Clevo -- 8700M GT or 8800M GTX, and WoW

Hello guys,

Since I'm now in the market for a new notebook, I've stumbled upon the Clevo 17" lumps.

With the 8800M GTX launch imminent, the prices for machines that still have 8700M GT's have dropped a great deal.

At the moment, I can get a nice machine with a 8700M GT, T7700 CPU, and the big 250GB hard drive for about 1600 EUR.

A lower spec machine with a 8800M GTX would cost about 2000 EUR -- and I don't really want to spend that much.

My game of choice is WoW and I'm pretty sure that's gonna run fine on native 1680x1050 with all the eye candy turned on and AA/AF kicked up a few notches even in 25-man raids. At the moment I use a Geforce Go 7400 at 1280x800 and I'm sure even the widely ridiculed 8700M GT will blow that one out of the water by a wide margin. Does anyone actually play WoW on one, and care to share their experience?

So.. the question I have is.. should I go for that? Or gimp my new system's other stats (CPU etc.) to get the new 8800 which we all know to be about twice as fast?

I wouldn't really be fussed if I can upgrade later.. if in 6 months time I want to play some new Uber Games and I can rip out the 8700M GT and upgrade to a 8800M GTX for a few hundred euros, I'd probably prefer that solution.. does anyone know whether this is possible?

So long,

- The Mechanic

(currently using Sony C1Z-B, Geforce Go 7400)

 

You could get the T7500, a smaller HDD ,and get the 8800M GTX. That should allow you to play even newer Warcraft versions, whichever they may be in the future, at maximum quality.

 

Yes.. of course, but is the graphics card upgradeable?

 

Uhm, yes, if you get the 5792 you can get the GPU later on, since the 8800M GTX requires a different motherboard.
Call XoticPC for example and tell them that you want the 5792 , but with the 8700GT for now and that you will do the upgrade to the 88M later.

IMHO though,it`s too costly to do so. Better off tightening the belt now and getting the 88M , it`s more futureproof and has the power of 2 Geforce 7950GTX, the former king

 

I beleive it is...

Look into m15x Alienware if you can wait until January or m17x if you want something bigger...

 

Unless you plan on lugging around a external drive don't skimp out on HD space.. right now I think you stand to loose about 8gigs of space with WoW and thats game is only going to get bigger. Not only that, games these days are getting massively crazy in size with massive textures and higher polygon count and detailed objects. Many games come on DVD and the install files are compressed on these DVD's. Your looking at 4 to 8 gigs of compressed content per game.

For Example on my system:
Oblivion + Some Mods = 9.54 GB
Medieval II Total War (no expansions, Update patch alone was 600+ megs) = 8.42 GB
Farcry = 3.56 GB
Titan Quest Immortal Throne = 6.09 GB
X3 Reunion = 4.10 GB
FEAR (no expansions) = 5.17 GB
SpellForce 2 - Shadow Wars = 3.37 GB
GTA San Andreas = 4.69 GB

This doesn't even include the amount of data you will have for your Music (40 gig here) collection or if you do DVD to PC Recoding (15gigs here) . In the day in age where everyone is freakish about scratching their DVD's your doing full installs and packing away these CD's away and running with nocd patches, well you get the pictures.

I would recommend you reconsider, about getting a smaller HD space on a laptop which are already barely maxing 360 gigs..

Right now I would get the GPU over the faster CPU core.. as it's MUCH cheaper to get the gpu now then buy it alone if you ever go that route. Where as with the CPU you can goto your local geek store and order one from anywhere.. if you try to buy a GPU upgrade it could cost you a $500 about or may be harder to come by. and it's much easier to swap out a CPU core then a GPU core.

More games are GPU bound then CPU.. try and find the happy middle but get a decent drive. if you can. but try not to skimp on the GPU if you can try as its more costly in the long run.

 

I'm still fine with my two years old 80gb harddisk. I hate the fact of using loads of harddiskspace. In my case i almost dont need backups at all

I have for max 1gb of music, no dvd content, 40gb for games and some gb for pictures, windows, wordt etc (max 10 gb). It works perfect for me, but most people will use loads more data then me so i do agree with extrative

 

Yea 100 Gb would probably be good. You can always buy a small external to store your music and videos on.

 

just wait and get a 8800m gtx... the 8700m gt is good but if your planning to keep the laptop for 2-3 years you should go with the 8800m

 

It's better and far more cheaper a low HDD on the laptop (say 120 or 160 GB) and buy an external HDD, than getting a big HDD on the laptop.

 

Well the only reason I recommend the larger space is because he is buying into a gaming laptop.. if he's only going to buy the laptop for WoW and maybe one or two games then yeah he will be fine.. So Game on.. personally tho I found it to be a mistake with 120 gigs here, and next year I plan on dropping two 360gig drives in my laptop and RAID them. Will have to loose the CD-Burner but this burner sucks, I have a external Samsung burner if I need to install or burn something. I have a lot of other stuff downloaded besides games so space has been a issue a few times.. Don't even have room for my Linux partition..


anyways External drive are cheaper so if you can deal with a little less space on the system then thats cool... In any case it will be a sweet system which ever he may end up with.

 

Just some feedback: Got my Clevo with the 8700M GT and I love it! It runs WoW at 1680x1050 native resolution with everything cranked on "high" and 4x multisampling no problem, with the frame rate usually pegged on 60fps. The frame rate drops to about 32-35 on 8x, but honestly the difference between 8x and 4x is negligible, so I'm not bothered.

The same model with a 8800M GTX would have cost me around seven hundred euros more (and would have only been available in 1920x1200 which I find too small on a 17" screen), but since it's upgradeable I think I'll just wait a few months and then swap out the GPU when it gets a bit cheaper.. right now I don't think the increase in (largely unneeded) power justifies the price. Buying second-best seems to be much, much better value than getting the latest and greatest. Anyone else find this to be the case?

Also, I had my doubts in the beginning about the matte display, but I love it. Side by side it looks a lot brighter (and better colors) than the shiny X-Black display on my Sony Vaio.

I also went with a 250GB drive to store all my warez on... 7200RPM drives don't seem to be all that much faster, but a whole lot smaller (and more expensive) than a comparable 5400rpm drive. Not worth it tbh.

Bottom line is, I made some compromises, but I got a great value system.

 

I've played WoW on mine with an 8700m GT on all max, 1920x1200 with 16xAF and 4xAA and it runs perfectly. normally far above 60FPS at these settings..

I know atm the 8800m GTX upgrade program for users with a Sager 5791 costs $745 beginning next month on the 15th for US residents.. I'm shure you can get details for wherever you live direct from Sager.

 

Even a 8400M GS would max WoW no problem. Hell, even my FX5200 maxed it at 800x600

 

Yes, I believe WoW is pretty much CPU bound -- that's why I was also wary of skimping on the CPU (ie. T7250 instead of T7700) for a 8800M GTX. There is an awful lot of number crunching going on in this game when the fur starts flyin'.

As far as the 4x => 8x multisampling frame rate drop, might this be due to the much lamented 128bit memory bus in the 8700M GT?

 

WoW is also already 3-4 years old and relied on a graphics engine that was already 2 years old.

The best thing you can do for WoW is get a better internet connection

 

130+fps, dips to 90+ in outland... a christmas guest just HAD to see what it played like on mine. (laptop stats in sig)

Played at 1440x900, everything on, 2xAA, vsynch off, 169.25 drivers, baseline clocks (625core/700mem)

The 8700 is light years ahead of what is required for WoW.

Just remember that the 8700m is weaker the higher it goes above 1280x1024.
1440x900 is just about perfect for it, at which it performs roughly similar to the 7950GTX.

Going for the 8700m now and making sure you can upgrade before buying might be a good plan.
The upgrade kit might very well drop in price in 3-6 months.
It is still a gamble... even with a guarantee that an upgrade is possible, there is no guarantee of supply... and the 8800m is indeed quite a step up.