Turion + Go7900GS in SLI vs. Core 2 Duo + Go7950GTX

This prompted me after I took a look at the Alienware site and saw the the m9700 now comes standard with a WUXGA (1920x1200) at $1599 (if you look at screentek prices this is a $400 screen) and made me think:

Will the m9700 be a very close competitor to the Clevo M570RU in gaming performance despite being fairly outdated? I made the following setups for $2200 and wanted use guys opinions, how detrimental would the single core Turion actually be to gaming performance, there are very few games atm that can actually utilise 2 cores and I was wondering, would a Core 2 Duo with a Go7950GTX be slower than a Turion with two 7900GS's in SLi? And what about the lower clocked RAM?

This is a hypothetical situation, since we've always been suggesting Clevo M570RU's to someone asking for a $2000, would the choice actually just be a preference of AMD or Intel? Would it be a design based decision? Would it be based purely on the fact that one is more future proof? (Both have upgradable MXM cards, if you wanted you could put dual 7950GTX's in the M9700 but that defeats the point of value for money)

Alienware Aurora m9700 - $2,199.00

AMD Turion™ 64 Mobile ML42 2.4GHz 800MHz FSB 512KB L2 Cache
Dual 256MB NVidia® GeForce™ Go 7900 GS - SLI Enabled
17" WideUXGA 1920 x 1200 LCD with Clearview Technology
1GB Dual Channel DDR SO-DIMM at 400MHz - 2 x 512MB
160GB Serial ATA 1.5Gb/s 7,200 RPM w/ NCQ & 8MB Cache



Prostar 5726 - $2,204.00

Intel Core 2 Duo T7300 2.0 Ghz
nVIDIA GeForce Go 7950 GTX w/512MB
17" 1680 x 1050 WSXGA+ LCD
1024MB, PC2-5300/667Mhz DDR2 - 2 DIMM
160/7200rpm GB SATA-150

I posted a similar thread in the Alienware section, about the m9700 suddenly being standard with a wuxga screen

 

the 7950gtx alone will probably go toe to toe with the 7900gs pair (SLI does not double performance)

core 2 duo is probably twice as fast as a single core turion (double processor cores + better architecture)

thats just my guess.

 

I'd also go for the core 2 duo + 7950 gtx. Also, it will depend somewhat on the OS you are planning to run. As far as I know SLI driver support under vista is pretty poor.

 

SLi isn't as inefficient as you think, 80-90% performance on real games, 70% minimum, and you're also wrong about a 2 core proc clocked at (lets say 2GHz) being the same as a single core 4GHz cpu, in gaming the single core doesn't actually affect fps that much, only games which actually utilise more than 1 core, afaik thats only a patched Flight Simulator X and Quake Wars

 

You're exactly right. Although I'd still go with the Core 2 Duo + Go 7950 GTX. The SLI GS's will probably be a little more powerful, but it's not worth it when paired with the single-core Turion. There's one game already (Supreme Commander) that practically requires a dual-core (and preferably a quad-core). And even though that's a CPU-heavy RTS, more and more games are heading in that direction. Almost all upcoming games (Crysis, new Source-engine based games, etc.) will be coded to take advantage of multiple cores. And as things like physics become more important and heavily-used in games, that dual-core will become more and more of an advantage.

 

SLI is more in the 50-60% range


but i'd get the alien ware (though i hate the gamer looking chassis)

Reason:

1) the turion isn't far behind the t7300
2) the higher resolution of the screen
3) it will allow you to turn up more graphics settings (though may need to turn down some cpu settings such as ai or physics, but not much worse than t7300 as i said)

 

If i were you i'd go for the M570RU. It's just a bit more futureproof. At the moment a turion with 2x 7900gs is faster in 3dmark06 (and in games too i guess?). But with new games coming like Unreal 3 and Crysis you really need a dual core processor. So that's why i think you should choose for the M570RU.

Oh btw one more thing: Don't cripple you notebook by using only 1GB of ram, but better use 2GB! It's better if you choose a bit slower dualcore cpu (possibly 1.8Ghz in stead of 2.0Ghz) and 2GB ram than you have now.

 

Alienware is overpriced, go for the Compal/Sager version of it...

 

QFT


i'm pretty sure he configured it to 1gb ram cause its cheaper as an DIY upgrade than it is to buy their ram

 

That Pro-Star notebook is a re-branded Clevo M570RU (aka. Sager 5790, Rock Xtreme 770, etc...)

You are better off getting the Clevo because:
- its dual core support (over the single core Turion)
- its got support for 4gig of RAM
- its got interchangeable MXM videocard (which already has multiple videocards available for it)
-- 7950GTX, 8700M GT, Quadro 3500M (in Fall)
-- and the 8800M is scheduled for Winter

Thats just beats out the Alienware (re-branded Arima)... although the SLI 7900GS might give a slight edge in gaming performance initially... its got almost no options for future upgrades.

 

Ouch Gophn, you just called the Arima Uniwill again

And I chose the Prostar because its cheaper than the Sager because of the cash discount

Uhh... look at the two different setups above, is the Alienware really overpriced? Think. You also can't get the Clevo/Compal (in this case Arima) reseller version of it since it is exclusive to Alienware, trust me I've sifted through at least 20 google pages and the only thin I could find was this:
http://www.scan.co.uk/anaconda/
Arima itself can't sell it because of some contract with Alienware - looks like AW's got exclusive rights, Arima doesn't even list the Core 2 Duo Version, just the Turion version: http://www.arima.com.tw/ViewProduct.asp?View=150

And if you guys look at my sig you'll notice that this is not a question of me considering to buy this, since everytime some posts in the notebook suggestions forums that they need a $2500 gaming laptop, I was wondering wether the m9700 would actually be up to the job, I read a few horror reviews about the single core Turion at the end of last year, and by the time I had made my mind up Alienware blows us away with the m9750 at CES

 

crap... i keep on getting mixed up on ODMs lately.

 

I'm sure you're knowledge of the Clevo's makes up for it

 

Does the M570U support 4gig of ram too?

 

Unfortunately, NO.

The old Napa platform with the mobile Intel 945 chipset has a limitation of only seeing up to 3gigs... regardless which OS you choose.

So the Clevo M570U can have 4 gigs (2 x 2GB) installed, but the motherboard will only recognize up to 3GB.

 

Alright fella's for what it's worth here is a link look at position 3 (GTX) and position 6 (GS SLI) kind of answers the question unless you don't trust the source. And please its already 2007 3Q so don't get excited by 05 and b/4 benchmarks. GTX wins

http://www.notebookcheck.net/Mobile-Graphics-Cards-Benchmark-List.844.0.html

 

Meh, I don't trust 3DMark or the source notice:

7950GTX SLi: 4994
7950GTX: 5214.

I also find it hard to believe that the 7950GTX is more than twice as powerful as the 7900GS, the desktop equivalents are the 7800GT (for the GS) and the 7950GT (for the 7950GTX), and this is how they perform in a single card config: http://www.bjorn3d.com/read_pf.php?cID=965 problem is that this guy's reviewieng XFX cards, which are slightly OC'ed

 

Good point! I have noticed that also, but I got nothing else in my playbook!

 

Game Over.

lol, Its just hard to beieve that the 7950GTX is around 60-80% (around the benefit of SLI) faster than the 7900GS, thats the kinf of performance jump that we see between two top dos from different gens (i.e. 8800 vs 7950, 7800 vs 6800 etc.)

BTW the 7950GTX in SLI (mine) gets 8247 on my setup and 8486 on a 2.33GHz setup (Jameskirstylou)

 

Is it possible to overclock cards that are in SLI? For example, 7900 gs's are 375 core, 500 mem stock. Is it possible to overclock both 7900s?

 

Yup, the 7900GS is one of the more overclockable cards due to its low clocks:

The official 7900GS overclocking thread

 

Well 3GB is also very good! Thanks btw!

 

What would actually be faster on a Napa platform? 1+2GB or 2+2GB?

 

I thought that even on the Napa platform if you are using a 64bit OS it would recognize all 4 gigs of RAM. Even Intel's website says so
http://www.intel.com/products/chipsets/945pm/index.htm

The 945PM Performance Chipset

 

The desktop 945 chipset can support the 4gigs...

but the mobile 945 chipset (Napa) has a low-level limitation... which is already confirmed by all Napa platform notebooks.

 

Oh ok. That must have been why Toshiba added this to their BIOS updates a while back

I guess it would be better to upgrade my ram to 3gb instead of 4?

 

how upgradeable is the D900C i keep heariing of all these new cards that will be available by december. What about after that? Will otherfuture nvidia go cards also be compatible with the D900C? Im thinking like 5 years down the line.

 

The D900C & M570RU are probably the most advanced gaming notebooks available on the market.

Since they use MXM-HE(IV), they have the best chances of new videocard upgrades over any other notebook on the market.