5200m vs 630m video card - Help!

Hey everyone,

I know these are not gaming cards - but I was hoping those here with knowledge could help me understand any potential performace differences that would exist in these cards.

My primary needs are Autocad (mostly 2D), photoshop, & vectorworks.

I have not needed workstation level graphics (or bulk!) in the past - so, I think decent mid/low range solutions should continue to do the trick. These cards are showing up in the 14" Latitudes, Vostros, & XPS units I am currently shopping.

can anyone offer an opinion on the 5200m vs the 630m video cards, are they equals or is one superior?:

NVS 5200m 1GB DDR5 (latitude 6430)
GT 630m DDR3 (Vostro 3460 - i think its ddr3 version, but they dont actually say that)
GT 630m DDR5 (xps 14)


Thank you!

 

all these have essentially the the same chip, there wont be any remarkable difference in performance.

although the nvs 5200m is a quadro card it's not a workstation quadro so it does not have special autocad drivers.

 

Thanks Oxygen. I appreciate it!

How are you liking your new 6430? Thats pretty much the setup I think I am going with. I was excited about the xps 14 - but in the final analysis I think I am still a little old school - I like a pc with easily upgradable parts, an optical, plenty of ports, and a MATTE screen for sure.

 

Quick correction: It's GDDR5, not DDR5. The G actually makes a big difference*.

Like oxygen says, they are all essentially the same chip. The 630m has a higher clock speed that the 5200m, so it will be faster in that regard. However GDDR5 has more memory bandwidth than DDR3. I'm not sure about GPGPU, but games tend to be bandwidth starved.

Overall the GDDR5 630m would be the fastest by 10-20%. The DDR3 630m and 5200m would probably trade blows depending on the application, but given a choice I'd go with more memory bandwidth.


*The G stands for Graphics memory. GDDR5 is essentially high performance version of DDR3 designed for graphics cards. There also was a GDDR4, also based on DDR3, but that was short lived. Next year DDR4 will come out, but it has nothing to do with GDDR4. And I bet there'll be a GDDR6 based on DDR4. Confusing, huh?