Gt 630m or gt640m

[maxpain456]

Is it worth an extra $130 for an i7 and gt 640m, or would i be better just to just go with the gt 630m and over clock it?

gt 640m: http/www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834215541&name=Laptops-Notebooks

gt 630m: http/www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834246491&name=Laptops-Notebooks

My main game concerns are shogun 2, arma 2, bf3. is there really that big of a difference between the two gpus?

 

[jonathan_569]

the 640m is better, although its the previous generation of i7 but it can still perform much better than the i5 of the current generation... so the extra 130$ is worth it..

640m > 630m.. kepler vs fermi...

 

[nbelote]

The 630m, in essence, is a rebadged 540m. The 640m is far superior. Every once in a while you'll get a slightly more powerful 630m as there are two versions, the duplicated-540m version and there's also one with 144 shaders instead of 128. The bus speed and GRAM and bus speed are all the same, though, so you don't get much of a difference. It's still Fermi.

The 2670qm is about the same as the new i7-3632qm. It's true today that you don't need more than 2 cores for gaming, but that's not necessarily true about tomorrow. For the long run, the i7 will do you better. For the short term, the i5 would as it is clocked higher. True multithreaded games are on the horizon, so the best thing you can do is be ready.

 

[maxpain456]

if need be how is the overclock capability of the gt 640m?

 

[nbelote]

The official stance, so you can't say I didn't warn you:
Do not, do not, do not, do not, do not ever overclock a laptop GPU. It's designed to be run at the speed it's set to at the maximum thermal threshold that the laptop is set to operate at. The copper HSF inside the laptop is only rated to handle what's already in there, any more can cause serious damage.

Theoretically (meaning you could still brick your laptop), though, you can probably OC up to 10% without incurring thermal damage. Do it one small step at a time, and test it thoroughly, if you go this route.

The official stance is what I am completely behind, though.

 

[captainblacko]

The official stance, so you can't say I didn't warn you:
Do not, do not, do not, do not, do not ever overclock a laptop GPU. It's designed to be run at the speed it's set to at the maximum thermal threshold that the laptop is set to operate at. The copper HSF inside the laptop is only rated to handle what's already in there, any more can cause serious damage.

Theoretically (meaning you could still brick your laptop), though, you can probably OC up to 10% without incurring thermal damage. Do it one small step at a time, and test it thoroughly, if you go this route.

The official stance is what I am completely behind, though.

listen to this guy!

 

[nbelote]

I had an Acer TimelineX 4830TG with a GT 540m that I was able to get an OC to 775MHz (103MHz OC) and the GDDR3 got up to 950MHz (50MHz OC) before it started locking up/dishing out tons of artifacts. It ran super f*cking hot, though, so I had to open up the laptop and replace the thermal strips with Arctic Silver. It helped a tiny bit, but you could tell that the HSF wasn't going to take any more.

I now have a HP DV7-6163CL with a HD 6770m that I will not overclock because it already runs hot enough to burn fingers. It's a beast of a GPU though; this particular laptop's performance is about equal with a desktop SB i5 with a desktop 6770 in it. I got lucky, so I don't need to do much tweaking.

Take my two experiences as you will. You really need to be careful when taking risks with laptops as they have enough cooling only for their stock settings, and sometimes it still doesn't feel that way. My Acer TimelineX had a ADP plan on it (accidental damage protection plan) and if I had fried the GPU then the store I bought it from would've either replaced the mainboard or bought me a new laptop. Without that ADP I would not have overclocked as freely as I did.

 

[unreal9400]

I have a GT 650M and it runs most games on mid to high settings.
Go with GT 640M its better than the GT 630M.

 

[nbelote]

I have a GT 650M and it runs most games on mid to high settings.
Go with GT 640M its better than the GT 630M.

The 640m ought to be able to handle roughly the same settings when coupled with an i7, especially if its the 640m with GDDR5 VRAM. Maybe not so much AA unless it's got 2GB of VRAM.

 

[maxpain456]

Thanks everyone for all the replies, and i have heard that quad core runs bf3 mp better than dual core is there any truth to that?

 

[nbelote]

BF3 can be CPU-dependent, like most modern games with multiplayer, so yes it's better to have a quad core in that scenario.

 

[maxpain456]

have any of you tried red orchestra on the gt 640m and have any benchmarks for me?

 

[nbelote]

Red Orchestra 2 is an Unreal Engine 3 game, so it should run fairly well... I'm totally taking a stab here but I would believe it would perform the same as Batman Arkham City, which released around the same time and with the same Unreal Engine 3.

You should get, roughly, about 30 FPS on High, give or take.

 

[maxpain456]

Red Orchestra 2 is an Unreal Engine 3 game, so it should run fairly well... I'm totally taking a stab here but I would believe it would perform the same as Batman Arkham City, which released around the same time and with the same Unreal Engine 3.

You should get, roughly, about 30 FPS on High, give or take.

i figure i could max it out minus AO because i used to have a GT 525m and i could run at high settings 30-40 fps.

 

[nbelote]

Go for it!