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    M17x - 280m sli or 4870 xf

    Discussion in 'Alienware' started by vradev, Dec 14, 2009.

  1. vradev

    vradev Notebook Consultant

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    Hi everyone,
    I know this topic has been discussed a lot in the forum but I still can't make a decision whether to get the 280m sli or the 4870 xf for the m17x I'm planning to buy. I wanted to ask performance wise which one is better for gaming. I will be getting the qx9300 CPU. After a lot of research online I still don't have a definete decision made. I'm leaning towards the ati cards but I want to justify the extra $100 that they cost. Is it wort that extra price? I don't mind spending the $100 but I want to make sure that I get the better of the two products for the extra cost. Please help! My main concerns are:
    1. Performance in games?
    2. Is the nvidia physx is worth having?
    3. Is the hdmi sound that ati supports 5.1 s/pdif or only stereo and does nvidia support hdmi audio?

    Thank you in advance.
     
  2. KracsNZ

    KracsNZ Notebook Evangelist

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    As you mentioned, there's already a thread for this and you would get an answer if you posted there as well, but anyways.

    In raw numbers the 4870s are better, not too much in it though and they both have games they win in. Ati better overall.

    Physx is fun in the games that support it, but there's not a huge number and I wouldn't let it sway you too much.

    Both Ati and Nvidia support LPCM audio over HDMI, they do not support bitstreaming of HD audio however. But the only downside to LPCM is not having the Dolby TrueHD or DTS HD-MA logo on your receiver.

    You'll have to wait for an Ati 5000 series discretes (or maybe Nvidia 300s???) to have a chance of getting bitstreaming of HD audio via HDMI (at least the desktop card have the protected path required to be allowed to transmit the bitstream data across the cards bus).
     
  3. EviLCorsaiR

    EviLCorsaiR Asura

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    4870s perform better, as well as supporting DirectX 10.1 in the few games that use it and having better driver support. PhysX is nothing really worth having; there are only a few games that use it and the only game I can think of where it's really worth mentioning is Batman: Arkham Asylum, and it's already been shown that even two GTX 280Ms will struggle with that when physx is on.

    Also, I do believe some people can't even get audio working over HDMI with the nVidias but ATis do. As far as I know, anyway.

    In my opinion, just go for the ATis.