Buying m17... wait for XP?

I am new, this is actually my first post, though I have been reading the forums for a very long time. From reading the forums I have decided to buy the m17 (just can't seem to go back to 15.4 after using 17" for so long). My only hold up is vista.

I have read over and over Vista is not good for gaming, that for many games it loses fps, some a large, noticeable amount. My questions for the "people in the know" is should I wait for XP on the m17, or are the rumors of vista's poor performance greatly overrated? I am planning on getting the dual 8800's, so would the difference of vista and XP even matter with 2 graphic cards?

If I should wait, does anyone have any idea how long it will take AW to get the m17 with XP available... if at all?

I am seriously in need of a new laptop so waiting any longer is risky, but I am more than willing to wait if XP is the better choice... I mean why pay a ton for a high end notebook just to have the OS kick it in the teeth right?


I really appreciate the any help anyone can give.
Thank you in advance.

Andrea

 

some peeps have mentioned that 8800 in sli on vista is horrible.

 

On my single 8800GT in my desktop there is a one frame difference between XP and Vista, and Vista is the faster one. Not sure about SLI though.

 

Vista is not perfect but xp is a thing of the past.

 

my sli setup in my desktop works good with vista as long as you have all the updates

 

people criticised xp too when it came out, I think you should cut your losses and get Vista. No point in getting dual 8800 if you cant use dx 10. And very few dx 9 games need dual 8800s. And also you will be waiting quite a while on a bog standard m17x, and hoping it may have xp might leave you a disappointed customer in 2/3 months!

 

June 30, is the deadline for XP, there is a loop hole but, it's involves you buying vista business or better, then using a 'downgrade' option... AW is not going to screw around with that... my 8800GT runs very well in vista. so what I get 85 fps in xp and only 84fps in vista... not a big difference.

just get Vista, it is not as bad as people want you to believe.

 

Vista gets a lot of slack because its new and people are so used to using Windows XP. I've been using Vista for a few months now and I never want to use another XP machine ever again. The only thing I have issues with is software compatibility with Vista, but that will be fixed soon since Vista is Microsoft's new operating system and XP is ending in June.

 

I've been using it for almost a year now and i wouldn't go back to xp it works fine. It was pretty bad at the beginnig but after some hot fixes last year and sp1 it runs realy smooth now i would say it's more stable and reliable than xp used to be. i do not play any games now but tomb rider and test drive ran well under vista.

 

Thank you so much for the help. I think I may just bite the bullet and get Vista... I do love good eye candy

Thanks again for the help, it really is making paying this much for a new notebook easier!

Andrea

 

Actually I was impressed with how well Vista performed in gaming. Check out the Sager NP9262 we did last week and see the performance benchmarks section (there's a link to it about a third of the way down):
http://www.notebookreview.com/default.asp?newsID=4391
The gaming performance difference between XP and Vista is unnoticeable for the modern games I tested. Vista has come a long way in driver support. I had no problems with SLI.

I say buy when you are ready, and if XP becomes available you can always install it because the drivers will be online.

 

I'm a huge fan of XP. IMHO it's Microsoft's crowning achievement. Vista is like Microsoft trying to be more like Apple. As an expert in XP, changing network settings is a breeze. In Vista, however, you have to dig past all the nonsense to get to the real settings. I've had to almost 'dumb down' my OS knowledge in order to work with Vista. But after a while you figure out where all the nuts and bolts still reside.
My rant aside, I use XP at home still and for work I use Vista. Several people in my company purchased high end HP laptops with Vista, then tried to install XP either in dual-boot mode or just simply replacing Vista altogether. The biggest problem is the drivers. New Hard Drives with Vista Only drivers. Video cards that run only on Vista, etc... Needless to say, all these laptops that were converted to run on XP are now back using Vista. I even tried to install XP on my tablet PC using an MSDN version of "Tablet Edition", what a nightmare getting the sound and graphics drivers to work. I resorted to Vista.

I was excited when the m15x was available in XP. I wouldn't hesitate to get XP if it is offered by the manufacturer. The only reason I don't like Vista is because my current work laptop has integrated video RAM and I know this is the weak point. If you are considering a beast of m17x with duel 8800gtx's I'm sure it will handle Vista just fine. As long as you don't mind having to bother with 'learning' to dumb down your OS knowledge to use Vista. It's sort of inevitable though.
Hey I would have loved to keep win98xp2. I thought that OS was just fine. Win2000 was good, ME was a nightmare. Then came along XP and I still think MS did a great job with it. The OS of the future, unfortunately, it is not.

Personally, I like Ubuntu with compiz-fusion. Check that out when you get a chance. <rant over>

 

Hi Andrea,
I would definitely go for Vista being that XP is on it's way down the hill. Also, being that the m17x is very new, I'm assuming that the chances of xp coming is very slim to none. After a system is brought to new technology standards, it's very hard to take a step back and make it work with an older operating system.
As other member have said, XP was once shunned as well. It seems as though most people have forgotten what it really takes to revolutionize an operating system. How do you take something as stable as XP and make it better??? This is no easy challenge. Give Vista some time and support. I'm sure we'll all be happy with the results just as we were with XPs golden moments.

Hope this helps,
Gabe

P.S. - If you plan on playing either UT3 or Crysis, I may have some simple fixes that might save some headaches.

 

Thanks for everyone's help. After reading this thread, and a few others I went a head and ordered it.

Hopefully all will go well and I will see it early June....

cross your fingers for me -lol-