Ageia Physx or Upgrade to core 2 duo t7700

Hey guys, my first post here.
I am looking at getting a Dell XPS M1730 but I'm not sure if I should upgrade to the core 2 duo t7700 from the t7500 for $180 or stay with the t7500 and get the Ageia Physx card and get Ghost Recon Advanced Warfighter for $249, it's one or the other.

I will be using it for a fair bit of gaming and I'm slightly leaning towards the physics accelerator because of this. I understand that 200mhz difference isn't alot.

Will my money be better spent with the t7700 or the physics accelerator?
The rest of the specs are
4GB 667mhz ram (2x2GB)
Dual NVIDIA 8700m GT in SLI with total of 512MB
Windows Vista Ultimate
2x 80 7200rpm SATA Hard Drives

Total Price $3586 with T7700 without physics accelerator
$3655.30 with T7500 and physics accelerator

Thanks

 

Save your money and get neither.

 

look lithus, if he wants to get it let him, dont be an a$$ about it, you could say it in a kinder way.

anyway, physics accelerators dont really do much because very few games are optimized for them

 

I think neither are really worth it at the moment; I'd lean towards the accelerator over the extra 200MHz, but I haven't read too many amazing things about either.

 

Allow me to say it nicely ...

The T7700 is overkill, and is only about 10-15% faster than a T7300. A T7500 has an even lesser difference. And that is only when you are fully using the processor...which almost no software actually does. Games use a lot, but a T7300 would be more than enough now.

The physics processor is a good idea, but there are so few games that were built to use it that it is not worth the extra money. Good idea, but no industry support as many did not think well of it.

 

in all honesty and harshness i would agree with this...in kinder words...realize that agea physx is hardly supported by any games and most likely won't be in the future. for 3500+ you should take a look at what sager and clevo have to offer. If you want a bit more flashiness (no blame on you since im addicted to xps's blinking leds) you can even try alienware m9750 with sli 7950gtx. However, if time is not an issue, then it might be in your best interests to wait until the 8800m's are out. that way you will be able to probably get sli 8800 and good specs for 3500ish.

 

This is a good idea. It would help you more than the Physx or CPU upgrade for gaming.

 

Looks like you want to build a very nice notebook, I priced this because I have decided Dell and Alienware are overpriced.

How about this Sager NP9261
17” 1900X1200
C2 Quad Q6600 2.4Ghz 8MBL2 1066FSB
SLI 2X512MB 8700GT w/DDR3
4GB DDR2 PC6400 RAM
2X80GB HDD @7200

$3062.29

You can spend $500 more on upgrades and really go nuts!

 

WTF? Where in that was I hostile? "Save your damn money ho, don't be stupid and get nothing" would be hostile. "Save your money and get neither" is a recommendation, short, concise, and to the point. How else would I say it? "Hey babydoll, I know you want to spend your money, but it's not going to really help your pretty face. Just save your money and get neither"?

You guys are reading wayyyyy too far into things. You guys should know me enough by now, I can be bitingly sarcastic, but will never be directly hostile. (Unless it's a hellas repeated question)

 

"Save your damn money ho, don't be stupid and get nothing".....i actually spit out water when i read this...that's the level of funny that was this sentence

 

Keep in mind also that SLI does not work at all in Vista, regardless of your computer or chosen sacrifice, i.e. time, sanity, or goats. At any rate, the best thing to do is probably wait if you have time is to wait for a decent GPU to come out for laptops (neither the 8700m or HD 2600 are acceptable GPUs for any amount of highend gaming.) This new GPU could be either an nVidia 8800m or if whatever comes out of AMD/ATI (they do have a 55nm desktop GPU that will come out soon, that from the apparent size of the die looks about ideal for high end laptops.)


In the mean time you are almost better off buying a desktop, as no current laptop will give the kind of performance in Vista that you probably would want.

 

There's the Quadro cards already available, although they're very expensive. But if you're looking for high end, that might be the way to go.

 

you cant not have the phsyx accelerator though...it just comes with it you cant take it away..so ur stuck with it, and the lowest u can get on the 1730 is a t7500...so just stick wit tht.

 

quadro's are mainly for 3d rendering rather than gaming. besides, one you could use for high end gaming could run you 1000+

 

Thanks for all the fast replies.
I probably should have mentioned that I live in Australia and the Price is in Australian dollars. The Australian model of the XPS M1730 does let you remove the physics accelerator.

I would wait for the 8800m but I've been waiting ages to get a notebook and I don't think I can wait any longer, from what I've read one 8700m should cover my gaming needs because I was looking to buy the Toshiba X200/J02 the Australian equivalent to the X205s then I saw the new XPS with the dual 8700m and higher resolution screen for cheaper. I also wanted to stay away from the NVIDIA 7900 series, I probably also should have mentioned that I wanted a driectX 10 capable system.

I think I may just go with the t7500 and no graphics accelerator, unless dell has any special offers between now and when I make my order next week.

Thanks

 

It sounds like you are making a well reasoned good choice there. You will be plenty happy with your new notebook.

 

PhsyX is the physics equivalent of an S3 ViRGE. Every game I have seen tested has been *slower* with it turned on.

 

It seems that the drivers that come with xps allow sli in vista.

 

Really, I was not aware of this, and I keep up with graphics side of hardware relatively well. Do you have a link from a credible source?

 

The Dell XPS 1730 comes with Vista while having SLI 8700m's. Though I don't have the computer, I highly doubt Dell would offer a configuration that doesn't work.

 

Also Xotic PC has 2 Sagers NP5960/NP9261 SLI and Vista.

 

I think Microsoft released a patch for SLI and Crossfire in vista

 

I ordered it, a few spec changes though. I got both the T7700 and the AGEIA physics accelerator because I got a 5% student discount
I got the smoke grey colour with:
Windows Vista ultimate 32-bit
Core 2 Duo t7700
SLi 8700m GTs 512mb total
160gb hard drive
2gb ram (almost $400 to upgrade to 4gb)
AGEIA physics accelerator (with Ghost Recon Advance Warfighter 2 Apparently)
Dell care plus 2 years warranty and complete cover
Free bluetooth headset

Ordered on 15th October, Paid for on 16th estimated delivery date is 24th October (probably bull****, hopefully not though)

 

I feel sorry for anyone that got suckered into wasting good money on an overpriced system from Dell XPS, VoodooPC, etc....
... especially there are so many better vendors and alternatives out there.

The PhysX Card is using a standard MXM-II(or III) slot... it will work in other notebooks down the line... when its not exclusive to Dell.

The best current SLI notebooks for the money is either:
- Clevo D900C/D901C (Sager 9261) .... the world's fastest notebook in all aspects. (quad-core CPU, SLI, 3 internal HDDs, 4.1 speakers, TV Tuner, one of the best thermal designs)
- Alienware M9750 ... although using old Napa platform, still an amazing portable powerhouse

 

Video Decelerators :laugh:

 

It would be a pain to get any clevo or sager in Australia and I paid a bit less than I could have paid for a Toshiba X200, the Australian equivalent to the X205. And Alienware in Australia is the biggest rip off and they still don't have the 8 series NVIDIA cards in the Alienware systems here. As far as I'm concerned, the XPS was the best value for money and I'm not the type of person who will just buy it without researching, I was looking at other laptops since september and went from Asus G2s to Hp to Toshiba and then Dell.

Similar configuration for an Alienware m9750 with 1 7950 GTX gpu was almost $5000

 

Physics accelarators are next to useless considering most games are not made to accomadate the actually interesting technology. A T7700 however, with its 2.4GHz speed and fast front-side bus speed is a smarter investment.