Nvidia GT520M vs GT330M

I'm seeing a lot of new laptops come out with a GT520M. My sony vaio Z has a 330. How do the two compare? What about the 525 and 540?

 

Have you checked notebookcheck?

 

GT 520M

Is a very low powered GPU and not made for gaming unless you run it at low res+settings, its an entry level class 3 graphics card. Your 330M is a mid range class 2 graphics card and would leave it behind in a flash, its not an upgrade for you far from it.My old 8700M GT SLI is faster.

If you are looking for an Nvidia card and want something mid range you want to set your limits around GT 445/555M but if you want a good gaming card look to aim higher at something like a GTX 460.

 

it should be perform a little bit lower than the gt 330m, but not by astounding rates

 

That's what I was curious about. I have the sony vaio z and I actually OC my GPU when playing SC2 by 30% so I can play on medium settings with 55+ FPS (smooth gameplay all around). Oddly enough, I can run WoW on high - ultra settings with 2x aa and get 80+ fps.

Is the 540 substantially better than the 330? Or just a bit. I know the number differences, but what does that translate to IRL?

 

yep there is a substantial improvement. However for mid range I would go for AMD, since the 6600/6700 series are giving more performance than the nvidia counterparts

 

GT 520M is just a basic card, for some gaming its OK. I never used it for SC2 so I don't know its capability. With some tweaking it can play Crysis 2 on medium+high 1280x720. GTA IV is quite playable as well, but its more CPU limited with only P6200 mildly overclocked

I would suggest you stick with your current one

 

I doubt your cpu limited....

 

GTA IV needs quads to really play it smoothly, I did see improvement even with tiny 400MHz overclock. I got around ~33fps with custom timecyc that improves performance

 

Your P6200 isn't good also. I would say the 520M is worse than 330M anytime since its a lower second number.