980M and 970M gimped?

If you haven't been living under a rock, you know that the desktop GTX 970 is gimped, with the main issue being the addressable memory or the lack of it after 3GB vRAM usage being bandwidth restricted, due to cut off SMM cores.

The desktop GTX is not affected, due to having full 16 out of 16 SMM cores.

With the desktop GTX 970 this is due to the cutting up of the SMM cores, only has 13 enabled SMM cores out of 16, where it further impacts how the things work further down through the design, causing the issues.

SO... Question is, the 980M and 970M gimped at all?, both top end mobile GPU have even more SMM disabled than a desktop GTX 970

• 980M has 12 SMM core out of 16 SMM cores
• 970M has 10 SMM cores out of 16 SMM cores

Does the 980M perform to its full potential, is there issues with vRAM bandwidth after/near 3GB of vRAM usage?
Could the 970M be even worse?

Obviously the GPU have been cut, but do both GPU's suffer the same gimped issues the desktop GTX 970 does due to the cutting up of SMM's?

Why is this important, both AW15 and AW17 mostly will be shipped with the 970M or the 980M.

 

This has been beaten to death. Desktop 970 is the only card with the partially disabled ROP/MC partition. Everything else is unaffected.

 

Yeah for the desktops maybe, haven't heard anything about the mobile GPU which is if based on the same cutting of the SMM, then should exhibit the same inherent characteristics once the SMM blocks are removed.

But, in the GeForce GTX 980M, Nvidia have deactivated 4 of 16 SMMs.
http://www.notebookcheck.net/NVIDIA-GeForce-GTX-980M.126692.0.html

But, in the GeForce GTX 970M, Nvidia have deactivated 6 of 16 SMMs.
http://www.notebookcheck.net/NVIDIA-GeForce-GTX-970M.126694.0.html

 

That's relatively normal for processing units.

The way it works is that (generally) most units (both CPUs and GPUs) tend to be all made on the same production line because it saves cost. So, for example, a 980, a 970, a 960 etc all use the exact same chip. What makes them different is that nVidia disables some of the cores because they were faulty or intentionally disables them so they can sell it as a cheaper, less powerful card. In the past you could modify the drivers to unlock those disabled cores but now I believe nvidia disables them on the hardware itself rather than the firmware.

As for why the 980M has some cores disabled is simply because the unit probably generated too much heat / drew too much power or it could be that nvidias chip fabrication yield isn't good enough to make a constant supply of 980Ms or Nvidia is planning on making a 985 or 990M.

 

You're not even understanding what the issue is. The issue is not with disabled SMMs. It's with a partially disabled ROP/memory controller partition which is only present on the 970. Other GPUs have either all partitions intact or fully disabled partition(s).

http://www.anandtech.com/show/8935/...cting-the-specs-exploring-memory-allocation/2



Like I said, we discussed this to death in several threads in the gaming subforum and have already proven that none of the 900M GPUs exhibit this problem. It is isolated to the desktop 970. 900M GPUs have been out for months. Don't you think there would've been a massive uproar, like when they disabled our overclocking, if these cards were also affected by VRAMgate?

 

The driver overclocking has now been removed I understand, is that right?

GPU's coming from the manufacturers over the last 1-2 months now have their overclocking locked at the firmware level?

 

The new driver re-enables overclocking on cards with a locked vBIOS as well

 

Take some time to read around the forum. This has been discussed to death in gigantic threads on the topic.

 

Dell says they don't and will not supply a 240W power supply with a 980M. What about AW15 with a 180W power supply, would that be an issue if don't get a 240W?

 

Um what? They do and will supply you with a power supply.

It says it right there in their support information and the person I talked to said the same thing.

 

They have 180W down on my new quote for the 980M. Seem people here are getting a larger 240W PSU for free. Dell isn't going to give me a free one, and even if they could, they are not. I have asked two reps this for the Australian region, say US region might get 240W but they don't know anything. For any reason the AW15 with 980M needs a 240W PSU then it might as well be gimped!

 

Polish dell also refused to send 240W adapter. Normal situation here in this craphole.

 

Below outline what is going to happen. It is the CPU that is throttling with 980M. I think what dell will do is make sure the GPU throttles down instead, or a combination of both to even out performance. I don't think both could ever be maxed. There is no way a BIOS update can fixes this on a 180W PSU without gimping something else
Technically the 980M model is gimped (even is the GPU might be running full speed, the CPU is not), not by Nvidia, but Dell themselves.

3. Solution

A Bios update will be released soon in order to fix the issue.

 

You can get 240W bricks fairly cheap off ebay, at least in the UK.

 

Doesn't matter if using the 180W or the 240W (or even higher) brick in the benchmark thread, seems that both have about the same scores after reading around?

Please correct me if I have been reading this wrong. The 970M cannot be overclocked at all, Dell have locked this card down no matter what driver is used. And the 980M is the only card that will allow overclocking?

In that case the 970M is gimped in it own unique way by locking out overclocking, therefore no one can bring it near the 980M performance?

And the 980M is not locked to overclock, but cant do anything as is limited by the power brick, and then the CPU throttles?

Even though I may have been blah blah about stuff in the original post, which is oblivious not correct. The cards on these AW machines are both gimped by Dell?

If the 980M with the default PSU throttles its CPU, then would be be safe to say the 970M would be better as the CPU isn't being throttled?

 

Overclocking is enabled in the 347.88 driver, regardless of your vBIOS.

 

Would the 970M be the best option considering the price and possible overclocking headroom using the default 180W brick without CPU a throttling issues?

 

You do have some overclocking room, no doubt. If you aren't gaming to the max, then the 970m should suit you well.

 

I really would like the 4K display for the clarity of the pixel density and also the touch feature (which i use), though think 980M is the best options, but have concerns that throttling issues is going to slow it down while gaming (medium to high settings are fine with me). Don't really want the 970M with the 4K, in fact I cancelled my order, but before I knew about the throttling issues

I have considered 1080p and 970M, which no doubt fast at gaming FHD (no need for 980M here), although will not be the panel I was really wanting.

Main concern, go 4K and 980M and end up with CPU throttling, kind of unacceptable at that price, to get low performance

 

Well you can always downscale to 1080p just fine. Gaming can still use the UHD resolution if need be (you know, for older games).

 

I been searching the thread/post, cannot find if the CPU still throttles down to 2.5GHz with the 970M also? or does the 980M just so this?

 

The cpu throttles no matter what you pair it with. All HQ CPUs have this issue . At least in the 4 models I went through before settling on my blade, which very surprisingly hasn't throttled yet ....

 

I would have considered the blade, but not sold on my region. Gone ahead and went for the 980M, seems will be better the 970M no matter what even considering the issues.

 

Newer processor so Intel has possibly fixed some the issues.

The 4720HQ was launched in Q1 2015. The 4710HQ was launched Q2 2014 and the 4980HQ was launched Q3 2014.

It's not just related to Dell, there are quite a few articles out there that show Haswells thermal throttling is far too aggressive than it needs to be. That issue can, however be made worse by faulty/excessive BIOS throttling.

 

Could be possible what you say above is true?

Weird that Dell didn't or hasn't atleast updated the AW15 being a newer model Haswell proprocessor (or even just as of recently) with i7-4720HQ

 

No new steppings as far as I am aware so no major changes to the silicon itself at least.