cant afford gtx280m, gtx260m or hd4870?

Hi everyone,

You wouldn't believe how long I've been thinking about buying this laptop...
And most of my searches for information reach this forum so I finally decided to register.

I'm ready to buy it but I would like to ask a few questions first.

Firstly I have a budget of £2000 (ex. VAT) that I can't extend and here are the specs I've put together:

Genuine Windows® 7 Home Premium 64bit- English
Intel® Core™ 2 Quad Q9000 (2.00GHz,1066MHz FSB,6MB L2 Cache)
Alienware M17x Gaming Laptop - Space Black
SLI™ Dual 1GB GDDR3 NVIDIA GeForce GTX 260M
1 year of coverage included with your PC
17-inch Wide UXGA 1920 x 1200 - Beyond HD (1200p) Display
4096MB 1333MHz Dual Channel DDR3 SDRAM [2x2048]
1TB (7200 RPM) Free Fall Sensor Raid 0 "Stripe" Dual HDD - (2x500GB)
DVD+/-RW (DVD, CD read and write) Optical Drive
9-cell 85Whr Lithium Ion battery

and the current price is: £1,890.43 (ex. VAT)



So, the cpu from what I read here, doesn't matter too much because I can buy a qx9300 OEM or ES later on.

Now about the graphic cards... In US ATI hd 4870 are the top in terms of price and on the chart they show it as having the best performance.
Apart from that, I always find people comparing them to the nvidia gtx 280m but incredibly in UK they are selling them £250 cheaper than gtx 280m and only £40 more expensive than the gtx 260m!!

I know that the competition between gtx280m and hd4870 is high and that the performance tests are not conclusive but how about gtx260m vs hd4870?

I've always been a fan of Nvidia and I never had a single ATI on my personal machines. But in this case, is it as obvious as it seems that the ATI are a better deal? or is there any catch?
Also, would the ATI have any drivers or compatibility problems? I saw on the forum something about Hybrid modes and all that.

Bottom line is, I can't afford the gtx 280m, so gtx 260m or ATI (for £40 more)?



Thanks in advance.

 

hey Tec, if you are planning on swapping out the CPU at some point anyway. you might as well go with the t9600 dual core and overclock it like I did. You will not see a performance hit really, especially in most games and it is a little cheaper than going the low end quad core.

From what I have read, the 4870's and the gtx280's are just about even performance wise. The 280s are better in some games and the ATI's are better in others, so really it comes down to which you like more. The 4870 cards in crossfire will outperform the 260's in SLI though, so I would definately go dual 4870's or 280's, upgrading the cards after the fact is quite expensive.

 

I don't know much about these alienware but will be purchasing mine soon but what I do know is my brother brought an ATI a few years back when they were more powerful than NVIDIA on paper and he had nothing but trouble. Driver support is rubbish, game compatibility is rubbish and in the real world they are not as fast.

Thats my 2 pence anyways.

If I were you I probably would go for a faster duel core than the slow quad core but it depends what you want to do with your laptop.

 

The t9600 is not available in UK. In terms of dual core they only sell the T9800 which is about £165 pounds more than the q9000 (and goes out of my budget when combined with the graphic cards).

But I would be doing some 3D rendering once in a while, so I think I would be happy even with the lowest quad.


In terms of the cards it seems to be quite a problem. In terms of performance from what I read it really seems to be as you are saying ZackB.

But on the other hand it seems they also bring a risk as enkidu is saying (software, drivers, somewhat unknown performance,...)


Im really confused. At the moment Im thinking the gtx260m would be safer but would perform less. On the other hand upgrading them won't be an option and they would probably be less future proof...

 

From the benchmarks i've seen with some games the GTX 260 out performs the ATI and others dont... But I think i'd prefer the phys x support over anything the ATI could through at me.

Also i'm in the UK and I emailed alienware and asked for the T9600 CPU which I have a proformer sitting there awaiting my order. They just dont list it on website.



With the money you save going duel core you may be able to afford the 280GTX's

 

You are right, there are some nvidia features to be considered.

About the CPU, the idea is excellent, Ill see what I can do, it would be great to save money on it since its so easy to upgrade.

I'm just a bit worried about the warranty though, I posted on another thread a question regarding this.

They say it only voids old CPU warranty but I concerned that it might void warranty of the entire machine.

 

One other thing to think about, is that the chipset in the M17x is from Nvidia as well so it should in theory 'play nicer' with the 280's. I am quite happy with my 280's, the run anything I can throw at it with no issues at high fps.

I would make sure whatever you get, get either the 280's or the 4870's in SLI, as the video cards are WAY more expensive to upgrade later on (Moo posted the prices for ordering cards and stuff from Dell separately and it is NOT pretty), but you can get a newer processor for $400-600 if things start to noticably get slow with the dual core. Pretty much the reason I went dual core and went with the best cards, and multi core support for games isn't the greatest at the moment for the most part. I do a lot of 3D work myself and the overclocked dual core works fine. My two cents... I would go for the best viddy cards out of the box over a slower quad.

 

You mean switching the CPU voids the warranty? If you do upgrade to a quad and something goes bad enough that you actually do have to send the machine back to Dell, just put the old T9600 back in and you are set. A lot of the dudes on NBR have done the same thing with no worries.

 

So it doesn't have any stickers like the PS2 for instance?

That's good =)

 

What about getting some cheaper hard drives and then upgrading them later? HD upgrades are generally cheaper if you do them yourself. I would defeinitely go for the 280M's and not the ATI because Nvidia has much better driver support.

The bottom-line is that you should do everything necessary to get the best video card because that is the most expensive part to upgrade.

 

The Nvidia Chipset "plays" just fine with the ATI's. The only difference is that you'll have to reboot to use the integrated GPU for better battery life, so what.

This is a no brainer. The ATI's in the USA are the most expensive option - here in the UK they're on par with the 260's. They also perform better or on par with the 280s. Get the ATI's.

 

They are the fastest cards out for the m17x .... Nuff said

 

From all the replies and the rest of the threads it seems that everyone agrees that the gtx280m are definitely worthy, but when it comes to ATI there's lots of love but also lots of doubt involved.

I understand the controversy regarding gtx280m vs hd4870 but I was somewhat confident that gtx260m vs hd4870 would have a very easy answer..

Maybe we should create a poll and try to analise statistic-wise

 

I'd definetely go for the 4870s. They WILL beat the 260Ms at the vast majority of games, plus you get the benefit of HDMI audio output.

 

Mate all due respect, this isn't about love or preference, it's about facts. For the money you're going to get much better performance if you go with the ATI's vs the 260s. Cold hard facts show them beating or matching the 280 SLI.

If you don't care about performance and would rather get the Nvidias for drivers or brand, then by all means go for it, but I think we have a great deal compared to USA customers for the ATI's and I warn you not to miss out.

I've been an 3dFX and Nvidia owner 100% of my life until the M17x and I'm very happy with the ATI's.

Edit: I use HDMI output every day to watch my USA shows

 

For the price they are in the UK, go for the HD4870's it simply isnt worth the extra for the 280m's when they perform the same.
Driver support wise i've never had trouble with either ATI or nVidia for that matter. I have however had overheating nVidia chips.

 

That's exactly what I thought from the beginning, £40 would be totally worth it vs the gtx260m, but it sounded very strange against the US marketing and pricing.


Anyway, at the moment I'm waiting for the price with the q9000 and the 280s.
If that is still above budget I will quickly try the T9600 with the 280s.
Otherwise I think it's going to be the q9000 with the ATIs, I'm quite confident at the moment that they will perform great, and that are not many or even any issues at all.


Do you miss Physx support at all? (Im guessing that you probably don't even notice it)

 

physx is a lie most game juste use the sofware physx acellerator or havoc one

only 2 games and benchmarks use physx on hardware lvl so in most game physx run the same on ati and nvidia because it simply don,t run on the card

unless nvidia made some crapy thing that mak physx run slower when ati hardware is detected ....

btw ati makemost usage of faster clock so unless you are a heavy muktitasker better go for a faster dual then with a slower quad if you are going ati

 

You know I almost went for the ATI until I read this review http://www.anandtech.com/mobile/showdoc.aspx?i=3569&p=1


I think my system will have nvidia installed....

 

Updated drivers on the 4870s really bring far better performance. They're using, what, 8 series drivers? Whereas the latest ones are 9.10 or 9.11 or something like that.

 

I think my conclusion is: I'll try to go with the 280s even if they are not specifically better in performance, from what I read Nvidia might be providing better service this days (drivers, software, etc..).

Otherwise, I now believe that going with the ATIs would still be a good option.
In some cases they might even surpass the 280s in performance and it seems that all the problems mentioned don't affect too much or at all the end user.

 

the asus 4870 where not 4870 they where some crappy remake
it's kinda sad they actually allowed asus to do so it was a bad decision regarding mobile gamer but .....

and alienware would never do a such bad move they know their user will upgrade driver even if they don't support them officialy

read this it explain all
http://forums.amd.com/game/messageview.cfm?catid=264&threadid=119125&enterthread=y

and i think i read it in the amd forum about the 9.11 driver working with the w90

 

Same thing happens with Nvidia cards..

My current laptop (Sony Vaio) has a 8600M GT which is supposed to be supported by nvidia, and none of the recent drivers actually install.

Since I have it (more than one year) sony has never released any drivers for graphics =/



Notebook Release 186

Version: 186.81 WHQL

"Supported products:
(...)
GeForce 8M series:
8600M GS, 8700M GT, 8400M GS, 8400M G, 8800M GTS, 8800M GTX, 8400M GT, 8600M GT, 8200M G, 8800M GS
(...)"


"The NVIDIA Setup program could not locate any drivers that are compatible with your current hardware. Setup will now exit."



(I know that in nvidia's case it's possible to trick the installer, but still...)

 

I have not read the whole thread but Im thinking of selling my T9600 for a very decent price and am in the UK also.
If you do go for the T9600 as someone on the front page suggested then just send me a PM.
I was going to keep it just in case I had to slap it back in for warranty but with some reports that Alienware are not offering warranty extensions on the M17 I dont see the point.
Enjoy your M17X and Im not a million miles away from making my purchase as well.

 

Sorry, the idea of getting the T9600 was to decrease the price from the q9000, but even that, I asked the guy from Dell and he says they can't sell it with the Alienware

Anyway, I got updated prices from him, and it seems I'm going for the ATIs! (fingers crossed)

Here are the prices I got:

q9000, 4gb 1333, 1TB, lcd 1200p, dual gtx 280m ----- £ 2070 (ex. VAT)
q9000, 4gb 1333, 1TB, lcd 1200p, dual ATI hd4870 --- £ 1870 (ex. VAT)

And I didn't get the price for the 260s, so guess that's out of question anyway =)

It seems pretty clear that I should go for the ATIs.. same performance and I can still save a few bucks... which will help buying the qx9300 in the long run.


I just hope I don't regret it cuz I've always enjoyed Nvidia stuff, from the logos to the software, even the website and the demos they have!...

 

I couldn't resist. Got nvidia in the end. Ordered yesterday! =)

 

Well i would say go for ATI because its cheaper and their performance would be almost the same...

 

yeah, I really appreciate all comments that I got. I was really close to get the ATIs! I believe now, based on the experiences I read about that they would perform as good as the nvidia's or maybe even better.

But I guess I chose them just as peace of mind, based on the fact that I always had nvidia. The only ATI that I've ever tried is the one Im using at work, and the software doesn't look that good (maybe the drivers are old).

I'm just a bit concerned about the screen size now (1200p).
Might be a bit too much, even on windows environment, and when it comes to gaming I don't believe this laptop will manage to still get good FPS in a good amount of years using that resolution.

I just hope the games won't look that bad in a decreased res. =/


But also, Im guessing the screen wouldn't be that bad to replace, worse comes to worse, or is it?
Does anyone have an idea how much would it cost to buy the 900p and how much trouble would be involved?