NVIDIA GeForce 920M vs NVIDIA GeForce GT 540M

NVIDIA GeForce 920M

The NVIDIA GeForce 920M (sometimes also NVIDIA GeForce GT 920M) is an entry level DirectX 12 graphics card. It is based on the 28 nm Kepler architecture and uses the same GK208 chip as the GeForce GT 730M, 825M and 740M. The 384 shaders are clocked at 954 MHz, while the memory (64-bit DDR3 interface) runs at 900 MHz (1800 MHz effective).

Architecture

GK208 is based on the Kepler architecture and offers two shader blocks, called SMX, each with 192 shaders for a total of 384 shader cores. The shaders are clocked at the same speed as the rest of the chip. Furthermore, the GK208 chip has 16 TMUs and 8 ROPs on a 64-bit memory interface.

PCIe 3.0 is now supported by the mobile Kepler series and GPU Boost 2.0 mode can automatically overclock the card if the laptop cooling system allows it. This feature is available on any notebook with a graphics card from the 800M series.

Performance

The GeForce 920M offers a performance similar to the AMD Radeon R7 M260 or R7 M360 and will handle modern games (as of 2014/2015) in low settings only. For comparison, a GeForce 930M is about 20 to 30 percent faster than the 920M.

Features

The feature set of the 920M corresponds to the GT 730M and 825M. This includes support for up to 4 active displays. Furthermore, high resolution monitors of up to 3840x2160 pixels can now be connected using DisplayPort 1.2 or HDMI 1.4a if available. HD-Audio codecs, such as Dolby TrueHD and DTS-HD, can be transmitted via bitstream mode through the HDMI port. However, as most laptops will feature Optimus, the integrated GPU will likely have direct control over the display ports and may limit the feature set available by the Nvidia Kepler cards.

The 5th generation PureVideo HD video processor (VP5) offers hardware decoding of HD videos. Common codecs such as MPEG-1/2, MPEG-4 ASP, H.264 and VC1/WMV9 are fully supported up to 4K resolutions while VC1 and MPEG-4 are supported up to 1080p. Two streams can be decoded in parallel for features such as Picture-in-Picture. Another feature is the inclusion of a dedicated video encoding engine similar to Intel QuickSync that can be accessed via the NVENCI API.

Power Consumption

The power consumption of the GeForce 920M is similar to the 825M and suited for 13-inch laptops and above.

NVIDIA GeForce GT 540M

The NVIDIA GeForce GT 540M is a fast middle class graphics card for laptops. It is based on the same chip as the GeForce GT 435M but with slightly higher clock speeds. Furthermore, it supports GDDR5 and 900MHz DDR3 graphics memory. Unfortunately, no models have utilized GDDR5 due to the increase in power consumption and higher prices compared to DDR3 VRAM.

GF108 Architecture

The GT 540M is based on the same GF108 architecture as the older GT 435M. The GF108 stems from the GF100 (Fermi) DirectX 10 architecture. However, it is optimized for the consumer end (gaming) and stripped down to save power. More information on the architecture can be found on our GeForce GT 435M page.

Performance

In general, the performance of the 540M lies between the Radeon HD 5650 and 5730 in our first benchmark tests. Therefore, the 540M is about 10% faster than the GT 435M using DDR3 graphics memory.

Paired with a fast CPU, demanding games of 2010 should run fluently in medium to high details and SXGA (1280x1024) resolution. In our tests, for example, Call of Duty: Black Ops and StarCraft 2 ran fluently in high details and 1360x768. More gaming benchmarks can be found below. Demanding games released in 2011 like Anno 2070 or Skyrim will only run fluent in low to medium detail settings.

Features

A novelty of the GF104/106/108 chips is the support for Bitstream HD Audio (Blu-Ray) output via HDMI. Alike the Radeon HD 5730, the GT 540M can transfer Dolby True HD and DTS-HD bitstream without quality loss to a HiFi receiver.

The GT 540M offers PureVideo HD technology for video decoding using the GPU. The integrated Video Processor 4 (VP4) supports feature set C and therefore the GPU is able to fully decode MPEG-1, MPEG-2, MPEG-4 Part 2 (MPEG-4 ASP - e.g., DivX or Xvid), VC-1/WMV9, and H.264 (VLD, IDCT, Motion Compensation, and Deblocking). Furthermore, the GPU is able to decode two 1080p streams simultaneously (e.g. for Blu-Ray Picture-in-Picture).

Through CUDA, OpenCL and DirectCompute 2.1 support, the GeForce GT 540M can be of help in general calculations. For example, the stream processor can  encode videos considerably faster than can a modern CPU. Furthermore, physics calculations can be done by the GPU using PhysX (supported by Mafia 2 and Metro 2033). However, the GPU is not fast enough to calculate PhysX high detail game settings.

Following the current 3D trend, the 540M supports 3D Vision.  It enables the laptop to send 3D content (3D games, 3D Web Streaming, 3D photos, 3D Blu-Rays) to a built-in 3D-enabled screen or an external 3D TV if supported by the manufacturer. This feature is disabled if the notebook includes Optimus.

The power consumption of the GeForce GT 540M should be similar to the GeForce GT 435M or Radeon HD 5730 and is therefore suited for 15" or larger laptops. Without load, the chip is clocked approximately at 50/101/137 MHz (chip/shader/memory) in 2D mode and 202/405/324 in 3D mode to save power. Furthermore, the 500M series supports Optimus to automatically switch between the integrated graphics card from Intel and the Nvidia GPU. The implementation of the Nvidia graphics switching technology is dependent on the laptop manufacturer.