Dell XPS M170 + Geforce 6800 Ultra

My first post here.

I'm looking into buying an M170 with the 6800 ultra. I know that the 7800GTX is a lot better but a lot more expensive as well.
I would like to know in what way one would be limited with the 6800 ultra. Are only certain games going to look less good or run a tad slower or will ALL graphically challenging games be affected?
And basically, this 6800 is still a pretty good graphics card, right?

I would also order it on the Belgian Dell site and I'm wondering where I would be able to get hold of reduction coupons.

Thanks.

 

l thought the 7800GTX was offered as a free upgrade right now?

 

Might not be a free upgrade since the order won't be thru the USA. The 6800 card is a higher end card, but like you said it isn't as good as the 7800GTX. I'm not sure what the 6800 card will limit you to with respect to games.

If you want more info, check out Chaz's guide on Graphics Card. http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=39568

As for the coupons, I'm not sure if dell releases coupons for the Belgian site. Most of the coupons are for the U.S. Residents, but there have been coupons for UK and other countries. You'll have search the web for them.

 

I have the 6800 ultra in my unit and have not run into problems with any of the modern games that I am playing. I wanted the 7800 but my bank account would not take the stress of the price difference when I placed my order.

My thought was that the processor would be an issue before the graphics card became one. Not 100% on that but so far everything works great.

 

The 6800 is powerful enough for most people. You will be able to run most games at highest settings no problem. It might not quite get the framerates as the 7800GTX gets, but will still do very well. What games are you planning on playing?

 

Nothing very fancy for the moment... these days I'm playing Silent hunter 3.. of course, I'm looking at the future... new generation games will be more demanding.

 

If you're looking to future proof your GPU, I'd go with the 7800 GTX - it'll last a lot longer than the 6800 Ultra (although I'm not saying that's a bad card) as it has newer hardware/more power.

 

The problem is that, for the moment, dell.be is not offering the 7800GTX anymore. Any ideas on what it will be replaced with?

 

They should be soon. They aren't offering it in the states either on the 9400/E1705 series, but they are supposedly just short on stock.

 

No the graphics card is the major bottleneck for gaming. A better CPU will help, but only a little.

 

I only thought that since a game like Quake 4 requires a PIV 2Ghz as a minimum processor. 2.26 seems to be the highest mobile Pentium at the moment. Seems like the requirements will surpass what people are buying today in terms of processor before they surpass the GPU. Just my thoughts...

 

Can I ask what games you play?

 

I am playing Quake 4, Call of Duty 2, Age of Empipres III, RF Online, and was playing WOW.. Guild Wars as well from time to time.. They all run great on the 6800 Ultra.

 

A Pentium M is built on a completely different architecture than a P4. I believe a PM must be multiplied by somewhere around 1.8 to get the idea of how it performs compared to a P4 (much like AMD processors, clock speed does not signify the better processor). So that 2.26 PM you are talking about gets roughly the same performance as a 4Ghz P4. Yeah, more than enough for any game!!

 

Yes - the P-M was built from the ground up as a notebook CPU and is partially related to the P3. Because it is a notebook CPU, a key feature in its design was power efficiency, leading to a CPU that would do more work per-clock-cycle than any other CPU (barring Core Duo). This results in lower clock speeds, but a higher amount of work done per clock-cycle than a P4 or an Athlon 64 for example. However, getting back on topic: Belgium - do you need your notebook now, or can it wait until the 7800 GTX is back in stock? I would do the later if possible.

 

How much more would the 7800gtx cost? I'm not sure I have the resources available for such an upgrade.

I guess that, in the end, what I really want to know is : is the 6800ultra still a really good card?

 

The 6800ultra is a great card. Dell sells the 7800gtx for $599USD off dell.com, but you can find it on ebay for about $350-400USD.

 

My (future) father-in-law recently got an XPS with a 6800 for his EverQuest 2 addiction and can run it pretty good (not sure exactly, but it's smooth and very good quality graphics). The 6800, as long as you have plenty of RAM and a good CPU, should keep you going on gaming for a while.

Sure, the 7800GTX is better, but the 6800 isn't a dead card. I don't know how it would run heavy top-of-the-line almost-released games (such as the upcoming sequel to Far Cry), but it certainly keeps up with currently-released ones.

Even then, you can usually just turn down the settings and still be good. However, if you can somehow get the 7800GTX or equivalent, go for it.

Just remember that all systems will eventually be obsolete over time when compared to graphics in gaming.