All these R1 and R2 choices are making my head spin...

I want gaming performance above all else and it's come down to these two options for me:

With an army discount I can get a:

R2

i740
4 GB RAM (unknown speed)
17 inch 1920x1200 RGB LED
crossfire 5870's
640 GB Raid 0
intel ultimate a/g/n 3x3
Internal Wireless Bluetooth with EDR (what would I use this for ?)

$2166 tax free, free shipping

OR

R1 from Dell Outlet

T9600
8 GB RAM @ 1333
SLI 260M
17 inch 1920x1200 UXGA (is this LED ? )
intel ultimate a/g/n
250 GB (7200 RPM Free Fall) what does the free fall mean?

$1569 + tax and shipping

 

Bluetooth good for wireless mouse or headset,freefall is for the hard drive to stop spinning if you drop the laptop not to high i hope. I would pick the i7 740 nice cpu newer unit and more future proof.. And thanks for serving I have two son's in the Army.

 

5870's are much better for gaming and the 740M is good for gaming as well. obviously the 920xm is better for CPU intensive games. The R2 is a much better deal. Also check out the thread in my sig. Being army you get a 10% discount off the bat through the EPP (employee purchase program) Have you looked at AAFES online? Also the R1 is dual CCFL which is a backlit LCD. The RGB is a much better quality screen. Much better. I've had both systems. R2 will be a better choice.

 

What kind of FPS could I expect in SC2 or Crysis 2 with full Res and EVERYTHING maxed with AA, etc. ?

 

Not sure, never played the games, hopefully somone can chime in, but I wouldn't expect Crysis to be playable at max everything. Crysis is, well, Crysis.

 

The R2 is a much better deal, of course depending on your budget. In the mentioned setup it is leagues ahead of the mentioned R1.

You will be able to play SC2 in ultra settings on the highest res with the R2, i don't think the R1 will be able to do that. Crysis would give you about 45 FPS in highest settings, which doesn't sound like much, but really is alot. It's crysis ^^
The R2 is just more future proof, the R1 will give you trouble running games faster then the R2.

I'd definately go for the R2 in this case, if you can afford it, the $500 difference is well worth it.

 

go definetly with the R2, don't even bother to think about the R1.

my 2cent

 

Given those two choices - its a no-brainer. R2 all the way by comparing those two specs.

You may also wanna consider lowering the HDD specs and buying a SSD with the spare cash. (Dell will always charge you more for them at the outset)
You could probably go with the cheapest HDD option (single) and buy a Small-ish SSD for the OS, move the Dell HDD over to the spare bay and then you have benefits of SSD speed and HDD storage (in non-raid of course)

I woul dlook into how much cheaper it would be to order with a single small HDD and see how much you can save - throw those savings at the SSD!

Sorry for throwing "another" spanner in the decision making process!

 

Yes, the R2 will be the better choice. Leagues ahead. . . eh.

Both systems will run this game just fine. My R1 managed the highest res and settings with a single 280m GTX. No problem. Thing to keep in mind is that it is an RTS game so you don't literally need 60 FPS.

I find that both systems kinda' struggle with the game at maximum settings. However, the R2's 5870s will provide you with a lot of overclocking headroom to pull off the execution. I haven't been able to get 45 FPS with mine to be honest. I mean, my R1 with a dual core CPU scored around 28-31 FPS, and the R2 is about 4 FPS higher, which when considering Crysis' frame-rate proportion, is a significant increase. I have, nevertheless, seen others who have almost matched that 45-FPS mark, and that is VERY GOOD for Crysis.

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Thought I'd contribute some of my own findings since I own both systems and have run both games on these systems. I just don't think the difference in performance is as wide as some might think, but the R2 is more stable as a platform and has more headroom for overclocking so I'd go with it because it improves upon some of the limitations of the R1.