New Laptop Advice. Alienware vs Sager, video cards, etc.

Hi folks! Been like 2 years since I've been to these forums.. but I'm looking at getting a new laptop.

A few facts about what I'm looking for:
I want a desktop replacement, this will be my primary computer.
I want great performance (obviously) for gaming graphics.
Money isn't that big a deal. Saving money is good, but my primary concern.

Looking at the Alienware M9750:
Top end mobile processor, 4 Gigs of RAM, RAID-0 hard drives.
What is the best video card option? I imagine the SLi 7950s are best. But how much better are they than the SLi 8700GTs? How necessary/helpful/amazing will DX10 be in games later this year or next?
Depending on DX10.. if I went with 7950s I imagine I'd get the best performance out of XP, and 8700s I might as well go with Vista (Regardless of hate/love/whatever of Vista, I've been using it for a while, have no issues with it. I just want best performance for now and later)
With 3 year protection, comes out to $4500-ish

Looking at the Sager NP9262:
High end desktop processor (Q6700), 4 Gigs of RAM, RAID-0 hard drives.
Video option is an 8800M GTX.
How does this compare vs 2 7950s or 8700GTs? Its easy to find single card comparisons, but hard to find decent single card vs SLi. That or my Googling sucks today.
How much better is this processor in a gaming environment?
With their 3 year protection it comes out to about $3800-ish.
What scares me is their dead pixel policy. You have to pay $200 in order (when you order) to 'return' it if it arrives with a dead pixel. Alienware's policy is immediate replacement if there is ever a dead pixel in the center portion of the screen or 2 outside.
Also, the Sager offers the option of the faster X6800 processor, but its a big price jump and has half the L2 cache. I don't see it being a massive performance boost, but I could be wrong.
With all of that.. I imagine a Sager laptop must run very very hot. Have they had any overheating issues?



There's also the idea of waiting for the Alienware x17m. But I can't find any real release dates for them. I can wait a little while. But I'd like to have it by February.

Thanks for any and all comments!

 

The 8800M GTX absolutely kills the 7950M GTX and the 8700M GT, even in SLI. The 7950M GTX is the second best card out, though the 8800M GTX is about double the speed of it! I'd say wait for the m17x if you have the budget to buy dual 8800M GTXs or if your prefer Alienware (you could add another 8800M GTX in the future, and run them in SLI, on the Alienware if you want to, modules should be down to $300 by the time you'll wan to, you couldn't do that on the Sager, which is a big plus). Also, the Sager is an uneven height, but is about 1.8" thick, which is probably more than the Alienware (the current M9750 is only 1.5" thick with dual video cards and hard drives, the Sager doesn't offer that).

 

The m9750 won't see 4 Gb ram-motherboard limitation. Get 2 Gb of ram-that's good enough.
7950GTX a lot better than the 8700.
If you want max. performance both single and SLI, use XP OS.
Don't even think about running DX10 until you have at least the
8800 graphics card. The m9750 may be upgradeable to the 8800M card in the future.

 

And the keyword here is: "MAY". But I doubt it will, since they will release the M15x and M17x soon.
If you don't want to move it often, I'd say 9262. Otherwise wait for the M17x.

 

I recommend waiting for the new Alienware m15x and m17x notebooks to come out before you buy anything, they look like great machines and certainly have a lot of power. You should definitely go for an 8800M-GTX because as noted, it is an insanely powerful card.

Games will undoubtedly start to take advantage of at least two cores, if not more. So the quad-core has a lot of future potential. For gaming it is not that advantageous to have four cores but it is still a great gaming processor. If you are going to get the Sager NP9262, get quad core.

Don't worry about dead pixels. 85% of Sager's notebooks are shipped pixel perfect (that number may be even higher). You can simply return the notebook if it has a dead pixel, Sager has a great return policy. It is highly unlikely that you will get any dead pixels.

The Sager runs very cool. I had the dual-core one but from what I am reading in the Sager forum, it is just as cool with the quad:
http://www.notebookreview.com/default.asp?newsID=3783

 

I second waiting for the alienware m17x the Dual 8800GTX are gonna be sweet!!!!!

 

Is there any word on when the m17x's will be released and if they'll be a similar price range? (After adjusting for the insane cost of those cards at least)

 

Someone posted on this forum that the Alienware m9750 will be able to upgrade to the 8800m GTX. It was reported in an article by the French Alienware. So no more "May".

 

Mind posting a link?

 

From Minikisskool in another thread. Great news!

 

The m9750 is not a good computer to buy right now, so let's leave the discussion to the M17X and the two 8800M GTX Sagers. Anyone looking to buy a gaming laptop right now shouldn't be considering any other graphics card at this time, the 8800 is that good.

Get the NP9262 if you desire the fastest portable computer available. I was considering one with 2x 200gb 7200rpm drives in RAID and a solid state drive in the third bay. Would have been a monster machine, but in the end I decided I didn't need that much power, and I wanted a little more portibility.

Get the M17X if you want an Alienware, and don't want a 15 inch screen. The M17X is built with the best available notebook components, without resorting to desktop processers like the NP9262. It will be much lighter than the NP9262, and has a nice flashy look.

The laptop I got was neither. I went for the third option, the NP5792. IMO this laptop has comparable performance to the two SLI machines, but costs under $2500 loaded and shipped.

 

Yes, the NP5792 has the better performance right now than an Alienware m9750 with 7950 GTX in SLi. It's raw power beats Alienware's SLi Rig because the speed increase for SLi is heavily dependent on SLi Profiles which also require a driver update. If it weren't for the SLi profile and driver updates, it would be VERY comparrible with the 7950 GTX SLi only trailing slightly behind. A single 8800m has none of those issues. If having the fastest 8800m GTX in SLI is what you're looking for get a NP9262 or wait for the m17x.

 

I dont know if it matters to you, but keep in mind that the 9262 is pretty huge(as far as I've heard). Personally I like the idea of getting the 9262 since it has the option for quad processors. However, it's kinda too big for my tastes. between the two though, I'd go with the Sager because of the processors and because it's cheaper. Lastly, the L2 cache won't make much of a difference, if any.

 

Also note that the 9262 has Desktop CPU's in the laptop case... Sager has a poor track record with desktop CPU's in their laptops. I won't touch another Sager after the horror stories that many many many people had.. Myself included.

If you do decide on the Sager, Make sure it is from a good reputable reseller, preferably who do their own warranty work, and not outsourced to a warranty 'company'.

 

Every Company that used those Clevo chassis (remember the P4 days) suffered in reputation, mainly Alienware because it was the most high profile company. The current high-end Clevo's have really beefed up cooling and there's not so much risk as there was before...
The big negative with the Clevo is the the thickness :S
We'll have to wait for the m15x and m17x and their pricing, if they're too expensive, forgt them.

I second Chaz, because the m15x, if priced right, would be a better option than even the NP5792. (mainly because of size, although it doesn't look like it's a true 15 incher, more inbetween 15 and 17)

 

The m9750 is, and will be for some time, an excellent computer to buy. If you want to save yourself a packet wait until the 17 and 15 come out from alienware and they drop the price of the m9750, then just have the two 8800's put in that instead of the 7950s/8700s - and yes, the m9750 supports the 8800. Your biggest concern at the moment is Vista's crap support for SLi and gaming in general - some of which is inherent, a lot of which will be solved in SP1.

 

How come it is a good computer to buy at the moment? You're biased. Right now it's a bad time to buy a laptop with old technology.

 

its almost alwats a bad time to buy a laptop with old technology

 

The only new things that the 17x has over the m9750 is three hard drive bays and the extreme processors, which you'll pay a hefty price more for. So its not old technology when you can get the 8800m in the m9750 aswell. I don't really see a neccesity to having the extreme processor when the regular intel core 2 duos run fine. Sure I say that having an m9750, but its not a bad idea to purchase this laptop since its price just dropped and is upgradable.

 

The m9750 is an Napa chipset machine, as compared to the Santa Rosa M17x and the Sagers. The Sagers can quite affordably include a 2.4GHz processor (the upgrade is about $150), while Alienware has to charge almost $800 for a 2.33GHz processor, and the base 2.0GHz processor costs about the same as the 2.4GHz in the Sager. The m9750 also does not support 4gb of ram, this is a BIOS issue. If you can get 8800M GTX's in SLI in the Alienware, that's great. You are still stuck with old technology for your motherboard and processor. Now the price on the m9750 has dropped, it's about 3 grand for one with a decent config (2.0GHz, 2gb ram, 7950 GTX in SLI). Why the hell would you pay $500 more for a laptop, then pay about $1200 more to upgrade it to 8800M's, and still be stuck with an old processor? Insanity. The m9750 is a poor buy right now. The best buy right now is the NP5792. Maybe the M17x and M15x will be better or cheaper options, we'll have to see. I suspect that by the time the M17x is out, Sager and many other vendors may well have a non-monster sized SLI machine to compete with it and there will be even more options. The m9750 isn't even in the conversation of fast notebooks anymore, it's slower and more expensive than the Dell XPS 1730 (presumably also upgradable) and gets slaughtered by the single card NP5792. Time to get off the Alienware bandwagon. Competition has reached the notebook gaming industry, and Alienware no longer offers the fastest machine, or the newest technology, all they are giving you right now are glossy ads in PC Gamer, a pretty case, and bragging rights at the LAN party.

 

BIOS issue? You can't use 4GB of RAM in any 32bit system, that has nothing to do with the BIOS. Whilst I'll agree there are better systems for cheaper than the m9750 at the moment my original point was that give it a few months and the m9750 will be the price of an inspiron Get it then, upgrade the graphics and you'll still have an awesome machine.

 

The reason the 2.33 is so much more money is because its a mobile processor not a desktop therefore it makes the computer weigh less and is not as thick. It is a waste of money to get the 2.33, but its only 2.4k to get the computer I have in my signature not 3k. If your going with Windows XP it only supports 2gb anyway so 4gb is just overkill. Vista however allows 3.5gb and you need a better motherboard so I would wait for the m17x, but Vista has so many performance issues and DX 10 is not worth it as of now. I don't know where you got the whole idea about Dell being cheaper, but its actually more expensive to get a Dell with the same components. It also only offers the 8700m and if its upgradable than your still paying less with the m9750. So never ever buy a Dell over the m9750 because the 8700s are worthless and why pay more for less performance from a Dell. The NP5792 with a 2.4Ghz is actually the same price as an m9750 with a 2.0Ghz and is only a single card configuration. The 8800m beats two 7950s, but not by much. If you put two 8800ms in the m9750 then it will blow it out of the water, but thats more money. Check prices on Alienware please.

 

The biggest impact on gaming speed is the GPU not the CPU. The CPU is not used that much in high-end games. Also a small increase in CPU clock frequency
-say 2.0 GHz to 2.4 GHz- doesn't have much of a performance impact on games either. CPU performance is more about architecture than it is about clock frequencies. Going from single core to dual core or dual core to quad core makes a big difference in performance.

 

First off, the NP5792 does not use a desktop processor, it uses an Intel T7700, a mobile 2.4GHz processor. Secondly, the NP5792 is actually lighter than the m9750, even before you add the second video card and HDD, and while it is thicker, it has a tapered design which makes it hardly worth mentioning.

So what you are recomending to the OP is that he purchace a m9750 for $3000, then in 2 months mail his machine back to Alienware with another $1000 to get two 8800M GTX's (assuming Alienware offers this upgrade, it has not been confirmed or even mentioned AFAIK). Give me a break. The NP5792 is faster than the m9750, and probably will continue to be competitive even after a m9750 user pays through the nose to upgrade his graphics cards. SLI has diminishing returns, driver issues, patchy support, and is expensive. Why bother anymore now that we finally have a mobile card that can play everything except Crysis on high? Why not take that $600 bucks and spend it on a solid state drive, something that will give far better returns on your investment. You are giving the OP poor advice.

Now let's talk M17X. This machine will start at $4000 if you want SLI 8800M GTX's. Hell, a Sager NP9262 with two 8800's in it starts at $3500, and there is no way Alienware won't tag their $500 premium on top. THe Np9262, for all the talk of how big it is, is a whopping THREE POUNDS heavier than the m9750 and speculation is that the M17X will be slightly heavier, as it looks a fair bit thicker than the m9750. Go ahead and wait for the M17X, and see what a decent configuration is going to cost you. That three pounds won't seem like so much... oh yeah and you get a quad core.

 

I said the computer costs $2400 not $3000. So your paying $3400 for a computer with Dual 8800m GTXs if you so choose to upgrade for $1000. Alienware's price on the 2.33 is not that expensive. It is just an expensive processor for $642.00. Someone pointed it out from Newegg. http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819111300

The prices on Alienware's are not bad at all anymore. Dells are more expensive. The Sager is a better deal, but its not like you make it out to be. I was wrong about the desktop processor. Sorry.

 

comon Sager users, stop hating on AW lappies, they are lighter,thinner and reviews showing the 7950GTX SLI killing a single 8800, although you can Upgrade your m9750 later on. so i wont be changing my AW till i win the lottery

 

Sigh. If you want to believe your m9750 is lighter than a NP5792, I guess no amount of evidence will convince you otherwise. As for the review of the Widow machine, now we have ONE source showing the 8800M GTX being slower than 7950 in SLI. Obviously if this holds up, it changes a lot, but it seemed like in a lot of the RTS games the 8800 came out on top. Not sure if this was the better processor or what, but there's conflicting information, as of today.

 

with my oC setup on the GPU i can defenatly beat the 8800 -.- just waiting for my cooling pad to make it permenant

 

Personally, I don't give a crap about the weight of a laptop - especially when we are talking about high end rigs like the m9750 and like sagers. I mean really c'mon - people buying those laptops are dedicated gamers. The laptop is going to spend 80% of it's life sat in one place, not being carried off to lectures/work for taking notes. Mine sits bolted to the desk with a kensington in it pretty much all the time, it might occasionally be taken into uni for presentations. Even when it's taken in, you have the extra weight of the PSU, carry bag and accessories to consider - weight simply isn't an issue. Not unless people are seriously slacking off at the gym these days and the thought of carrying something in heavier than a Louis Viton handbag makes them shudder - hehe

 

Lol brks. I agree there, although I didn't go so far as to get a NP9262... there's a limit. But on the topic of weight, the M15X price is supposedly going to be floating around $2200(!), which is a great price IMO. It's a little hard to believe they can deliver the same components in my Sager in a 15" platform for cheaper, but if they can I would take everything back I said about Alienware. We'll see next week!