FX 1700M Reviewed

Nvidia Quadro FX 1700M Review

For the full specifications please visit NVIDIA.

The stock speeds for the FX 1700 are:
Clock: 625 MHz
Memory: 800 MHz
Shader: 2500 MHz

My stock M4400 scored 6459 3D Marks. After I installed a 2GB RAM stick (and a few games) it went down to 6340 Marks. I was hoping to be closer to the 7000's with the 1700M, especially since (Weegie) overclocked the 770M to 7264 3DMarks, however 3D marks do not necessarily equate to actual performance. After performing two 3D mark tests the GPU had a temperature of 65 C.

Unreal Editor for UT3 ran smooth as warm butter. The program was in splash screen for 23 seconds until the editor popped up. A built-in map was loaded in around 10 seconds. The 3D render, even with particles and preview settings on high, ran around 35 FPS.
I will try to get 3ds Max on my machine to review its performance as well but I don't have a personal copy.

During gaming the card performed very well. All the data was recorded at maximum video settings at 1400 by 900 resolution unless otherwise noted.

The average FPS for Unreal Tournament 3 was, a very smooth, 42 FPS. After playing for about 5 minutes the FX 1700M reached 105 C at which it downclocked to 168 MHz and decreased the frame rates to the teens.


link



Playing Fallout 3 the average frame rate was about 38 FPS (inside) and about 20 FPS (outside). In order to play the game smoothly I had to change the settings from “Ultra” to “High”. I have to say though, graphically, the game looks absolutely amazing. Fallout 3 will give GTX280's a run for their money.


link


The average FPS for Call of Duty World at War BETA was 27 FPS. After playing for about 10 minutes the card reached a temperature of 76 C and never did downclock. Only the Beta of World at War is out so the release version could run smoother; although it is a very detailed game and likely even high end systems could have trouble with it.


link

CINEBENCH:



Something worth noting: after the card reached 105 C and downclocked, the temperature didn't refresh (at least on nTune) for about 4 minutes. The card was clocked down at 168 MHz ( a whopping 6 FPS in Fallout 3) until the refresh. When it did refresh it read out 55 C. There's no way it instantaneously dropped 50 C and obviously there is a problem with the data. The card does not need to downclock so drastically if it can be cooled from 105 C to 55 C in a mater of minutes. If the temperature nTune reports and the card's thermostat are the same then a driver update is all that waits between all the M4400 users that have horrible lockups and paradise.



You can see in the image where the chip reaches the threshold of 105 C and the core clock plummets. The straight part is where it "gets stuck" until the temperature takes a dive and the clock goes back up.


The only physical difference I see between my M4400 and the rest with 770s is that on my machine the GPU has a black cover over the heat-sink where it covers the GPU.

link


The idle temperature for the card with the optimization on is 55 C and 62 C with it off. (The ambient temperature is about 29 C).

I tried to concentrate the review on the heat management problems previously associated with the M4400, stating temperature data in every section. The BIOS version is A06 (came stock on my machine). My specific system details are in my signature. My photobucket account isn't paied for anymore so I can't host full definition pictures, if you would like to see (or host) some screens I would be happy to email them to you ([email protected]), Fallout and World at War are truly beautiful. I hope most of your questions about this graphics card were satisfied, of course if not then I will be happy to answer any questions (to the best of my abilities) just make sure you ask them .


-Matt

PS: If you would like to know more about the M4400 Enduct and I♥RAM have done excellent reviews.

 

Thanks for the excellent review. I sure do hope Dell gets this down-clocking thing figured out. It definitely seems like something wonky is happening with the temperature readings...

 

Thanks for the review, UT3 looks very nice! I'm a bit surprised with the FX 1700M, I thought it would go well over 7000 without overclocking. I will run my FX 770M 3DMark06 benchmark soon to show you my scores with the recent overclocking (thanks to Weegie who pointed out it could be done). Right now its 6000 on 500core/800mem and I can push it to 700core/950mem safely but never got a chance to bench it. Gives me +5FPS with Crysis on high mode though. Is it possible, that your system hasn't been cleanly reformatted yet? I'm upset that this newly purchased system shot to 107C when my overclocked 770M does not reach 85C...

BTW - you can use imageshack.us account or no account to host images for free. Or better yet, flickr!

 

With the A06 Bios I get 105°C and the system downclocks. After that the temperature stays at 105°C even the air out of the vent is getting cooler and cooler. With the A03 Bios the temperatures never got over 98°C and the temps go down very quick after I stopped 3d intensive work. So 2 questions left for Dell...
1) how can we fix the temperature missmeasurement
2) how can we fix the downclocking even on low temps

 

Tnx for the review.

Hopefully the only thing for the overheating needed to be done for the heating issues, will be better drivers and/or BIOS...

There is still one thing that is not clear to me. Right out of the box, what is the difference in performane between FX700 and FX1700?

 

I am testing the temps downclock on my M4400 and fx770M and with the bios A03 it's not downclocking did not test the temps yet. Will do later.

 

The FX 770 gets 5400-5800 3DMarks (3DMark06) the FX 1700 for now 6400-6800 3DMarks... but there's been noreal ingame comparisment yet...

 

Well most of the M4400 with FX770M get 6000+ I got 6120 with the default image installed form dell and 6200+ with XP64 my install.

Default 3DMark06 free one for me.

 

Thanks for the trouble you have gone to Matt,awesome bit of info.

it might be my tired eyes [2 am here] but the heatpipe on your GPU looks almost the same size as the cpu one,on mine it is,at most,half the cpu heatpipe size,will have another gander in the morning on fresh eye's.

Hopefully the dell guys are reading these threads,lots of good info coming out on misreading temps,delay in recorded temp drop etc.

 

Agree totaly.

And as a matter of fact there are a few Dell reps browsing these forums.
They pop up from time to time, giving even direct answers to the posters!