GTX 880M or wait?

Those types of form factors have been around for a long time. I used to build Shuttle PC's and lug that thing to occasional LAN parties with a 15" monitor. Only problem with the Shuttle were the proprietary motherboards. But their replacement price was fairly reasonable. I believe I paid $90 to replace one of my mobos. I have a small form factor case now for my desktop too, and for my home server which still houses six hard drives and an SSD boot drive. I just don't see the need for a full tower case any more unless you want to run the top end GPU's in SLI.

 

Well, I would make a case (ha!) for larger cases if space/size isn't an issue for you. Unless the case will be sitting on your desk or will be fitting in a small enclosure (say HTPC form factor), small isn't absolutely necessary. That being said, full-tower ATX really is outdated, even for SLI purposes. You can run SLI setups in Micro-ATX cases.

I personally like how small a gaming system can be these days, but I must admit that if the case is sitting underneath my desk, size (within reason) doesn't really matter.There are sacrifices that must be made when building mini-ITX rigs (such as the Corsair 250D I posted). You need to chose your components AFTER selecting your case, to make sure it all works together due to size constraints. In a micro-ATX case, you can still fit pretty much anything.

So yeah, I agree with you that full-size towers aren't needed. But mini-ITX? I would be sure it's what you really need before building it. Otherwise, stick with mini-towers, or micro-ATX form factor cases. In the case of the OP, I think mini-ITX would potentially work.

 

Yeah, it's not really lugging the case that bothers me with LAN desktops but the other stuff like the LCD, Keyboard, mouse and headphones. Its at least 2 trips to the car, plus the LCD practically rides shotgun with the seatbelt to limit damage.

 

Very true, the screen is the big pain to carry. A mini-ITX case, keyboard, mouse, etc isn't really a big deal (you'd be carrying the mouse and headphones with a laptop anyway, and a small ITX case isn't a much larger burden than a big gaming laptop). But the monitor is something else entirely.

 

You got a dud, my friend. Plain and simple. It was just a lemon.

 

I am not the only one that had to do that. There is a guy over on TI forums that told me it was standard practice if you want good performance from the Clevo heatsinks. I did both the GPU and the CPU. It really helped me on the GPU because it was pretty warped from the factory. Some see less improvement because their heatsink isn't as warped.

 

Yep I lapped away 2 hours of my life for a lousy 3C drop.

Not complaining though, maybe the QC on SLI systems is a bit better? Also I did it more for fun and education, and learned a lot.

 

No, I think its just hit or miss all the way around :/

And if I got a lemon, hopefully Sager realizes that when they do the repairs next week and replace whatever needs to be replaced along with the video card but from what I've seen, MX chips run hot. Cutting the TDP to 47W instead of the stock 67W the BIOS set it at, with the same -80mV undervolt applied on top, I got the same core speeds that I got with the 20W higher TDP but significantly lower temps. You have to tweak the hell out of an MX chip to get the lowest heat with the best performance.

 

I think you are correct. Clevo/Sager doesn't manufacture the heatsink, it's made by Foxconn. As long as Foxconn is making the heatsink to specs then the blame falls back to Clevo/Sager for the loose specs. Flatness is something that is measurable and easily specified on a product print. The price will most likely go up if they spec it tighter. I am OK with that.

 

I used to put my SFF case, keyboard, mouse, cables, all in a small thick padded duffle bag, and made my own foam sleeve to fit over my LCD and a strap so that it would hang on the side of the bag. One trip, one bag, everything was safe. Used to take it to my friends' houses all the time back in the early 2000's. Took all of 5 minutes to unpack and get going. Then I started using a laptops a lot more seriously for gaming because they started making reasonably powerful gaming laptops in the mid 2000's.

 

Ok, after reading this....

For the Foxconn kids, money doesn’t buy happiness | Jordan Pouille

I will never about having to spend an hour sanding my heatsink.

 

will there be maxwell gtx 880m ?

 

Change that first 8 there to a 9 and the answer is yes. There are 980M rumours abound!

 

I trust inside sources. Just be careful you don't cost him his job.

 

An anonymous voice on a forum isn't going to cost anyone their job... speculation and so-called "inside sources" have been bantered about everywhere all the time, I wouldn't worry about it.

 

______________________________________________________________

I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but my direct sources, who used to be inside sources, were just outsourced, according to local sources, who wish to remain anonymous....:laugh:

 

SinOfLiberty?

 

this sounds so much more realistic, look at the pattern in release dates, they are usually about a year apart

 

Will there be a major performance difference between the current 880M and the upcoming 880MX/980M/whatever?

I want to get one before November, guess I should wait. But wouldn't we have heard by now if new laptops with these GPUs were going to hit the market in the next two months?

 

HUGE difference

 

I've had to suffer through four years with a 17" SLI gaming laptop in the past (See sig) and all I have to say on the Alienware matter is, all those "perks" should not be considered perks. They should be standard practice/design since it makes next to no difference to manufacturers but makes all the difference to the end consumer. I've done that routine where you get a new gaming laptop beast but then have to tear it down and lap the heatsinks, repaste it, etc and now I can recognize that for what it is: not worth it. At the end of the day, it doesn't save you much lifespan on an already crappy product. It's all about tested longevity and warranties. If a GPU, the 880M for example, has proven itself able to handle high temps (80-90 C at load) consistently for 2+ years and you can get a 2+ year warranty for an affordable price, only then is it worth it. None of these other options where you sink your own time and effort into the machine are really worth it, you will look back on the period with regret because your time is more valuable than that, especially with small form factor desktop PCs becoming increasingly attractive solutions which blow clunky gaming laptops out of the water. You're left, 2-3 years later, with a dead machine which will not last as opposed to a gaming desktop PC or a normal laptop, which could easily survive two or three times as long.

The market is ripe for a manufacturer to put out "Alienware level" "perks" at an affordable price, except they're all tempted to raise prices because it isn't industry wide standard. Not to mention Nvidia/AMD need to stop playing games with their sub-par design/manufacturing for mobile GPUs. They will lose money if the mobile GPU market comes anywhere near the affordability of the desktop GPU market in today's world where the trend is towards portability. It is not in their interests to give us the kind of products we want.

At the end of the day, it's a war between you and these companies for how much your money is worth. The age old human practice of barter/trade. Don't become fanboys, ever. Even when a company is putting out good product, it's playing cat and mouse with you over what products it's choosing to develop versus not.

As for laptops, look at my sig for my current Samsung. I got it for $800 roughly in the summer of 2012. Two years of use and abuse later, it's starting to prove its worth, financially. If I can get another two years out of it, that's worth it. Gaming laptops need to hit that kind of stride, and right now they are, but not at the high end range of GPUs.

EDIT: My alternative to a gaming laptop is setting up multiple cheap small form factor desktops (usually core i5 with 8 to 16gb ram and 23-24" 120Hz/144Hz refresh monitors when there are good deals or clearance sales) at my travel locations (three places I spend my time, Canada, USA, and Asia) and I just lug around my GTX 680 video card with me in my carry-on along with a hard drive or two. That's less than the price of most 880M gaming laptops. That is absurd.

 

Assuming a person doesn't actually need a laptop and that a person doesn't mind making changes to make the laptop work.

A SFF desktop is not an option for me.

 

For me all that extra work was a very good learning experience, and something to do on the weekend, so I really didn't mind. The laptop was fine before sinking in all that extra effort, but the laptop went from an A- to A+ afterwards if you know what I mean.

 

Exactly why I bought a pair of AMD 290s for my desktop on the cheap and still had enough leftover for a W230ss for portable gaming. I got fed up with the ridiculously bad longevity rate DTR laptop GPUs have compared to the cost.

 

Travel with a desktop GTX 680 and a couple of hard drives instead of having a gaming laptop? seriously?

 

In my case, I'd need to carry the whole desktop and monitor, keyboard, speakers etc. Not very feasible, no matter how 'small' the actual desktop was! While I'm at university, living away from home, laptops really are the only way to go.

 

These new 880Ms are working much better than the old ones I had... This is The Last Remnant, an hour and twenty minutes of game play with everything maxed out

Spoiler

Its interesting that the slave card is still using more voltage and thus running hotter than the master though.

Either way, they're boosting pretty much all the time except for certain cutscenes.

 

Thanks for all the replies this thread has become a really good read over the past few weeks.

Now I know the overwhelming majority of people told me to wait for the new GPU's, and they're correct when thinking about things logically but I'm not a logical person sometimes I took the plunge and got an Alineware 17 on a really good deal from dell with the 880M as seen in my sig .Now you might think I'm being really fool hardy getting the 880M, to an extent you're correct but my main PC died about 2 days after starting this thread which left me without a PC, I could have lasted a few months normally but I use the PC for some part time work and they contacted me and wanted to get rolling on something so I needed a new machine and I needed it last week.

I have to say everything people have said about the 880M is true, it's hot loud and a bit broken but as of right now I am still really happy with it. The day I got it I flashed the slv VBIOS and this helped things the stock BIOS is a joke crippling the card for no good reason. I was able to get the card running really nice and was even able to OC the card to 1013 core and 3000 on the memory with just a 12.5mv bump. What really made be angry was when I found out to my dismay the new Nvida drivers cripple the card even more not allowing overclocks to stick this is a total joke but I actually found a work around.

When you boot into windows sometimes the OC has stuck or sometimes its just the core clock but the results still the same you go to boost the clock back up using whatever software and it just wont let the clocks stick. I found that if you start a 3D application and then open your overclocking software of choice you have free rain over the clock speed and voltage again set what you want and close the 3D and the clocks will stick untill you next reboot or sometimes longer. I know it's not the neatest work around but it still means you can OC and have the newest drivers.

 

How are your temps?

I was happy with my new cards until I played Sleeping Dogs just now... The first half the graphic settings are lower... its obvious these cards just can't dissipate their heat effectively when they're pushed.

Spoiler

What kind of temps are you seeing? If you have an overclock and a voltage bump, I imagine you're around 90-92C.

 

Temps aren't that bad I've been playing watchdogs maxed out and I'm seeing 86-88c and very occasionally when they have a cutscene that means I'm getting a massive FPS I see about 90 but I've set the card to throttle at that point but it never reaches that. Whats driving me mad is the fan profile on the Alienware 17 I want the fan to max out when it gets over 80c but I've had no luck getting any custom fan profile working. I'm not sure but is that OC with only 12.5mv boost a good OC for the voltage?

 

Sure wait, 880M basically is an overclocked and usually overheating version of 680MX chip (thanks to adaptive trottling for keeping them alive)
I would stick with 680M for now.

 

To be honest, I don't remember the overclocks I was getting on my old cards and I haven't flashed the mod to these (and probably won't because of the heat) but I got my slave card to 1006 core when I was trying to offset the stock throttling behavior. It actually did hit 1006MHz a few times too, just didn't hold it.

Can't help you with the fan profile though, I hit FN+1 on my Clevo and force max fans.

 

Im considered getting a laptop with 880m cause i dont wanna wait. Seems like everyone having problem with overheating. Is tbere a laptop with 880m with better cooling than alienware? Also when tbe the new cards comeout could i just switch out the 880m?

 

Yes there definitely is. Please check the MSI GT72 Dominator; there's a thread for it under MSI section. Also check the ASUS G750 model, it has its own section too. They both have superior cooling and very low fan noise. If you can wait a couple more months, both will launch refresh models with the more power efficient GPU; the Nvidia Maxwell, including the 880M.

 

SLI machines have a bigger heat problem than single GPU machines.

I would never buy an MSI laptop but that's just me.

Clevo has more powerful fans than Alienware but it takes mods to make the airflow effective, one of the biggest being cutting bigger holes for the fans in the bottom of the case. Out of the box, their thermal performance is close with Clevo taking the win with their SLI builds.

It doesn't matter what machine you put the 880M in, there isn't a single machine that off the shelf will be able to dissipate 125W TDP so they all throttle to some degree. These machines were at their limit with the 780M and it was 110W TDP chip. Considering that fact, my Sager 9377 running SLI cards between 80-82C with a full load is doing quite well for itself.

 

I wouldn't say the GT72 has better cooling than Alienware. The CPU has an additional heatpipe going to the GPU radiator, so the GPU will run hotter than usual. As for the G750, the cooling is probably on par with Alienware, but not better.

You also have to consider the fact that both laptops will come with soldered CPUs, which is completely unacceptable IMO for a gaming laptop.

 

ASUS G750 and MSI GT72 are exceptions when it comes to cooling the 880m. Please read more about their reviews. Now both the Asus G750 and MSI GT72 Dominator have better cooling and lower noise levels than the corresponding AW 17.

I was like you when it comes to not buying any MSI machine for gaming up until the MSI GT72 Dominator was launched. It has a completely overhauled dual-fan cooling design. It is even designed to withstand the GPU coming after the 880M, rumored to be the 980M. Follow its owner lounge link under the MSI section if you want to know more. They both are single GPU machines and come with the 870m option.

Now the MSI GT72, and that what makes it a little ahead of AW and Asus, is much easier to clean and reapply the thermal paste since it is enough to unscrew its back cover for all the cleaning to be done. No need to disassemble the keyboard and/or screen like the Asus G750 and most other laptops.

Cleaning the dust every 6-8months is very important for hardcore gamers. Greatly impacts performance and temps.

 

I've read the reviews. The 880M runs as hot in the GT72 as it does in the Alienware 17. MSI can't pull a miracle. The 880M needs more cooling than you can get in an environment with low contact pressure and packed parts.

The Asus uses the 4GB version if I remember correctly and its already been stated that the 8GB of RAM is likely the reason why the 880M is hotter than the 780M at the same clocks and a higher voltage is. Not really an apples to apples comparison.

Sent from my HTC One_M8 on Tapatalk

EDIT: Also, as n=1 pointed out, board soldered CPUs are unacceptable. MSI and ASUS make damn sure you can't upgrade your machine and have to buy a new one, its an inexcusable business decision, nevermind the MXM standard issue.

 

Yeah forgot to mention the G750 uses a custom MXM module, so you can't upgrade the GPU either unless you source an Asus card. Nevermind the fact that Asus overcharges for what it offers. Honestly all things considered, Asus is much worse than Alienware when it comes to charging more for less.

 

LOL the MSI is such a fail... same peak 80-82C that all the other machines get but it hits it faster.

I went and looked at the GT72 owner's lounge. First post - GPU averaged 80C in benchmarks and 82C during 3DMark.

Just to see, I disabled SLI and ran both Skydiver and 3DMark 11 on one GPU - not only did I get similar graphics scores but that GPU didn't pass 76C and that was with auto fans (they stayed off pretty much the whole benchmark).

Just for fun, I ran with maxed fans... 67C max.

 

How is the np9570 at cooling 880m sli? Less than a week until i get mine

 

From what I've seen its pretty comparable to the 9377, you might get 2-3C less than a 9377. Where the 9570 takes the crown is the CPU cooling lol.

 

Thanks for that, i plan on sanding the heatsinks, i have a nice little tool that is good for fine tuning pocket knives. Forget what its called, something stone, lol.

Ill also use some liquid ultra to bring the temp down another couple degree's. I'm hoping it will be around 80 while benching, but that's probably not very likely.

Don't mean to highjack the thread, but seems to me we may as well discuss cooling 880m's until the next generation are released

 

Honestly I hope you have better luck with CLU than i did. My experience was the cards hit the same max temps, just hit them slower. I have not lapped my heatsinks though, I don't have the patience to do that.

Sent from my HTC One_M8 on Tapatalk

 

Guys. Are there any chances that there will be a laptop with 980M in October? Please, cuz im stuck with the decisions

 

Rumors, rumors, and more rumors. Generally when you have so many rumors, SOMETHING is going to happen.

 

It's just that if you buy an Asus it takes 7-8 months for the machine becomes awful hot. To clean the fan and heatsink must be expected to disassemble the entire machine and do it. It's better with Alienware and MSI

 

Alienware is still more difficult than Clevo. I flip my machine over and remove four screws and the cover comes off and I don't have to remove anything else to get access to the screws to remove the CPU or GPU heatsinks. Alienware is a bit more work to get open.

Sent from my HTC One_M8 on Tapatalk

 

I have Alienware 17. I flip my machine over and remove the 2 screws and the cover comes off and I do not literally have to remove anything else to get access to the screws two remove the CPU or GPU heatsinks But I have to loosen the fans first :-(

 

Must be different from the M17x days where you unscrewed screws on the bottom, flipped the laptop over and popped the panel that has the media buttons up, unscrewed the keyboard and disconnected the ribbon cable for both the keyboard and the media buttons, then unscrewed two plates that blocked access to the GPUs.

I know the Alienware 18 is the same way the M17x was. I haven't seen a teardown of the 17 because I have no interest in non SLI systems so I admit it could be different.

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I just found a video for both, the 17 and 18 are easy like the Clevo, its the old M17x and M18x that take more work. I am happy to see that Dell changed that design!