NVIDIA Quadro FX 380M vs NVIDIA Quadro FX 880M vs NVIDIA Quadro FX 3700M

NVIDIA Quadro FX 380M

The Nvidia Quadro FX 380M is a professional entry-level graphics card for mobile workstations. It is based on the GeForce 310M and therefore the 3D performance is not very good. Due to special drivers and optimizations, the performance for professional applications should be much better (than the 310M would perform). Another advantage are the certified drivers than ensure a good performance of professional applications without errors.

The card supports DirectX 10.1 and all the features of the G 310M (as it is based on the same GT218 core). Therefore PureVideo HD to decode HD videos with the graphics card is supported. The used Video Processor 4 (VP4) is able to fully decode H.264, VC-1, MPEG-2, and also MPEG-4 ASP (DivX or xVID) in hardware to minimize CPU load. MPEG-1 is not supported but can be easily handled by every modern CPU.

The gaming performance of the FX380M is similar to the GeForce 310M and therefore located in the entry level class. The professional drivers are however optimized for applications and may therefore deliver a worse performance. Modern 3D games like COD Modern Warfare 2 run only in low details and resolutions fluently. Some demanding games like NFS Shift or GTA4 wont run fluently at all. Less demanding games like SIMS 3 run in medium details and resolutions fluently. Therefore, the graphics card can not be recommended for gamers.

As the FX380M supports CUDA, DirectX Compute 10.1, and OpenCL, the shaders of the graphics processor can be used for other tasks than rendering images (e.g. faster encoding of videos).

The used GT218 core is manufactured in 40nm and based on the desktop GTX 200 architecture.

NVIDIA Quadro FX 880M

The NVIDIA Quadro FX 880M is a professional middle class graphics card for mobile workstations (about 15"). It is based on the GeForce GT 330M graphics card with slower clock rates and therefore is a DirectX 10.1 chip that is produced in 40nm. 

Due to a special BIOS and professional drivers, the FX 880M should perform noticeably better than a 330M in professional applications (like CAD, DCC, Rendering). Another advantage for professional users are the certified drivers that should ensure a bug free experience with the most common professional applications. Futhermore, the Quadro FX drivers contain profiles for these applications to ensure the best settings (similar to the game profiles in GeForce cards).

The Quadro FX 880M is also based on the GT216 core in 40nm. The shaders are based on the desktop GTX 200 architecture and therefore a bit improved compared to the previous generation cards.

Without load, the Quadro FX 880M is able to downclock to 135 / 270 / 135 MHz (chip / shader / memory clock).

The gaming performance of the FX 880M should be beyond the GT 330M, because of the different drivers. Gamers should choose a GeForce card because of the better game support.

The chip supports Optimus for automatic switching between dedicated and integrated graphics card (e.g. in the new Core i5 CPUs). Still Optimus was for example not integrated in the Lenovo Thinkpad W510.

NVIDIA Quadro FX 3700M

The Nvidia GeForce FX 3700M is a professional high-end workstation graphics card for laptops. It is manufactured in 65nm and is based on the G92 core with all 128 shaders enabled. The GPU is most comparable to the consumer GeForce GTX 280M with the largest difference being the manufacturing process (65nm of the 3700M vs 55nm of the 280M). The immediate successor to the 3700M is the Quadro FX 3800M, which is based on the GeForce GTX 285M but with higher clock rates and relatively similar power consumption demands.