GeForce GTX 580M SLI Vs. Radeon HD 6990M CrossFire

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A flagship graphics launch is bound to fail unless it's the fastest game in town. Well, both AMD and Nvidia say their respective juggernauts have that title. Clearly, only one company can be right. Is the Radeon HD 6990M or GeForce GTX 580M quicker?

Benchmark Results: Audio And Video Encoding

The reappearance of Lame MP3 came after our previous notebook reviews. However, we can still see that Intel's Core i7-990X completes our movie soundtrack transcode around four seconds faster than the Core i7-980X in iTunes. Both apps are single-threaded, demonstrating similar scaling properties.

Our iPad-format tests were also started after we’d already returned the Core i7-980X systems to their builders. While graphics overhead could impact these benchmarks, it’s too low in 2D mode to yield noticeable differences.

HandBrake and MainConcept continue to show negligible differences in non-graphics performance that might have been attributed to a change in graphics cards.

Thomas Soderstrom
Thomas Soderstrom
Thomas Soderstrom is a Senior Staff Editor at Tom's Hardware US. He tests and reviews cases, cooling, memory and motherboards.
71 Comments Comment from the forums
  • mightymaxio
    Good to see that the performance of the SLI 580m lives up to the name.
    Reply
  • burnley14
    I'm amazed that this product even exists. The market for people willing to pay $7k for a behemoth gaming laptop has to be pretty miniscule.
    Reply
  • decembermouse
    Come on, AMD, I've seen too many articles like this declaring Nvidia's new solution to be the superior one. We know that AMD's cards tend to be more power-efficient, but that only goes so far for some people. Keep that advantage certainly, but become more competitive with overall performance as well.
    Reply
  • aznshinobi
    Do you really need this much performance in a laptop, I curious. A GTX 560M could run most games on medium-high anyways (on a laptop) those laptops run about $1100, the saved money could get you a beast SB-E or BD comp and then some left for the college fund.
    Reply
  • Crashman
    aznshinobiDo you really need this much performance in a laptop, I curious. A GTX 560M could run most games on medium-high anyways (on a laptop) those laptops run about $1100, the saved money could get you a beast SB-E or BD comp and then some left for the college fund.Do you really think so? Because 1920x1080 seems to be a fairly popular resolution for 17" notebooks, and a single GTX 580M appears barely-adequate for medium-settings at that resolution. Well, maybe a single HD 6990M would do. That's why the article suggested the HD 6990M might be a top solution for slightly smaller notebooks, aka "normal sized" 17" notebooks.
    Reply
  • _Pez_
    how long until battery run out of energy ? 25 minutes of gaming ? LOL
    Reply
  • Phyrexiancure
    Wow, this is light years better than my desktop.
    Reply
  • iam2thecrowe
    377W lol, that needs a big ass AC Adaptor!
    Reply
  • Crashman
    iam2thecrowe377W lol, that needs a big ass AC Adaptor!Remember that's input wattage FOR the adapter. The output was STILL less than 300W. These high-capacity power bricks are far from being 80-Plus Gold rated!
    Reply
  • Todd Sauve
    CrashmanDo you really think so? Because 1920x1080 seems to be a fairly popular resolution for 17" notebooks, and a single GTX 580M appears barely-adequate for medium-settings at that resolution. Well, maybe a single HD 6990M would do. That's why the article suggested the HD 6990M might be a top solution for slightly smaller notebooks, aka "normal sized" 17" notebooks.
    This entire article is eminently STUPID! Who is going to spend that kind of money on a notebook simply so they can play games on it?

    And is there a human being on this planet that can make use of a resolution like 1920x1080 on a 17" notebook screen in order to play games?

    It is little wonder that the rest of the world finds us degenerate when we will indulge ourselves with toys like this, and at such a scandalous price, while millions of our fellow human beings are simply starving to death as we speak ... ;(
    Reply