of the 6990m and the 580m

are they charging us a crap ton for each of them? because the way i see it if they are charging us within 25% of their desktop counterparts price, than they arent doing any thing wrong, ib they are deceiving us and selling them at 6-700$ thats another story though.

at the same time i have to imagine that the people looking for a desktop replacement laptop know a bit more about the components than the ones who would truely be deceived.

 

[Crashman]

[citation][nom]alidan[/nom]what i want to know now is what is the cost of the 6990m and the 580mare they charging us a crap ton for each of them? because the way i see it if they are charging us within 25% of their desktop counterparts price, than they arent doing any thing wrong, ib they are deceiving us and selling them at 6-700$ thats another story though. at the same time i have to imagine that the people looking for a desktop replacement laptop know a bit more about the components than the ones who would truely be deceived.[/citation]coldmast's post above is close to the truth, top mobile modules generally cost $400-1100 each.

 

[dimar]

How cares about the naming. Just research the specs, check reviews, and decide what you need.

People who have no clue about graphic cards should get help from friends, or deal with sales people. There's always gOOGLe.

 

[aceyc]

mobile is mobile nothing more. desktop gaming rules as always

 

[Crashman]

[citation][nom]dimar[/nom]How cares about the naming. Just research the specs, check reviews, and decide what you need.People who have no clue about graphic cards should get help from friends, or deal with sales people. There's always gOOGLe.[/citation]Friends and salespeople usually count as the "partially informed". They generally know about the desktop parts by reputation only and tend to assume that the mobile parts are simply low-voltage versions, then disseminate that misinformation when doling out advice!

 

[husker]

[citation][nom]blazorthon[/nom]We all have the right to be stupid and misleading according to law but that doesn't mean it's any less morally and ethically wrong. A few hundred years ago it was every white American's right to enslave colored people but that didn't make it any less morally and ethically wrong from an non-biased (or at least less biased) view. With computers we enthusiasts are the less biased view and should at least recognize that something should be changed like it has been in the past.Not that I'm saying misleading naming conventions and slavery are equal evils but they are both wrong anyway.[/citation]

Okay, that analogy is a huge stretch. You cannot assume a naming convention has intrinsic moral or ethical significance. It's "made up" from nothing. It is a part number, a serial number, a combination of numbers and letters strung together to uniquely identify an object of a particular definition. I could argue that they are being very consistent and helpful in there naming convention by adding the "M" to the end of the product name. That tells me it is likely a previous generation chip, that has been re-branded. Wow, thank you AMD for helping intelligent people like me understand with one little letter so much about this new card by being consistent in this manner. If you want to argue that ill-informed people are not likely to know this, then you are correct. Hence, the pitfall of being ill-informed.

If arbitrary labeling of objects and concepts had moral significance, one could argue that Toms Hardware is either immoral or unethical because they cover more than just hardware. A huge amount of information exists on this site that has nothing to do with hardware, therefore, by calling themselves "Tom's Hardware" they are deliberately misleading people.

One could say the same about language. The word chair is very similar to the word hair, only one letter difference. Yet a chair and a hair are nothing alike. English language is therefore immoral by misleading people who may not be extremely familiar. What about words like "there", "their" and "they're"? Downright evil.

 

[Guest]

A 6990m is a $300 premium while a 6990 is $650. Different prices for diferent performance.

 

[Guest]

Actually Alienware sells both the 6990M and 580M for a premium over the 560 for $225.00 and two are $550 for the 6990M and $600 for the 580M. The name only implies that its top of the line Mobile solution, if they changed the names that would be even more confusing . What would you recommend they name these cards?

 

[wardoc22]

ITS BETTER THAN MY DESKTOP 5770 WTF!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

[alidan]

[citation][nom]will54[/nom]A 6990m is a $300 premium while a 6990 is $650. Different prices for diferent performance.[/citation]

if thats true, than i dont see them doing anything wrong with just the name.

 

[jamesedgeuk2000]

Erm, mobile cards use a totaly different model scheme hance the M after everything, comparing a 6990M to a 6990 is pointless, you may as well compare the Radeon 6000 series to the Geforce 6000 series....

 

[jemm]

Great article here! Keep going!

 

[royalcrown]

[citation][nom]husker[/nom]Okay, that analogy is a huge stretch. You cannot assume a naming convention has intrinsic moral or ethical significance. It's "made up" from nothing. It is a part number, a serial number, a combination of numbers and letters strung together to uniquely identify an object of a particular definition. I could argue that they are being very consistent and helpful in there naming convention by adding the "M" to the end of the product name. That tells me it is likely a previous generation chip, that has been re-branded. Wow, thank you AMD for helping intelligent people like me understand with one little letter so much about this new card by being consistent in this manner. If you want to argue that ill-informed people are not likely to know this, then you are correct. Hence, the pitfall of being ill-informed. If arbitrary labeling of objects and concepts had moral significance, one could argue that Toms Hardware is either immoral or unethical because they cover more than just hardware. A huge amount of information exists on this site that has nothing to do with hardware, therefore, by calling themselves "Tom's Hardware" they are deliberately misleading people. One could say the same about language. The word chair is very similar to the word hair, only one letter difference. Yet a chair and a hair are nothing alike. English language is therefore immoral by misleading people who may not be extremely familiar. What about words like "there", "their" and "they're"? Downright evil.[/citation]

I have to disagree Husker; If I make a coffee machine and call it say "Mr. Coffee 4000 Gold edition", then I subsequently make one and call it the "Mr. Coffee 4000 Gold edition MINI", would you not assume it is a smaller version of the "Mr. Cofee 4000 Gold edition" ? Would you assume it at least uses the same basic parts but smaller ?

The problem I have is when these GPU's are not even based on the same CORES. Fine if you want to use chips with cores turned off, underclocked and what have you and call it a mobile. When the series number gets renamed and companys act like it is new silicon (not just minor tweaks) that is wrong.

A 9800 should be an ENTIRELY redesigned GPU and not an 8800 tweaked, same with calling it a 250 anything. Sometimes these mobile gpu's arent even based off the same core design. Just look at Imacs for example. Some of their 6000 part numbers are really radeon 5 series. ENTIRELY DIFFERENT core.

BTW peeps who wonder if an old 2011 mac can play bf3, perfectly playable on high everything on an Imac with a 5850 (27) at 1650 x 1080 and most times on Ultra at that res, just one or 2 stutters.

 

[royalcrown]

[citation][nom]jamesedgeuk2000[/nom]Erm, mobile cards use a totaly different model scheme hance the M after everything, comparing a 6990M to a 6990 is pointless, you may as well compare the Radeon 6000 series to the Geforce 6000 series....[/citation]

No way, it should at least (and does) imply that it is based off the same core design of the 6000 series. As far as clocks funtional units and all that I agree.

However they shouldn't bump up the model numbers on mobile to the next series when it's based off a different series because those different series have entirely different capabilities sometimes. I can call something a 6000 something M, but when it is based of a 5000 series, the features are not there at all (like tesselation or Direct x revision or HDMI revision).

 

[Yargnit]

Actually Alienware sells both the 6990M and 580M for a premium over the 560 for $225.00 and two are $550 for the 6990M and $600 for the 580M. The name only implies that its top of the line Mobile solution, if they changed the names that would be even more confusing . What would you recommend they name these cards?

What would I call it? I would call rename the 6990m "6870m" because it's a down-clocked 6870, and I would call the 580m "560ti-m" because it's a down-clocked 560ti.

Go through the entire line of mobile cards and do the same, the 560m becomes the "550ti-m" and so forth. Now every"m" card is just a lower clocked version of the desktop card with the same name. Then if if 6 months they manage to fit a 6950/6970 based GPU into a mobile part they can add a 6950m/6970m at that time. Until then, the 6870m is simply the highest mobile card available.

Maybe this will even make them want to work harder to fit GF110/Cayman based GPU's into their mobile lineups.

 

[zakaron]

What I get from this article is that if someone buys a laptop to play games on, then it would be helpful for publishers of said games to include system requirements for laptops. If you look at the system requirements for just about any game, you will see minimum & recommended specs, but these are desktop based - anyone trying to decide if their laptop will run the game may have a hard time.

 

[wayneepalmer]

This absolutely begs the question: does the same over naming issue occur with the professional versions of these video cards (the Quadro and Firepro) and are the business consumers getting the same shaft as the gamer?

 

[dimar]

HD 6990 is the highest model of 6000 series for desktop that AMD could accomplish.
HD 6990M is the highest end model for notebooks that AMD could accomplish.
Who's to say they must have the same specs? It's just the best AMD could do for each platform. It's not like AMD is hiding the specs. I don't see a problem here.

 

[Guest]

6990 being slower than single gtx580? Something is wrong here.

 

[TheGreatGrapeApe]

This article fooled me into reading it, especially since you wrote it Crash.

I was surprised the others got so focus on the unwashed masses getting 'dupped' into spending their money, but it came at time when the back/lash was like the M$ cut/paste on WP7. However right now, in this space? Seriously, can people not google specs & reviews now? These articles were needed during the earlier times when people didn't have google on their fingertips on their phones while plonking down $2,000 for a laptop / desktop, not now.

" The earliest any of us can remember a mobile part being upgraded (in spirit, at least) to an inflated model name was when ATI’s Radeon 9600 XT magically turned into the much larger Mobility 9700... "

Really !?! Are you F'in kidding me?

Seriously, if this is the earliest that can be remembered by people who were there (and I know you were), then maybe you should ask people who owned the earlier ones (I owned both, and many more), when they were as bad or worse (especially with the myriad of GF2GOs with different bit-depth support and RAMDAC speeds for the VGA-out and TMDS for the LVDS).
No doubt, the MR9700 was definitely a misnomer, but that was after years of the competition doing worse with NO repercussions. Now this article comes out with a similar timing in a different generation, just like Cleeve's 'AMD Paper-Launch article' make hay of the current situation while ignoring the past that got us there (and doesn't get updated long after the fact).

It would be nice if there were a bit more balance in these articles, because if all you can remember is one version of history, then I suggest you research harder on finding out what you don't remember/know, because it seems to be more than I would've expected since I remember you being right there at the time. I guess you folks just don't have anyone there anymore who use laptops much or ever did in the past.

WTF guys !?!

 

[jp0wns]

Flagship or not the Mobile variant should match the naming of its most comparable desktop variant in terms of performance. In that case you wouldn't have to read an article explaining that the performance experienced in flagship mobile is on par with 6870 and 550/560ti desktop. If the best mobile offering by amd was 6870M and it acted like a 6870 desktop card it would be much easier to understand what type of performance to expect. It just comes down to amd/nvidia bullshit marketing. Although I am an enthusiast I still find these names to be bs and require more thought then they should. I shouldn't have to remind myself that a 6990m is a 6870 desktop. It should just simply be 6870M no reminders needed. I would even understand it more if the mobile variant at least had something even in common with its desktop variant. For instance I7-2630QM and I7-2600 desktop both feature 4 cores and 8 threads and are built on the same platform but much different core speed, atleast they have something in common. A 580m has 384 cores which makes it at best a gtx560 ti with lower clocks so gtx560m it should be.