4870's "not soon"

As most of you prob know i recently ordered an M17

i phoned up today to change an item in the order (32 bit vista to 64bit)

but i made a point of asking about the 4870's

the lady i spoke to is that they haven't even been briefed on possible availability for their range, and they had an email go around stating that the release was not imminent due to a fitting issue

make of that what you will i guess?

Pete

 

of course, MXM technology is just as useless as an integrated GPU...both cant be changed and ur stuck with what ur laptop comes with....i hope she is wrong

 

Vaporware indeed.

 

I called this one early on....

 

That's not entirely true. As soon as I get 4870's or I buy a 280M from Eurocom, I'm taking the 3870's out of my M17 and installing them in my m9750.

Ichime has done this already.

Progress is slow but we're just in the beginning of all this.

 

I know but for new cards its useless, it doesnt matter that a older card can fit in a older laptop....the prob is making new cards that wont fit current models

 

Yeah,

Eventually the outlook for us laptop gamers will be more like desktops when it comes to graphics upgrades. Hopefully.

We're not there yet, but we're a lot closer than we were five years ago.

At any rate, the "old" 3870's will infuse more life into my aging m9750 which wasn't even possible that long ago.

EDIT: Hey HaloGod2007, I see in your post you're getting 16,105 and you've got the 1440x900 screen so does that mean you got that score at 1280x800? Just curious.

 

for sure, im happy with the 3870's for the rest of my m17's life, but would have been nice to have upgrade options...i wonder if any new nvidia cards can fit the m17?

 

9800m-gtx and (probably) gtx 280m.

 

Well the M17 does have one MXM IV slot, afik, so maybe.

Next time I get home from the middle east, if nobody has done so, I'll get a 280M and find out.

I think somebody will beat me to the punch since I'm gonna be gone at least six months.

 

im assuming if the gtx280 fits, only one will work, meaning no sli?

 

Correct, only one slot is MXM IV.

 

not sure if it's MXM IV - from what i remember, one slot is a "hybrid" (that's what AW-James called it), and the other is MXM III.

 

lol...and two 3870's smash one gtx280m in performance so there is no point there....i wonder why the 4870's dont fit...i think AW lady is wrong...

 

So HaloGod,

Was your 3dmark06 score of 16,105 achieved at 1280x800? I see you have the 1440x900 LCD.

 

They smash the GTX280? Are there benches out for the 280M already? Where are they, I'd like to take a look?

At Wizzo, Ah, hybrid......I stand corrected. Does the 280M require this "hybrid"?

 

no benches im going off specs of the card...but its a repackaged and beefed up 9 series from what i have heard, nothing too special. I achieved 16,105 at default 3dmark06 resolution with a cpu clock at 3.1ghz and stock 3870's

 

Oh O.K., so it was at 1280x800 for your screen size.

 

yeah if thats default for my screen, i forgot what it was...im going to install it and bench again but at 3.2ghz soon anyways and ill double check...the run for 16,105 was done with driver 9.2..i had best results with 9.1 so i may try that driver to score higher

 

Cool, maybe I'll run it with the lower 1280x800 (if I can) to see how our machines compare. My X9100 and your Quad.

 

Hey HaloGod,

Looks like the res makes a pretty big difference. I ran 3dmark06 with everything like when I got my 15,032@1280x1024 accept I changed the res to 1280x800 (like your default) and just got 15,936! Wow, that's a 900 pt difference.

I guess that's why the "accepted" res is 1280x1024. I know, I couldn't do that either until I changed my LCD panel for the higher res unit.

 

Yeah, 2x 3870's beat down a single GTX280M.

The GTX280M is basically a die shrunk Nvidia Quadro 3700M. It has 128-Cuda versus the 112-Cuda on the 9800GTX.

Score wise, you're looking at ~4700 on Vantage GPU, ~5200 SM2.0, ~4800 SM3.0, so the Xfire 3870's are definitely more powerful.

Only real upgrade for the M17 is another Xfire/SLI config, as it smashes all single cards still.

 

http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=370928&page=2 First few benches are coming up here. Clearly yes it seems 3870x2 is and will continue to outperform the single 280m by quite a bit. However Alienware needs to seriously get their stuff together and figure out a solution for the DDR5 4870's or at least put a new laptop into production or there's not gonna be a whole lotta reasons to stick around here for the latest tech...

 

I'm sorry to see such poor results for the 280M, and that's with the proc overclocked too! Don't think the score of almost 12,000 w/overclocked proc is going to catch up to my 15,000 even with mature drivers. 4870's will broaden the gap even more.

Looks like I'll be going with the 4870's after all. When they finally become available.

 

the cards should fit ....thats retarded if flex is working with alienware they wouldnt design them the wrong size

 

What about the 9800? Won't they fit in the M17? Can they outperform 3870x2 in SLi?

 

Maybe but even if it's a bit faster, it's old tech and I'm not even sure if it's DX10. For me......I'm gonna look forward to what's around the next corner.

 

There is a benchmark for it.

http://www.notebookcheck.net/NVIDIA-GeForce-GTX-280M.14558.0.html


the 280M is pretty powerful. 2 3870's beat it but i wouldn't say it "smashes it" The 280M however does smash a single 4870, at least from what I see in these benchmarks.

 

Look on the boards for people who have run the GTX280M in the NP5797. Notebookcheck = take with a grain of salt.

 

Yeah, I saw the almost 12000 already a couple posts up.

 

Plus Notebookcheck reviewed the MXM3.0 version, which is at 585/1463/950.

 

I don't hold a lot of stock in "notebook check" but here:
http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=370928&page=2

Are the real world numbers with CPU overclocking and they are getting almost 12,000.

This link BTW is just a couple posts up in this thread.

 

I'm more interested in Vantage GPU, SM3.0 and SM2.0 scores in that order. The overall 06 score is really unimportant now IMHO.

I was contemplating a NP5797, but the scores didn't exactly wow me. Right now, the Whitebook is tiding me over while I wait for the D900F and especially the M98 (GTX280M SLI....mmmmm) before pulling the trigger on either one of those or a W90Vp or if the 4870's make it for the 840 (lol, mmmkay).

 

Any scores are only a vague value anyway. The only thing that means anything is actual gameplay, reliability, no heat issues etc.

 

Absolutely, reliability+thermal management > performance everyday of the week.

 

I love the "buzz" about all the new GPU developments, there will be some dogs once in a while but there are a lot of good options coming down the pipes.

 

I'm more eager to see how this 128-bit Mobility 4860 with 1GB of GDDR5 pans out. I want to buy a GTX 260M for my notebook, but I'd hate to do it before I find out if these new ATi cards are compatible.

 

yeah im just praying for 4870 support, even though i see no need for the upgrade at all currently

btw rob....whats ur max OC on the x9100?

 

Not sure yet. The almost 16000 run today I had it at 3.53.

Before when I tried to go at 3.6 I got the bsod.

I'm using Setfsb so I'm not sure if the limitation is due to the CPU or the front side bus.

I do know that the CPU isn't overheating though.

So I'm either stressing the FSB/memory or not enough voltage to the CPU but I doubt it's a CPU/voltage problem.

After all it is just a dual core.

 

hmmm ur def hitting a fsb wall....i would say get the ocz bios but u prolly dont wanna mess with ur warranty....im guessing u can hit high 3's on that chip.....either way...a dual at 3.5 is wayyy more than enough for everything

 

yea i hit 3.18 and it crashes

 

They wouldnt make a gpu that wouldnt fit. It would cost more money to come out with a new laptop that actually fit it, then to just make it fit in the M17 and sell them with the new option.

Plus ATI would want them to fit, because that would mean more sells from people with the M17 already.

 

Yeah the "not fitting" makes zero sense. Flextronics would be working with ATi through the development cycle, so the card's dimensions will be ironed out first. It could be a heatsink design issue though.

 

You make more money from selling an entirely new notebook than just selling the cards so the cost of designing a new chassis isn't an issue.


From what's been posted on this topic in several threads Flex has put 4870x2 in the W840 but with unresolved issues. If AW is saying that they're not going to be offering the upgrades there could be other (more plausible) reasons for it.

#1 would be the actual cost of the upgrade and that it's probably not worth it for AW to offer the upgrade option because of the labor and shipping involved.

Or another explanation could concern the rumored Quicksilver model that AW is working on. AW could be using the M17 to tide them over until a refresh on their own chassis that will be manufactured by Dell.

 

yes it would be worth it for AW we pay for labour and shipping they make the money

 

It would be wise of AW to do the upgrade. Not design a whole new laptop.

And saying that the M17 is just being used to tide over another design is just rediculous...You could say that about any company, because once something new comes out, they already have an idea/design for the next product in work.

 

Unless the profit margin is there, no, it wouldn't make sense for AW to entertain the hassle versus offering a new model with newer cards at a larger profit margin and potentially less headaches.

Being a gamers company, it wouldn't make sense to NOT offer them to their buyers, as they have offered GPU subsystem upgrades in the past on previous models.

Don't be too sensitive over member ramblings over the 4870's possibly not coming to fruition for the existing laptop. I would never buy a laptop on the possibility of future MXM upgrades. The M17, in its own right, is a pretty powerful beast. Buy it with the mindset of, "Hey, this model is a Rock Kick@$$ model all on its own." and 4870's (which while providing a nice boost doesn't suddenly turn it into some death wreaker) would be some nice icing on the cake.