Is this worth the price?

Alrighty... so... just looking at the moment and on almost every occasion, this one machine seems perfect in my eyes.

Linky

I know the 8970m is a rebranded 7970m, but the performance is spot on compared to the competition from what I can see... unless I'm missing something...?

 

The 8970m is great bang for the buck. The driver stability scares me a lityle, but others say it is a non-issue.

As for is it worth it, well we all value different things. But Clevo/Sager have a quality rep. It looks really nice.

 

For $2346 I'd sooner go for a base AW 18 with 765 SLI. More power and more upgradability.

 

Are you serious?

765m SLI is more powerful than a machine with CrossfireX 8970m? What pipe have you been smoking? Two 128-bit GPU's vs two 256-bit?

Plus this Sager config has 24GB RAM, 240GB SSD, 750GB HDD.

 

I thought's exactly, CF 8970m's murder GTX765's...lol

 

Most of the driver stability issues are a result of Enduro/switchable graphics. This would not be a problem on a Crossfire-enabled notebook. If you have the cash, it's worth a buy.

 

Lol sorry! missed it was a CF setup. Yeah no way on gods green earth a 765mSL would be a match.
And that deal suddenly looks a lot more attractive now and yeah.. You have dual GPU possibilities which is great.

 

8970M is nowhere near GTX 780M. But then again, it will cost you $450 more to go 780M SLI.
But if you have the money for that upgrade, that is what you should buy

 

For what it's worth, I bought mine almost 10 months ago (9370) and I've had an amazing experience with my Sager. I'll eventually be upgrading to dual 8970 or 780 but my single 7970 hasn't failed me yet. I've run every game since in max without a hitch; from crysis 3 to ffxiv now.

 

I doubt you've ran Crysis 3 max on a single 7970m. Just not happening brother.

 

Of course not, at least not at playable frame rates. I love how people skew the definition of max settings when boasting about their hardware. Max settings means every single video setting in the game turned up to the highest it goes and no less. If the game has a built-in option for supersampling antialiasing, you better turn that up all the way too, otherwise it's not "maxed out"

 

I agree. It's either 'maxed out' or its not.

Most of all it's just not fair to the OP who is trying to get an relatively unbiased option of the cards performance.

 

This guy seems to get about 28fps on max.... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6_JTjoaRh4s

I have neither the card nor the game, so I can't say either way.

 

I had a look at that video. There's a fair bit of smoke and mirrors going on. FXAA for AA sucks and shouldn't be considered maxing anything out. Then the guy has conveniently cherry picked out corridors for his gameplay. The rest are in game cutscenes.

I should know - 2 x 7970m won't max Crysis 3 out @ 60fps without overclock and dropping lighting and AA. Hence.. Not maxing although very very good.
Or you can use the Maldo mod.. That's another discussion.

 

I don't really see the point of maxing AA on higher resolution display, even on my old 27" 1080p monitor you would barely notice anything higher than 2x; I since replaced it with a 1440p monitor and AA is even less useful, 2x AA I mostly notice when I'm not moving in the game, don't notice any improvement going to more than that.

Sent from my Nexus 4 using Tapatalk 4

 

Yeah AA is the first luxury to go if I'm struggling.

 

IMHO AA isn't required at all at native resolution. Depending on DPI, 2xAA can be more than adequate for a high DPI and barely affects FPS.

 

I run Crysis 3 NOT on max with my 780m SLI unless I disable AA. No way Crysis 3 is running on Very High across the board with a single 7970. My 580m SLI can run High settings across the board. I know there are mods such as Maldo mod which helps performance but I have yet to ever run a Crysis Mod and then not revert back to Vanilla.

Back on topic: yes that is a good deal.