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GeForce GTX 880M, 870M, And 860M: Mobile GPUs, Tested

Tags:
  • Laptops
  • Gaming
  • Graphics Cards
  • Notebooks
  • Geforce
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a b U Graphics card
April 22, 2014 11:00:03 PM

Nvidia is in the process of rolling out its GeForce GTX 800M-series graphics modules. Despite the new name, we're still looking at GK104-based GPUs. One thing is for sure, though: the processor is running faster than ever. We benchmark three models.

GeForce GTX 880M, 870M, And 860M: Mobile GPUs, Tested : Read more

More about : geforce gtx 880m 870m 860m mobile gpus tested

a b U Graphics card
April 23, 2014 12:15:26 AM

Eh these generations are all the same cards. Show us a 980M with full maxwell. Then we'll talk...
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a b U Graphics card
April 23, 2014 1:05:57 AM

Looks like maybe two more generations before we see single gpu 4K mobile gaming.
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April 23, 2014 1:21:00 AM

we need them to finish working on 20nm fast. TSMC just can't do it anymore. global foundries has 14nm only on paper too....
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April 23, 2014 4:09:17 AM

I'm actually fairly impressed. Their website says a max of 6 hours battery on "UMA" mode. Would you be able to test this, Tom?

Previously I wouldn't consider getting a gaming laptop due to their short battery life, even when not gaming. But if a laptop with this kind of hardware can manage 5 - 6 hours, I'd consider it...
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a b 4 Gaming
a c 130 U Graphics card
April 23, 2014 4:30:39 AM

Page one gives the impression you might include desktop cards so we could get a frame of reference with regard to desktop v laptop GPU performance. Then I looked immediately at the BF4 page and found no desktop GPUs in the performance charts?
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April 23, 2014 4:54:38 AM

Highly disappointed overall by the 800M series performance. I can feel assured that my GTX780Ms in my Alienware 18 will serve me well for at least another year. So, whatever happened to multi-core GPUs?? The concept works well for desktop CPUs, yet we have not seen it in desktop or mobile GPUs as of yet? ATI's Hawaii GPU comes close in certain aspects regarding behavior like a multi-core GPU by handing off processes to other chips within the die. One step closer to a next-gen GPU, yet still so far...
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April 23, 2014 6:24:25 AM

A shame this didn't include the Maxwell-based 860M. It performs much more in line with what we'd expect from a true next-gen mobile chip (I'm currently using said chip, and still exercising its capabilities). I can say it's roughly 30% faster than the previous gen 765M, and benchmarks by others have shown it to be twice as fast as the GTX 660M while staying at a max of 50W TDP. I've yet to do any real benchmarking myself, so if anyone cares to see any, leave me some suggestions of what to use (preferably free software).
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April 23, 2014 7:13:17 AM

Is there any way of knowing if you get kepler 860 or maxwell 860 when you buy a laptop?
I hate these kind of naming tricks... Even 860a and 860b or anything that gives out what you will get.
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April 23, 2014 7:24:04 AM

Quote:
Is there any way of knowing if you get kepler 860 or maxwell 860 when you buy a laptop?
I hate these kind of naming tricks... Even 860a and 860b or anything that gives out what you will get.
It is difficult to know unless you get more specific information from the manufacturer before purchase (or find benchmarks of the computer model you're looking at beforehand). The MSi GE60 Apache Pro was the first notebook to feature the Maxwell-based 860M.
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April 23, 2014 7:38:55 AM

Quote:
So, whatever happened to multi-core GPUs?? The concept works well for desktop CPUs, yet we have not seen it in desktop or mobile GPUs as of yet?


GPUs have been multi-core for ages now. Well beyond desktop cores, even. The GTX880M in particular is a 1,536-core GPU. Similar numbers have been around for a long time.
http://www.geforce.com/hardware/notebook-gpus/geforce-g...
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April 23, 2014 9:02:07 AM

Scumbag Nvidia. Want a new GPU? Here's exactly the same piece of silicon with a slightly faster clock rate and increased power usage, and higher price. Laziest business model ever.
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a b U Graphics card
April 23, 2014 9:10:16 AM

guvnaguy said:
I'm actually fairly impressed. Their website says a max of 6 hours battery on "UMA" mode. Would you be able to test this, Tom?

Previously I wouldn't consider getting a gaming laptop due to their short battery life, even when not gaming. But if a laptop with this kind of hardware can manage 5 - 6 hours, I'd consider it...
We have a couple complete notebooks set aside for that type of review :) 

Ninjawithagun said:
Highly disappointed overall by the 800M series performance. I can feel assured that my GTX780Ms in my Alienware 18 will serve me well for at least another year. So, whatever happened to multi-core GPUs?? The concept works well for desktop CPUs, yet we have not seen it in desktop or mobile GPUs as of yet? ATI's Hawaii GPU comes close in certain aspects regarding behavior like a multi-core GPU by handing off processes to other chips within the die. One step closer to a next-gen GPU, yet still so far...
GPU's have been multi-core for several generations. And dual-GPU mobile solutions have come and gone several times as AMD basically applied a dual-GPU name to a pair of notebook modules (in CrossFire).

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April 23, 2014 9:30:58 AM

"Is there any way of knowing if you get kepler 860 or maxwell 860 when you buy a laptop?
I hate these kind of naming tricks... Even 860a and 860b or anything that gives out what you will get."

Yes, the 860M Maxwell is a 2GB card that is soldered directly onto the motherboard with only 640 cuda cores w/ 50W TDP. The Kelper 860M is 4GB and is MXM (replaceable) with 1152 cuda cores w/ 75W TDP.
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April 23, 2014 9:32:40 AM

As an addendum, I was unaware that the Kepler 860M even came in 2GB - but according to Tom's it is?
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April 23, 2014 9:51:51 AM

I would love to see a comparison benchmark between mobile maxwell (860m) and desktop maxwell (750 Ti)
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April 23, 2014 10:04:12 AM

Toms never gets anything right, should have added a radeon or two to the bench's, updated in this test.
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April 23, 2014 10:18:41 AM

Quote:
As an addendum, I was unaware that the Kepler 860M even came in 2GB - but according to Tom's it is?


I was going to comment earlier and ask Thomas about this. Did Origin PC come up with custom 800M-series modules for this article?... or was half the VRAM somehow disabled? If not, I'm confused. The EON17-S as available on their web site comes with the "standard" double-memory configurations - 4 GB for the 860M, 6 GB for the 870M, and a whopping 8 GB for the 880M. I didn't see this mentioned in the article at all. On other forums, users have indicated this "double-VRAM" is a waste. It would have been nice if this article had put the "double-VRAM" to the test, especially at the QHD resolution.
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a b U Graphics card
April 23, 2014 10:55:51 AM

cynic77 said:
Quote:
As an addendum, I was unaware that the Kepler 860M even came in 2GB - but according to Tom's it is?


I was going to comment earlier and ask Thomas about this. Did Origin PC come up with custom 800M-series modules for this article?... or was half the VRAM somehow disabled? If not, I'm confused. The EON17-S as available on their web site comes with the "standard" double-memory configurations - 4 GB for the 860M, 6 GB for the 870M, and a whopping 8 GB for the 880M. I didn't see this mentioned in the article at all. On other forums, users have indicated this "double-VRAM" is a waste. It would have been nice if this article had put the "double-VRAM" to the test, especially at the QHD resolution.
I checked the pictures in the article's image gallery :)  GPU-Z shows that the memory amount in the tables was wrong, so I corrected the tables. Thanks! I wish someone would have caught this earlier, but I'm glad I at least got to correct it the same day.
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April 23, 2014 12:29:12 PM

I wouldn't buy a laptop like this from rjtech nor SSD until M.2 10G comes out
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a b U Graphics card
April 23, 2014 2:04:02 PM

Using a GTX 660M right now, I'm actually quite happy with it... I think some people underestimate what even a 'lowly' mid-level GPU is capable of these days. Can't wait to pick up Sager's refresh of the 9170 with an 870M in it!

Oh, and it's nice to see so many replies in the comments section by the author - keep up the great work. Always interesting!
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April 23, 2014 2:21:21 PM

still waiting on laptop manufacturers to treat laptops like desktops, instead of losing their business while trying to treat them like tablets. there's no reason why laptops shouldn't be fully upgradable with specified form factors for the sizes available.
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April 23, 2014 4:42:56 PM

You can find a comparison between 860m Kepler vs. Maxwell on notebookcheck.net. They claim Maxwell has a 10% advantage in gaming performance, and that Kepler is slightly worse than older Gtx 770m, but far better than Gtx 765m
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April 23, 2014 5:15:41 PM

I'm confused. Can someone help me identify whether or not my chip is Maxwell or Kepler based? I bought the MSI GE60 Apache Pro, and it comes with an 860M graphics card. I've read conflicting comments on whether or not it is Maxwell or Kepler. Looking at GPU-Z, it states the Memory size of my graphics card is 2GB. Does this mean it is Maxwell-based? Thanks
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April 23, 2014 6:13:15 PM

Quote:
I'm confused. Can someone help me identify whether or not my chip is Maxwell or Kepler based? I bought the MSI GE60 Apache Pro, and it comes with an 860M graphics card. I've read conflicting comments on whether or not it is Maxwell or Kepler. Looking at GPU-Z, it states the Memory size of my graphics card is 2GB. Does this mean it is Maxwell-based? Thanks

I have the same notebook, and it's Maxwell-based. You can tell by checking GPU-Z. It still doesn't read some of the specs correctly (like shader clock), but it does read the shader count right: 640 shaders for Maxwell, and 1152 for Kelper. Dont let the lower shader count fool you, the Maxwell chip is much faster and uses a more efficient architecture.
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April 23, 2014 6:29:15 PM

Quote:
Quote:
I'm confused. Can someone help me identify whether or not my chip is Maxwell or Kepler based? I bought the MSI GE60 Apache Pro, and it comes with an 860M graphics card. I've read conflicting comments on whether or not it is Maxwell or Kepler. Looking at GPU-Z, it states the Memory size of my graphics card is 2GB. Does this mean it is Maxwell-based? Thanks

I have the same notebook, and it's Maxwell-based. You can tell by checking GPU-Z. It still doesn't read some of the specs correctly (like shader clock), but it does read the shader count right: 640 shaders for Maxwell, and 1152 for Kelper. Dont let the lower shader count fool you, the Maxwell chip is much faster and uses a more efficient architecture.


Got it. Thanks! I'm new to the gaming community, so I wasn't exactly sure what i got. I thought "860" would have been better than any of the 6xx, or 7xx models just because 8 is higher than 6 and 7 LOL. I didn't know that the last two digits of each one were that significant. I should have done more research and built a desktop instead I guess haha. I really hope this laptop can handle Dragon Age: Inquisition and Watch Dogs on at least High 1080p when they are released.

By any chance, do you know how this 860M compares to PS4 and Xbox One graphics?
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April 23, 2014 7:59:42 PM

It's nice to see that mobile graphics are really gaining traction. To get GTX 680 levels of performance from a laptop GPU, is pretty amazing.

The 2nd chart on page one incorrectly lists the GTX 770 as having a memory clock of 1502Mhz with memory bandwidth of 192GB/s. It should read: 1753Mhz and 224GB/s.
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a b U Graphics card
April 24, 2014 3:02:10 AM

For me, a casual gamer, a desktop PC is in reach, price speaking. With a decent video card (i.e radeon r7260x or gtx 750ti) you can game very well @ 1080p. On the other hand, a laptop with a GTX 660m is WAY OFF price wise ^^, really... I was thinking (when i have built my second PC) to purchase a laptop or a desktop. The highest i could go was a laptop with a GTX 740m (or gtx 750m, but with a crippled i3) or a radeon 8850m... I would want to see benchmarks from cards with a more afordable price. :)  (a gtx 660m laptop costs over 1000E here in Europe....)
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a b 4 Gaming
a c 77 U Graphics card
April 24, 2014 6:46:04 AM

nice to see them optimizing their current hardware but 2 refreshes is pushing it quite a bit. Besides I don't mind lots of mobile power but from a business standpoint not many people buy a gaming laptop from all the people I know because they're too expensive and low upgrade options. (while companies like lenovo have came up with great innovative ideas like the ultrabay but you're still limited to lenovo only products)
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April 24, 2014 12:47:33 PM

Rumor has it that late this year another refresh of the top end cards will be Maxwell based. Purely rumor, but it would be welcome.
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April 27, 2014 9:25:38 AM

I think I'll wait until Maxwell dominates the scene. Because it's power efficiency is just incredible. And that's what we need in a mobile environment
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a b 4 Gaming
a c 77 U Graphics card
April 28, 2014 7:37:18 AM

youssef 2010 said:
I think I'll wait until Maxwell dominates the scene. Because it's power efficiency is just incredible. And that's what we need in a mobile environment


Maxwell isn't the hero Gotham laptops deserve, but its the hero they need.
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April 28, 2014 3:54:38 PM

Nice articel.
But what about the GTX 675MX ??
I´m using one my self in my XNB notebook.
It says it´s using a 256bit memory bus with 4GB GDDR5
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April 30, 2014 12:36:35 PM

WOULD HAVE LIKED TO SEE THE A10-7850K IN THE COMPARISON.
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May 6, 2014 11:08:53 PM

i m going to kill my laptop and buy one of those, with ssd though....then play my dialo 3 to test how good is it..lol
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