M1730, did i buy a lemon?

I just read the review on tomshardware, which says the 7950 GTX is the better graphics card.

Since i just bought the M1730 for gaming (ordered online), it seems that the 8700GT is a lemon. DX10 support but too slow to be useful compared to the 7950, looks like the 7950 is going to run rings around it... Dell market it as the fastest gaming notebook, so why dont they offer the 7950's if they are better??

Should i return it and get something else? I'm looking forward to playing Bioshock with full details ect, but from the looks of it im going to be disapointed. I want the DX10 support for upcoming games, but its worth nothing if the 8700GT is a crippled low-end card in notebook form.

 

well i mean it will play every game out today, not 100% sure about the highest settings but its only a X700 series, ofcourse the X950 is going to murder it.

if you really need dx10 support, then either stick with that or wait for the 8800 or 8900 series to come out, otherwise the best card out now is 7950gtx, it will dominate any other carde

did you get the sli 8700 or just one 8700?

 

SLI there is only 1 option when i choose.

 

sli 8700GTs > single 7950gtx.

 

I got my M1710 with 7950gtx solely in anticipation of MOH:A, and its choppy as hell with it - u cant win with Dell. I asked them why they market the XPS series as "premium vista gaming laptops", when in the real world they have massive issues with runnin lotts of new games like bioshock, crysis, MOH:A, RS:Vegas...

 

very true - keep the m1730, unless you dont care to wait

 

Yeah but alienware offer SLI 7950's as well. I had a hard time getting straight answers to my questions since all websites seem to 'favour' one brand or the other. The AW is about the same price, though the DELL has a better CPU as standard for the money.

I just read that DELL offer an upgrade plan for "future graphics updates" so it seems the DELL has some sort of 'guarentee' on being able to take some form of graphics upgrade in future. Though i cant find mention of this anywhere on the DELL site, and i looked through it a lot before i ordered.

No one wants to spend cash on a gaming laptop called "The Beast" to turn the graphics options down. Thats crazy.

 

If you're looking for value for the money then Dell/Alienware is NOT the way to go! There are a few other laptops (Sager is the main one that comes to mind) that will offer 7950 SLi for quite a bit less. However, maybe you want the more flashy looks of the XPS and in that case the 8700s in sli scored over 8k in 3dmark so that's not shabby at all plus you get the DX10 support.

 

In DX9 mode, I think you'll be hard pressed to tell the difference between the two mobile cards. Yes, there is a difference...but I think that difference would be more like 60 vs. 70 FPS more than anything.

DX10 may be a little slow now, but once games come out that use it better (and look better as developers learn more)...you'll be calling the 7950 card a lemon wishing you could play DX10 games. The 7950 will never play a DX10 game that is exclusively DX10.

In other words, unless you want to wait for the 8800 or 8900 then you should be fine now!

 

Chances are when the m8800 comes out there will be a drop in replacement for the m1730. Dell just rolled it out they're not going to come out with a new one in 3-4 months when the 8800 comes. I think the m1730 will be more future proof. Personally I wouldn't go for neither, but to each their own.

 

You have one of the very best performing mobile setups available, I wouldn't at all be disappointed if I were you. Yes, right now dual 7950GTX's would have more power, see the following review if you want to know the relative difference:
http://www.tomsguide.com/us/2007/10/15/sibling_rivalry/

 

I'm exchanging my dell XPS m1710 on XP 2Gig Ram to an XPS m1730 on Vista 4Gig ram.

Why? I figured if I'm going to spend more than $2500AU on a laptop, I don't want to be quite future proof - and Vista and DX10 is the way to go with that. I'm not the type of person that will be buying a new laptop every 2 years. Hopefully the XPS m1730 will last me a decade (perhaps in 5 years time I will grow out of gaming and start focusing on the real world a bit more and what not ).