15 R2 with UHD or 17 R3 with 980m?

That is the question! My perfect laptop would be 15 R2 and 980m but FHD display here is a shame. 15 UHD + 980M is really too expensive in Italy. So 980m and i7 6820hk worth the extra money on the 17? What about cooling system? Or I will be able to play with 970m on 15r2 next years (at least 4) with medium and high settings? Thank you

 

Yes, we should be able to play with 970M for the next 3-4 years on Medium-High settings.
Knowing technology, if a game in the future is not able to run on the 970M properly, chances are that it won't run on the 980M either as the new future tech that will be able to play that game will be quite different from either.
And at that point you can buy the Graphics Amplifier instead of shelling out cash for a whole new notebook. So get the better screen, it will make you happier.

 

The 970m should keep on playing the latest games at those settings. I wouldn't worry much about it.

 

It depends.

If you want to play games on the UHD display at its native resolution, I'd say neither. Even the 980M struggles @ UHD resolutions.

You can get the UHD display and scale it to 1080p, at which point the 970M is just fine.

If you can easily afford the 980M, get it. If not, the 970M will do just fine.

 

Thank you for the answers. I plan to play only at 1080p. I could stay with only the 7.2 HDD and take the 980m with a bit of extra. In that case what about cooling system in the 15? Does the 6700hq fits well with 980m or the 6820 worth the extra money (100€)?

 

and he can have the performance of a 980m on his 970m by overclocking it without increasing heat. I dont know why, but the gtx 970m run really Cool under max load. also he need the 240W adapter to do this.

 

Yeah, I forgot the overclock! Is the GPU life untouched?
Now a stupid question, for my 8 yo sister next to me , does the 240W adapter heat more or consume more or it just conform to laptop needs?

 

Consumes more power for the laptop's use (tell your sister ).

 

I don't know if I will be able to order the 970m version with the 240W adapter. If not, is the 180W enough for a slight overclock?

 

Hard to say, honestly. We're not even clear right now what is the maximum power draw with the 970M. Some reports say there's throttling while others say the power drawn is nowhere near 180W for throttling to happen.

These are early days still, so get the system first, I'm sure you won't be disappointed by the performance. Then later you can meddle with stuff once there's more info on the internet about this.

 

What do you currently use? And is it satisfactory?

Driver support has already shown NVIDIA Pascal in the pipeline. We're not far from a large performance jump over Maxwell. You can spend $2k+ now and get a system with the 980M, or spend $2k+ in six months and get a 1080M. Top-tier cards always have the same price tag.

 

I just tell you I have the minimum requirements to run Minesweeper Flags .
I could wait 6 months but I am sure I will not find any laptop with 1070m or 1080m in Q2 2016.

 

Well, it seems you want something now and can't wait, nor want to. If you must choose Alienware, I'd go with the 6820HK & 980M combo in the 17 R3.

If you don't care what brand you get, I'd recommend the Sager NP9758 with the 6700k and G-SYNC compatible GTX 980M. It's a superb system.

And yes, XoticPC ships internationally.

 

A barebones Sager from your link with UHD and 970M is priced at over 300$ more than what I paid for the Alienware 15, so I'm not sure why anyone would buy those?

 

I think I will go with the 15 UHD with 980m and 6700hq without ssd, it is about the same price as 970m + 256GB. Hoping here it is sold with 240W adapter. Do you know something about cooling system in 15R2 with 980m?

 

Because it performs better? There's a whole list of reasons. The only thing Alienware offers is a nice skin wrapped around an XPS 15.

 

That is the same as Santech in Italy. First of all I'm not ashamed to say that even the aesthetic on a portable pc has its own importance. Also I really don't need a desktop CPU, and I would prefer a better GPU. I can get a 980m with 6700hq and pay less.

 

Fair enough. To each his own. I have to admit, I was first drawn to Alienware because of the appeal.

The only downside to the Sager, that I've experienced, is the battery life. But performance is greatly improved upon - stability wise.

 

Ok.. Just asking because I only first heard of the brand Sager after coming to this forum a couple of weeks ago.
So they generally perform better than other laptops of the same configuration? How is that? Better cooling?

 

Yes, much better cooling. The CPU is also a desktop CPU, which helps a lot more than you'd think. And there is zero throttling.

The system is much more stable.

Spoiler: 6700k vs others

Spoiler: Sager temps