Which Video Card should I buy?? Nvidia or ATI???

I would like to buy a new Alienware Laptop M17X.... What should I take? With SLI 280 or CrossFire 5870???

 

5870s, definetely. Much much better.

 

Unless something has changed that is also the difference between R1 and R2.

 

umm, I would like to know, if there any problems(Bugs) about the Video cards

 

danile get the 5870's there are no bugs with them. simple

 

There are always problems and bugs, but between the ATI's flickering and Nvidia's stuttering/latency I prefer ATI at this point.

 

R1s are taken off from Alienware site.

 

looks like you only have 1 choice out of those two unless you get a used one which i dont think you do

 

A pity, I liked it more with the 3hr battery life.

 

a great beast has passed for the coming of a GOD!

 

what do you thik about this build?



Intel® Core™ i7 720QM 1.6GHz (2.8 GHz Turbo Mode, 6MB Cache)
Genuine Windows® 7 Home Premium, 64bit, English
1 Year Basic Service Plan
CrossfireX™ 1GB ATI Radeon™ Mobility HD 5870
17-inch WideUXGA 1920 x 1200 RGB LED (1200p)
4GB Dual Channel DDR3 at 1333MHz
1TB Raid 0 (2x 500GB 7,200RPM HDDs)
Slot-Load Dual Layer DVD Burner (DVD+-RW, CD-RW)
Wireless 1520 802.11n Half Mini-Card

for 2714$.... what do you think?

 

Super! Go for it.
On a side note: I'd get a better warranty and 6300WIFI, but you can upgrade both later on.

 

ok thank you! Now.. I would like to know if there any problem about the heat.. there are?

 

Make sure to read this thread on how to save a bunch of money! http://forum.notebookreview.com/alienware/456885-aw-dell-ordering-advice-how-save.html

 

nice thx but.. there is a problem with the heat?

 

no alienware is the best cooling systeme

 

I've always wondered why people get absurd amounts of HDD space... especially in a laptop... What do you really need 1tb of space for?? E-peen??

 

I would not recommend less than 1 year advanced warranty, to cover accidental damage. You can always extend it to 2-5 years of advanced warranty later.

I would recommend the Intel 6300 wireless too.

If the hard drives were chosen for RAID 0 performance, I'd recommend removing one hard drive from the system & save up for a decently sized SSD (using the original hard drive for data storage after the OS reinstall to the SSD), or get an SSD in the system from the start. There are many threads on here about the performance from a single SSD being better than a RAID 0 with dual 7200rpm drives.

Movies? Music? Videos? Games? Heck, most games take up 10-20GB each now. The 250GB secondary drive on my R2 is just for game installations.

 

yeah but you can purchase an external DD at low cost

 

Realy? ok... I need 1TB because I will install over 150 games

 

They don't call it a desktop replacement for no reason I'm thinking of pulling my blu-ray burner and installing a 1TB drive in it's place and having three drives.

 

guys, I received an offer from dell to upgrade my M17x R1 with ATI 5870 Crossfire. The price would be 560€ (670$) which actually is a good price.
But is it worth it spending so much money? Is there a chance to sell my used Nvidias 280M GTX?

and can someone confirm that my binary GFX is still working with ATI (well...at least after reboot, right?)?

 

can you do that ^^^ mmm ive always wanted a laptop with more hdds as raid 0 with 3 hdds would be great

and to the fella above selling your gtx280s shouldnt be any problem.

 

I am surprised by the low price. Are you sure that is for two cards? Maybe they meant $670 per card thus $1,340.00 for the entire crossfire solution.

 

I got a confirmation by Email that this is for two ATI 5870 CF.
So my impression is right that this is good offer?

But what might I get for my Nvidias? Any thoughts?

 

struselix
I dont think the 5870's will work as there not supported in the Bios & have read here on the forum from a Dell rep that they will not be releasing future bios with 5870's .Better check that up before spending cash.

 

so...I wrote that to the agent: his reply was that they haven`t tested it yet. He suggested that I can buy the cards and replace them myself (it would make problems with the return if a technician would change them and they would not work then). The price then would be 390€.

I`m not sure if I should agree to this.

By the way: would the binary GFX still work?

 

You could always give it a try and see what happens. Worst case, I am pretty sure it would not be difficult to sell those cards for what you paid for or even more.

 

I found that in the internet:

Alienware M17x R1
In regards to upgrading to the Ati Radeon Mobility HD 5870 on the Alienware M17x R1, Dell has no plans to qualify and warrant the system with that GPU configuration. But, if as an individual user you want to purchase the card and upgrade it yourself, there is nothing stopping you. We just want to be clear that we are not guaranteeing functionality of the card with the BIOS and driver set. Nor can we warranty any hardware failures that may happen as a result of running the Ati Radeon Mobility HD 5870 in a non-qualified platform. These are the Dell validated video cards:
96RJ4 Nvidia GeForce GTX 260M (Primary)
4WGVV Nvidia GeForce GTX 260M (Secondary with SLI cable)
X648M Nvidia GeForce GTX 280M (Primary)
X203R Nvidia GeForce GTX 280M (Secondary with SLI cable)
G51FX Ati Radeon Mobility HD 4870 (Primary)
NHCHW Ati Radeon Mobility HD 4870 (Secondary with CFX cable)

So that means it might work. Has anyone tried?

It would be no great issue if the cards are not working. In Germany you can return them without any reasons within 14 days.

 

we have a winner

 

My old m17x I could have 1.5tb of hard drive space. (Please note the small letter m. It use to have a hotswap drive that was great. You can pull out the dvd drive and put in a 500gb hard drive. So you can have a raid 500 x2 equal to 1tb and a D drive 500gb equals 1.5tb of space.