8800M on dell 1720??

I'm looking at buying a dell 1720 with a 8600M GT and was wondering whether anybody would know if the 8800M will come out on that laptop?

 

Dell owns alienware and the alienware PCs are getting that card first. However I think it unlikely since it's a high end card that looks destined for the XPS lineup.

 

Seen as they are only offering 8600M GTs at the moment do you think they would make the 8700M GTs an option? Really looking for something a bit more powerful than the 8600 but don't want to spend a fortune.

 

Your guess is as good as mine. I'm happy with my current card and although I hope that Dell will make the 8700 or 8800 an extra upgrade option for the Vostro I don't realistically plan for it.

Frankly if you're buying a 17" notebook Dell isn't the best brand to choose for good quality performance notebooks in my opinion.

 

What makes you say that?

 

I hope so...we all do...

But again, its all in the hands of Dell to choose our fate.

 

Dell's performance lineup is the XPS, although the hardware is comparatively powerful there is quite a premium to be paid for such performance. Inspirons and Vostros are limited to the 8600 as their best card while the true workstation models like the Latitude can get the quadro equivalent of the 8700 though you pay enough to receive 2 Vostros.

If you're a US or EU resident and own a credit card the boutique brands like Sager and Clevo give you better specifications for slightly less exorbitant prices.

In my case I'm not one of the above and didn't want a 17". The Vostro I have here is the most powerful combination I could get for my budget and pay for locally without a credit card.

 

By the way what would be the ideal Core 2 Duo for the 8600 or 8700?

 

Yeah unfortunately i live in New Zealand ( hence no sager, clevo, or alienware ) and as i am only 16 do not have a credit card. Therefore the dell 1720 or 1520 were shaping up as my best bets.

 

Unless you are a serious gamer specialising in Crysis, Supreme Commander and World in Conflict then most of the regular Core 2 Duos should be a good choice. I plan to play the 2nd game which loves processor power, otherwise none of the cards have that much power that the bottleneck shifts to the CPU.

 

I definitely will be playing crysis and world in conflict plus some others like GOW, COD4, and bioshock. I don't mind having to play them in medium settings just so long as i have a stable framerate. Although looking at what people have been saying about crysis even that looks doubtful. Which is why I was looking for a faster GPU.

 

If you're a Crysis fan then frankly playing it on a laptop may not be the best idea. World in Conflict likes processing power so T7xxx series is recommended. For the other games the GPU is the primary bottleneck so as long as you get a decent Core 2 Duo processor you should be fine.

That said some users have similar hardware to mine and they can play Crysis at 1280 resolution with medium details and have decent playability.

 

I always intended to get at least the T7250 2ghz so i should be fine. Although if i can get the money together the XPS M1730 should play Crysis quite nicely with two 8700s. Though I think I would wait for the 8800 to release before I consider that laptop. Does the AGEIA physx processor have much of a performance or quality improvement?

 

General consensus of this forum is that the physics processor is a waste of money since so few games have support for it, GRAW2 is the only example I'm aware of. I recommend waiting for the details on the 8800 before getting the M1730 since a SLi config for the new card will probably manage the best possible quality settings for laptops.