M17x r2 trade advice

Hi guys ...I am planning to swap my Mbp with a m17x r2 ...with the following specs

I7 740 and a 485sli ....only concern is gaming performance and if this would support a mini display port ACD with a resolution of 2560*1440 .....

The reason I am asking is ...cause if this would run fine for 2 years in terms of gaming ...I can give away my m18x r2 ....cause I won't get support for the m18x since.it.was never launched in my home country

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I'm far from an expert Trooper but I suspect the 485's will strain hard trying to feed that resolution. Of course if you kept the 680's and were able to feed them adequate power in your 17R2 you'd be golden.

 

isnt the 485 and 580 pretty similar?
http://forum.notebookreview.com/ali...es-dell-ultrasharp-u2711-feedback-needed.html

 

I'd keep the m18x r2 if you plan at gaming at those resolutions as the 680m SLI are a lot faster than the 485m SLI. Your gonna need that GPU horsepower if you wanna game at such a high res. I'm not sure how long even the 680m's will last as the next gen consoles come out next year, but only time will tell.

Edit: And yes the 485m SLI is similar to the 580m SLI, but a little bit slower. (for reference the 6990m crossfire is in between them benchmark wise).

 

Thanks guys ....just came back from watching Shaun white @ xgames haha ...... Anyway ...ummm I was thinking of gaming on the laptop and just using monitor for photography and movies

Cause I'll save a substantial lot of green ....if I downgrade(I'm in between jobs ...so this would help but I don't want to loose a amazing.machine )and ...I don't want a machine that would last me six months ...so if this would be good for 1-1.5 years ...I should be good ....what do you guys think

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What do you mean last 1-1.5 years? I have no doubt a 485sli setup will play every game that comes out in the next 2 years at acceptable frame rates. May have to scale down the anti aliasing or run on medium but it will play them fine. However that 680sli setup should crush everything for the next two years even at 1440p. I would keep the 680sli setup and I'm sure no one would advise you otherwise unless finances are at play here.

 

I mean ...the extra cash wouldnt hurt ...specially because at times i think i dont use my 680m sli to its potential ...i game maybe 20-25% of the time i use my computer or even lesser....mostly do virtual machines and linux stuff on it ........but always wanted an AW ..since these werent available in my home country. I might just swap my MBP for this and then decide and keep one

 

Did I catch that correctly? - I'll have it !!

Joking aside, I reckon for your gaming needs, the 485m Sli setup would be adequate to drive 2560x1440. You might have to knock some settings down a bit but my 580m's drive my U3011 (2560x1600) pretty damn well for 99% of games. I'd also prefer the 17x over the MBP, especially if it has the RGBLED display.

 

Wouldn't a 485m setup strain the PSU??

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Yeah, now that you mention it.....I dont think the 240w will cut the mustard with 485m Sli (100w each) but I have seen other people install 580m's and 7970m's in an R2 - not sure if they had to do a PSU mod though.....I imagine that if you were to overclock the 485m's, you would require more power than available from the stock R2 psu. Saying that, there are psu mod's out there that allow for more juice for more power hungry setups. Some of the wizards over at T|I have modded a couple of 240w psu's together to solve that problem - question is, would you want to do that?

Also, there are people out there running 580m Sli in the R2 aswell - goes to show that anything is feasible: http://forum.notebookreview.com/alienware-m17x/605322-m17x-r2-gtx-580m-sli-31.html

 

Haha not sure if I'll go with a mod ...I guess I'll keep my m18x r2 for now

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Keep your M18x R2 and wait for the 700M series to come out soon

 

If you were to make an educated guess ....how soon would be soon ??? I mean when would the 700m series come out

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probably close to june when haswell is released.