dual geforce 8700 performance?

i was looking at some second hand alienwares and came across some laptops with dual 8700s. can someone tell me how their effect on battery life and compare their performance with some nvidia 9 series cards?

 

The 8700M GT is an older card; which Alienware are you looking at? I would go with something newer . . . if you haven't already, fill out the FAQ in the What Should I Buy forum so we can help you find something.

 

The 8700 is an older card, and in reality it was always an upper-midrange card rather than the high-end card that Nvidia tried to advertise it as. To answer your question about battery life - pretty much any SLI setup will have poor battery life.

I would take a single 9800M GT over SLI 8700M any day; the performance will be better in most scenarios, plus it has all the advantages of a single card setup (more consistent performance, less heat, less power, reliability etc)

So it is not really a great buy, unless you are getting it very cheap.

 

i assume you are luoking at the used ones alienware has on there website. the m17 with one card(3870) is about the same then the 8700m gt AT LOWER RES.(1280*800 or lower)(8700m 32SP each card vs 64 on the 3870.) but if the 8700m gt are godly overclocked and the heat is low then it will pass the single 3870 at stick clocks.

BUT because of the 128bit bus/gddr3 when going higher then 1440*900 then you will see the difference in performance.

aka look at something else.(m17 crossfire. or the m17x since you were going to spend that kind of money anyway and the 260m is faster then the 8700m gt at any clocks/res. )

 

My thoughts exactly

 

I think the Asus g50 or whatever is about $900 at Bestbuy, has a 9800m GS, probably twice as powerful as one 8700, at least, should be able to play most games maxed.

 

im not spending that much; im looking at used alienwares.
by the way, i was looking at the m9750

 

You are going to get as good or better performance with ANY 256 bit card except a 3850, especially when you factor in SLI support. Unless you're looking at a price tag of $700 or so, it's not worth it, period.

 

always avoid weak dual cards over a new updated card. Your better off getting something new cheaper, and with a single card like a 9800m gtx, or 260m/280m.....the m9750 also cant handle the new and much higher clocked penryns core2's


the only thing about the m9750 thats makes it worth it is the fact that it can use the 3870, and i think in crossfire too.

 

8700 GTs suck....period.For the price you could get a 9800 Series or maybe even a GTX 260M.There is no way I would get this when modern single card solutions smoke 2 of these in SLI.Thats just sad.

 

it really is sad....maybe 5 years from now, the "all powerful" m17x will be "all crap", and a $600 notebook will max out crysis.

 

What will this dual 8700M SLI laptop cost? If you can get it cheap. Then you can overclock the crap out of both cards and max out crysis at lower resolutions. Just don't bother putting it higher than 1400x1050 reso. I have heard some people have got a single 8700M GT to score nearly 7000 3dmark06!

 

with all things considered how much are you willing to spend? 8700 is a weak card (performance card terms). But if the machine you are looking at is like 600-700 bucks and battery life is not a big concern, I'd say go for it. But there are plenty of machines with 9800m gs or better near the 1000 dollar range

 

its about $1300

 

thats "really" expensive!

always remember: 2 volkswagen are not 1 ferarri

go for a sager or anything like that, pick a 256 bit GPU ( *800er series, no matter ob 8800, 9800 or radeon 3800 series)

in any case these cards offer better performance.

 

AVOID, its so not worth it.

Go for an Asus G50, best bang for bucks anyday

 

^ besides maybe the g71, which is still a hundred less than what he was talkign about and has a 260m. if you are considering a 17" i'd go with that.