Considering a Malibal Nine

I'm new to the community, but I've been lurking for a couple weeks. I'm thinking about sinking money into a Malibal Nine (Clevo X7200) and do the best I can within my budget to equip it for high to medium quality gaming for the next 2 or 3 years before feeling the need to upgrade CPU/GPU. The first question I have at this point is whether it's better for my purposes to go forward with the Nine [with the i7-960 3.2Ghz CPU, GTX 560m SLi, 6GB 1333MHz RAM, an 80 or 120GB SSD and a 500GB HDD] or another option given below.

The two other configurations I've been considering are both comparable in price to the above configured Malibal NINE, but I wonder how well either will get me into the future:

P170HM: i7-2760QM 2.4-3.5 GHz CPU, 8MB 1600MHz RAM, GTX 580m, with an SSD and HDD.

P180HM: i7-27670HM, 12MB 1333MHz RAM, GTX 560m SLi, with an SSD and HDD.

The other question I've been wondering if anyone's seen any Sandy Bridge mobile CPU configurations that will support SLi. I've seen the P180HM with its dual 560s or 6990s, but it doesn't appear that it has the power to run more powerful GPUs. I'd like to do SLi for now because I'd rather not shell out the cash for a top of the line and benchmarks suggest that a pair of 560m's with 3GB of Video RAM will get me to just barely within the city limits of a single 580m. Yet, I haven't even seen a Clevo reseller that offers to put a solo 580m in a P180HM, which I can pick up now with two 560m's. Also, from the benchmarks I've seen, I could do better with a Sandy Bridge mobile CPU than a Gulftown desktop CPU (although, either would probably kick right at this moment).

Once again, I recognize that any of these setups would eat most games out there for a light brunch (cantaloupe and buttered toast), but I'm trying to imagine which one would probably need upgraded components first assuming that they've all got MXM ports and the juice to run the new parts.

I'm currently using a 5.5 year old Dell Inspiron E1505, so I'm excited about making a big jump forward. Any feedback is appreciated.

 

The 560m SLi is roughly on par with a single 6990m/580m and multi-card setups are prone to issues with scaling and microstuttering, among other things, so I'd always recommend a single more powerful card as opposed to a comparably powerful SLi. Personally, I'd recommend the P170HM between those.

 

I concur with Aier. Go with a single 580m instead of 2 560m's even if you go with the X7200. If you have the money later and want the added performance you can purchase a 2nd 580m and throw it in. If you don't feel the need to stick with Nvidia cards you could get dual 6990's for alot cheaper than dual 580m's.

For today's games even a single 580m will be good enough. Granted it's 3yrs old, but I just came from an SLI desktop and I'm more than impressed with the 580m's performance.

 

I'd throw in my vote with the rest. You should probably look into getting the single strongest card you can, rather than SLI (unless you really like the form factor of the machine). SLI has some scaling issues depending on currently released drivers, so it's always easier to go with a single card solution.

Also the 580m is roughly equivalent in cost and power to SLI 560's, so you aren't losing anything either way

 

go with a p170m with 6990M or if you have the money gtx580m !

 

You might want to hold off and wait for the X7200 revision, since the revision with X79 will be out soon.

Stick with 6990m since they are priced so right at the moment. I'm also in a similar situation right now, in deciding which one to get.

 

Thanks for the responses. Sounds like going with the best single GPU setup is optimal. I would consider going with the a single 6990 on a X7200, but it appears the 2760QM is capable of outperforming the 960. And since it's a less expensive box, if I go for the Satori, I can pair the 2760 with a 580m and maybe even get a matte display.

That carrot is dangling too far off for me. Even if they did pop it out in January, I probably wouldn't be able to afford it.

 

Alright, so I'm no longer going after a Nine. As nice as the X7200 looks to me even configured with only one GPU, the P170HM suits my purposes (gaming), budget (hard cap $2300), and preferences better. If I could get a free upgrade to a i7-980 though, that'd be a whole other kettle of fish. (I'd settle for a free upgrade to a 2960XM.)

How does this configuration for a Malibal Satori look:

Promotions: $100 OFF Configurations Over $1500
Display: 17.3" 1920 x 1080 FHD LED Backlit 120Hz 3D 72% NTSC Matte Display
Processor: Intel® Core™ i7-2760QM, 6MB L3 Cache, 2.4-3.5GHz
Memory: (8GB) 8192MB, PC3-10660/1333MHz DDR3 - 2 SO-DIMM
Graphics Card: NVIDIA® GeForce® GTX 580M 2GB GDDR5
Hard Drive: 320GB 7200rpm 2.5" SATA-300
Hard Drive 2: 80GB Intel® (320) SATA II 3Gb/s SSD2 Drive
Optical Drive Bay: 8X Multi DVD+/-R/RW RAM Dual-Layer Drive
Wireless: Internal 802.11B/G/N LAN and Bluetooth Card
Cooling: Stock OEM Thermal Compound, CPU & GPU
Keyboard: English: US & Canada
Power Cord: US & Canada
Branding: None
Build Time: 5-7 Business Days
Warranty: LIFETIME Ltd. Labor and 2 Year Parts Warranty with 24/7 Support (USA)

I've got access to Win7 Enterprise so I don't need an OS. I am wondering if the stock thermal compound (Toothpaste? Who knows?) will be sufficient as I intend to overclock what I can (once I find some data on the intertubes).