GT 540m vs GT 635m

[SaMiNiT]

So i have 2 laptops to choose from to buy by tomorrow. I just want to know which one will be better at playing games as i believe they are pretty close in terms of ability. The system specs to you guys may help you help me decide which will be better for gaming. The better it deals with demands the better for me.

LAPTOP ONE:

Processor i5-2430 processor (2.4GHz, 6MB)
RAM 6GB
Graphics card Nvidia Geforce GT635M
Screen resolution 1600 x 900
Screen size 15.6"
Hard drive 640GB

LAPTOP TWO:

Processor Intel® Core i7-2670QM processor clocked at 2.2GHz
Cache memory 6MB
RAM 8 GB
Graphics card NVIDIA® GeForce® GT 540M DDR3 2GB
Screen resolution 1366 x 768 pixels
Screen size 15.6"
Hard drive 750 GB

Both the same price, but which one will suit me better for gaming? Thanks.

 

[WR2]

GT 540M = GT 630M (just a rename of GT 540M ATM)
NVIDIA GeForce GT 630M review
http/www.notebookcheck.net/NVIDIA-GeForce-GT-630M.63761.0.html
Later on there will be a new Kepler version also called GT 630M which should have higher performance.

NVIDIA GeForce GT 635M review has better performance than GT 540M
http/www.notebookcheck.net/NVIDIA-GeForce-GT-635M.66964.0.html


Which games do you play? I'm leaning toward the i5-2430 / GT 635M being the better option.

 

[jaguarskx]

The GT 635m will be a little faster since the GT 540 = GT 630.

However, the GT 635m on a 1600x900 resolution screen is not going to cut it. My Lenovo Y470 has a GT 550M and a 1366x768 resolution screen and to get the best performance I set graphics to medium quality. The GT 550M can handle high quality settings, but performance drops down to between 20FPS and 29FPS on average depending on the game.

For example, while testing the 2nd chapter in Crysis 1 (Relic), with high settings and 2x AA frame rates ranged between as low as 17FPS and peaked as high as 35FPS. Most of the time I was getting 20FPS - 26FPS. Switching to medium settings resulted in a range of 25FPs - 55FPS and most of the time i was getting between 31FPS - 45FPS.

While the GT 540m is a little weaker than the GT 635m, the lower resolution screen will give you better performance. The other option is to go with the 1st laptop that has the GT 635m and just lower the resolution to 1366x768 when playing games.

 

[SaMiNiT]

Thanks for the replies guys.

I play games from football manager to more demanding such as crisis, but i know that is very demanding. Games such as half life 2 and so on are more of my interest as they are relatively cheap and accessible to buy on-line within a few clicks. I'd probably like the occasionally go on BF3 or GTA IV, the more demanding side of gaming.

I thought the i7 paired with the 540m would of edged it but I know nothing lol

 

[WR2]

HL2 and similar older games will be better off with the faster dual cores and a better GPU. GTA IV as well.


BF3, especially online play, should benefit from the quad core CPU, but you'll probably need to drop graphics quality to low settings to get smooth, fluid game play.
Luckily, BF3 looks pretty good on low settings.

 

[SaMiNiT]

Which do you think will cope better with open world/sandbox games? Examples like fallout NV, S.T.A.L.K.E.R and dead island to an extent.

 

[WR2]

Neither one will be terrible, thats for sure.
i7-2670QM might run at 2.2Ghz on 4 cores but it also can do 3.1Ghz on a single core.
i5-2430 runs two cores at 2.4Ghz and 3.0Ghz on 1 core.

In gaming, the conventional wisdom is get the best graphics card you can.

 

[SaMiNiT]

I'm guessing there's no real winner in terms of the graphics cards in each machine then? Both seem pretty good to me

 

[WR2]

We ARE talking about GT 635M and GT 630M, right? GT635 has a pretty good lead in performance.

 

[SaMiNiT]

its the GT635M and 540M dude

 

[WR2]

Or maybe pre-order, @ Frys:
HP dv7-7010us 17" Notebook $750 and a $50 rebate
AMD A10-4600M APU, 6GB RAM, 750GB Hard Drive 17.3" 1600x900 LCD w/ Radeon HD 7660G graphics.

How does this laptop compare to the 2 i shown you in my thread WR2? Better performance from this?

How much are you paying for those other two?

Performance wise, it's looking mixed right now. I'm thinking that might be due to early drivers.
AMD Radeon HD 7660G review
http/www.notebookcheck.net/AMD-Radeon-HD-7660G.69830.0.html

 

[WR2]

Ok, so there is a clear winner in graphics card. GT 635M.

 

[SaMiNiT]

For the other 2 its £700 each on sale. What will the performance of the A10 measure against the other 2? The A10 seems to have fairly decent reviews

 

[WR2]

How long can you wait for A10-4600M notebooks to arrive in Blighty?
There petty good reviews but I think both your choices edge in front for overall performance.

 

[SaMiNiT]

Blighty? Sorry if i sound stupid but you've lost me lol if you mean waiting to arrive in the UK its not a problem waiting.

As for the laptops I think after your advice on them im still stuck between my original choices!

 

[WR2]

For a mostly gaming notebook, in your position, I'd pick the one with the better graphics card.

 

[SaMiNiT]

GT 635M it is then, thanks for the help man

 

[WR2]

Got a link to the model you're getting?
I won't be surprised if others arent looking for a deal like that.

 

[edit1754]

While the GT 540m is a little weaker than the GT 635m, the lower resolution screen will give you better performance.

This is one of the worst misconceptions in the science of computer purchasing.

Gaming should not be a reason to choose a 15.6" 1366x768 display instead of a 15.6" 1600x900 or 15.6" 1920x1080 display, or to choose a 17.3" 1600x900 display instead of a 17.3" 1920x1080 display. For one thing, you can always make up for drops in performance associated with higher resolutions by lowering to a non-native resolution, but you cannot as easily make up for the limits imposed on multitasking by a lower resolution. In addition, despite the fact that running in a non-native resolution causes blur, games will still tend to look better running in a non-native resolution on a 15.6" 1600x900, 15.6" 1920x1080, or 17.3" 1920x1080 display than they would look running in native resolution on a 15.6" 1366x768 or 17.3" 1600x900 display, because of the sheer difference between the image quality typical of these types of displays. 15.6" 1366x768 and 17.3" 1600x900 displays make things onscreen large, and tend to have very poor image quality due to low contrast.

---------------------

I'm unsure which laptop the second model is, but I am fairly sure that the first model (with the GT 635M) is the ASUS N55SL, which is a good option. The second model is not a particularly good option, based solely on the fact that it has a 15.6" 1366x768 display (which will make things onscreen large and have poor image quality due to low contrast that typically comes with lower-resolution displays because they are cheaply manufactured).

In addition, it is more important to focus on getting a good GPU (and a decent display) than it is to focus on getting a particularly fast processor. Games will tend to be bottlenecked by either the GT 540M or GT 635M before being bottlenecked by a Core i5 processor.

 

[SaMiNiT]

Heres all ive been looking at, just found 2 decent ones as well...see what you think:


http/www.pcworld.co.uk/gbuk/lenovo-z570-15-6-laptop-gun-metal-12377688-pdt.html

http/www.pcworld.co.uk/gbuk/hp-pavilion-dv6-7053ea-15-6-laptop-12567128-pdt.html

http/www.pcworld.co.uk/gbuk/asus-n55sl-s2167v-15-6-laptop-12448412-pdt.html