Core i7 and GTX 280M or QX9300 and GTX 280M?

This decision is really killing me... NP9280 and NP9850...

I wish they built it into one or at least made the 9850 in the same chassis...

I like the professional looks of the NP9280 better than the NP9850... but really the core components are bothering me... the Core i7 is a huge plus and they manage to cool it down pretty well. No SLI is a downside and im a gamer...

This will probably perform better than the 9850 in GTA 4 hence the processor. 9850 will kill in Crysis and i play Crysis Wars online.

What notebook should I get?

 

if you re gamer you get the gaming MACHINE

if you are a professional and actually need i7 then get the business MACHINE

jesus people see core i7 and it blows their mind ... i have yet to see a PC game bottlenecked by a qx9300

Console ports don't count

 

console ports do count... i play them. i guess i should go with M980NU... still dont know how well it plays gta 4 with a qx9300... need benchmarks from core i7 and qx9300 to compare... i am starting to hate chassis... why do the have to go with all the lighting... not their usual thing.

 

http://www.notebookjournal.de/tests/review-cyber-system-qx18-nvidia-gtx280-sli-923/2

did you even read the review i linked?

10fps behind in GTA 4 WITH A T9900!!!!................

beats it in every other game
just because it has i7 doesn't instantly mean its a GAMING machine it means it can game

 

Not QX9300... Dont know what "Details mittel" means...

 

Lol. why aren't you also considering the m17x. just wondering.

 

he thinks the 3 HD and other features are better ...he posted it in the AW section

http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=395609&page=4

he wanted to let every one know why

 

yeah man idk ...

i7 sounds really cool but there is no SLi...

the np9850 has SLi but it is bigger so its a con for me....

but if u change laptops once a year the np9280 will be better... IMO

 

Well , both machines are just freaking awesome . Such power in such a small package .

I got a question for you : do you have a PC/Laptop at the moment , and can you play on it ? If yes , then you should probably wait and see what models of laptops will be released by fall , or xmass . By that time there 2 might be cheaper as well .

I bet 9280 will eventually support SLI 280m`s , unless the heat will be a problem then and that ahy they havent put SLI in it to begin with .

If you will get 9250 you are better off leaving it on the desk and using a separate keyboard/mouse with it ( to reduce fingerprints ) , moving it only when you need to take it somewhere with you .

With these 2 its I7 vs SLI . If you want more CPU power - 9280 ; more video power - 9250 .

 

well the 3 hdd is a big plus. so i understand about that. as long as he is not overclocking i guess it's fine(someone has this system and said there is no overclocking in the bios(at least for now))

honestly, if you game. GET SLI. no questions asked. gta4 is the only game that requires an i7 to play it. (with that said it's ported from a ps3) and don't judge one game to buy an expensive laptop. (i seen alot of people compare ati to nvidia on crysis and when nvidia wins(which it is suppose to) they already claim nvidia better)

 

not once a year... 1920x1080 is a great res... if it looked the same as the 9280 i would so take it... i would still have second thoughts but i know its right...

 

THE 9820 WILL NEVER SUPPORT SLI

their is not MXM port for God's sake .....

info people info ... thanks for trying to help though

 

9280 will never have 2 video cards... no room for it and they didnt add a second mxm port when making it.

 

the motherboard only supports one. it still uses the same chassis as the np9262

 

This thread was answered with The_Moo™'s first post.

 

bifnewman. The i7 would certainly dominate the QX9300 in GTA IV. But remember that the game is still very GPU intensive. Disregarding the CPU, the game will still run snail slow with the GTX 280M at native 1920x1200 with all max settings. And you are still going to run into several fps drops below 30fps even if you play the game at native with console equivilant settings. The G92b does not have the horsepower to handle the game at 1920x1200. However, 1680x1050 or 1440x900 is a different story. And you can't reference the notebookjournal link as they did not give specific details on how they achived their numbers.

Aside from Fallout 3, I have a feeling you are only investing in one of Clevo's new notebooks solely for GTA IV. I'm not saying that's it's a bad decision; I bought my M570TU mainly for Counter Strike: Source. But so far what I am reading from you is a high expectation that will unfortunately be unfulfilled.

 

i would have to dissagree with ya there, though it really does matter which i7 we are refering too. There are barely any porgrams that even utilize quads, why are we so quick to move to i7's when quad are not yet fully supported. GTA4 is a poorly optimized game, so much so that it should never had been ported to PC. It will be years before quads are in the recommended specs for a program that isnt already a ***ty port.

 

I didn't talk about specific i7's or what programs utilize it best. I only talked about how the desktop i7's would perform better than the QX9300 in GTA IV and how the G92b cannot push the at 1920x1200.

Page 31 and 32.

http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=372342&page=31

With this said, would you enlighten me and prove that GTA IV, after four patches with a confirmed fifth patch incoming, is a bad port?

 

i know, i was suggesting that an i7 is basically useless at this time, espesially since almost all programs dont even support quads yet.

enlighten you? the fact that the game runs horribly on even the best of pc's is not enough? you cant fix a totally f***ed up engine with jsut patches. The game was originally built for the consoles, now im not saying that porting is a walk in the park or anything, but the fact that it runs so cruddy on high computers and its recommended specs ask for a quad is totally unexcusable. So many games are ported correctly and run jsut as well as their counterparts on the consoles, but gta4 is not one of them. The game run bad on good computers and the graphics are nothing earth shattering thus, its a bad port.

 

It's a very advanced game for it's time, Blueman101. There are countless actions that are happening in the background every second in the game. Even the PS3 and XBOX 360 had fps dips with GTA IV because there were so many things going on in-game. GTA IV needs a decent CPU to run.

Apparently, Rockstar Toronto ironed out many of the bugs. GTA IV had a very rough start at release back in December 2008, but now in July 2009 it seems to be running just fine with the vast majority of NBR users and GTAforums users.

From your tax bracket, I would agree with you. But it doesn't deny the fact that you will need to pony up for a quad core and a top shelf GPU to play. Also, with most games, the recommended specs are never accurate to begin with.

It is difficult to port such a new and complex game engine to PC. Like I said, if a PC can play the game at console equivilant settings, it is not a bad port.

This is a subjective statement. I find the graphics to be very real, and I am impressed how Rockstar was able to compress it all.

You have not proven the game to be a bad port.

 

no this game requires a beast of a cpu not just a decent one

i have no doubt that some bugs were fixed, thats the point of patches, they still most of the time dont significantly change the engine

its still useless to get a quad since almost no programs even use the extra cores. You right most of the time they are inaccurate, but in the case of gta4 the recommended specs were grossly undernoted.

coudnt agree with you more, it is not easy to port games. And if both the pc and console can play the game at decent then the port is "A-OK", however this is not the case with gta4. The developers did not take the time to correctly port the game.

again, the graphics are good and all, but not earth shattering and should not require a quad to play.

anyway, this whole debate with gta4 does not change the fact that an i7 is still not nessesary at this point in time. And at this time, a quad is more than sufficient.

 

A decent PC can handle GTA 4 at settings equivalent to the console easily. It's just that PC gamers tend to make a fuss of a game when they are unable to run it @ max smoothly on their rig.

 

If you are American or Canadian, and you want your new computer primarily for gaming than you should get neither, the M17x bests both these machines overall >IMO< and Sager/Clevo cannot compete with Complete Care warranty (yes it is a big deal). If you live in Europe or something than you can probably get an M980NU at a better price than an equivalent M17x, so you might be better off with that, but unless you are European, I really don't see why the M17x is not in your options.

 

The game will run on a T9600 at console equivalents. Ask tuηay.

It changed the engine enough so that users can play, mod the game, and tear each other up online.

People with quads don't seem to be complaining regardless of what programs don't take advantage of the two other cores handling the OS and background processes. They are happy with their quads because they know what's coming around the corner.

I agree with you. I doubt that Rockstar will touch the main code of the engine for this game. However, we will see a streamlined GTA IV engine in the next release as history repeats itself. GTAIII was plagued with problems on the PC. Then Rockstar cleaned all of that up with GTAVC, and then GTASA, with the exception of the hard-coded frame limit that was easily shadowed by the superior hardware of PC's at the time.

Again, a dual core will run the game at console equivalents, but not as silky smooth as a quad core.

Haha, I just realized now. This discussion on GTAIV is irrelevant to this thread and the i7. Anyway, in my opinion, the i7 is still young and I am planning to wait until it's last incarnation on the Westmere microarchitecture to buy the next Clevo equipped with it. It is similar to the Core platform; Yonah was the short lived "feeler" CPU and over three years it became to what we know as Penryn. Though this may be slightly different because our C2D's and C2Q's are based off of the PIII while the i7 is something new.

 

just to help corner you some more

I ran just fine with my t9400 and xfire 3870's

its does not require a QUAD

....fail *facepalm*

 

it does however run much better on quads...

It seems like I am buying the PC for GTA 4 but I play most newer games, I am just worried that I will buy a $2000-$3000 laptop that doesn't run all the games I want very well....

GTA 4 will run a little better with patches and it is a ty port. It should be able to run on dual cores or atleast Q9000...

I might go for M17x but if I do, I will have to go with 260's when I can get 280's for $100 more in the 9850 and an extra hard drive and bigger screen...

Are there chances that they make a D901F with Core i7 and SLI?

 

QX9300 and 280M runs GTA4 very well at 1680 x 1050, but I wouldn't bet on 1920 x 1200. Keep in mind that sli does not work in GTA4... so the NP9280 is the best machine for the job, and will remain the best for a while. Also, the NP9280 will undoubtedly be the first machine to have compatibility with the next latest GPU. There's no shortage of cooling, and it's MXM 3.0b.

A single 280M can run any game on the market right now, it won't max crysis at native res but you can tweak it to your liking. Sli 280M isn't even close to necessary to enjoy your games.

 

with the latest drivers from laptopvideo2go you can do sli with gta 4... still trying to find performance differences from 1680x1050 and 1920x1200/1920x1080...

If I buy a NP9850, can I sell the CPU, RAM, and HDD that comes with it and still have the warranty intact?

 

1920 x 1200 is 30% more pixels than 1680 x 1050. The performance hit is hefty.

I'm sure you can buy a bareones NP9850 from RJTech or whoever.

 

I know but i want to see if i can do a better price from xotic and keep the warranty... I still want chart fps differences though, I searched on google and couldnt find anything but thanks anyway

 

I don't really think this poll is accurate until the 9850 is actually released and people have accurate opinions about it.

 

well were are just predicting... and we should know the performance difference. its a hard decision for me.... also, just a heads up, your sig is messed up, it should say 1920x1200 and it says 1920x160

 

That's bollocks. GTA IV does not support SLi period.

 

Nonsense.... Here's with SLI: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nc6cdwhI-wc&annotation_id=annotation_811509&feature=iv
Here's no SLI: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QMOhbBAm5f4&feature=channel_page

 

bifnewman. First of all, look at the publishing date of both of those videos. The author uploaded those videos on December 7, 2008, five days before the first patch for GTA IV was released. Are you trying to tell me that SLi was available during the initial release of GTA IV and is no longer available now after four patches?

Second, look at the end results of the benchmark tests in both videos. The video with "SLi on" shows 28.38fps with Fraps recording. The video with "SLi off" also shows the end result as 28.38fps with Fraps recording. That means that both the videos were edited. The author purposely choked his GPU in the "SLi off" video to make the users watching the video think that SLi is possible. There is no way anybody can attain identical results on the benchmark test. There will always be a very slight deviation in results. And if what you say is true that SLi is possible, the video with "SLi on" would have a noticably higher fps in the benchmark results. And you can't say that it's the CPU bottlenecking the benchmark test because the author stated that he has an i7 920.

Please, before you make a bigger fool of yourself, I beg you to lurk around the GTAforums and prove to me that SLi is indeed possible.

 

in an attempt to set this thread back on track im gonna agree with The_Moo, an i7 is not needed for gaming, a quad is still a tad overkill at this date an time but it may become useful in the future.

 

Either way you can't go wrong but I would go for the i7 core CPU and single 280m GTX and upgrade later down the line when better GFX cards come out

 

explain your reasoning... why do that? im not saying you are wrong to make that choice just want to know why you would do that....

 

O really? All he had to do was force afr nothing more... SLi worked from the very start...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rKzDYKrUDsA

 

I look at SLI as a mixed bag that requires 2x the power and generates 2x the heat while providing anywhere from 10-80% performance gains.

If the games you play have excellent SLI support AND require that GPU horsepower and they are a priority, then the 9850 (or M17X) is the logical choice.

On the other hand, the 9280 provides you with the cutting edge CPU that is LGA-1366 and will support the premire Intel CPUs including the 6-core/12 thread chip.

The excellent GPU cooling and MXM 3.0 spec also opens up upgradability (which Sager/Clevo is known for) for the GPU while providing an excellent upgrade path to stay abreast of the newest i7 processors.

Either way, a QX9300 or i7 is more than enough to handle a single or dual 280M setup and will not bottleneck the 280(s).

If gaming was a major priority and I wanted an i7, I would contemplate swapping the 1920x1200 panel for a 1680x1050 or even 1440x900 so you can play games maxed out even with the single 280 assuming your, "must have," games are forcing the single 280M to hit a wall.

 

If I were to swap a 1920x1200 17" panel out for a different res, I wouldn't go lower than 1680x1050... the 17" 1440x900 panel i have now sucks... both are great notebooks... tempting to put the 9262 up there... I might because it gives SLI and a Q9650... hmm but no 280's or 300's then....

 

http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=330137
http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=326714
http://forums.slizone.com/index.php?showtopic=30938
http://blogs.nvidia.com/sli/2008/04/gta-iv.html
http://www.gtaforums.com/index.php?showtopic=380047&st=0

 

I don't even see the point of considering the 9280 if you're a gamer. The qx9300 will be overclockable and won't bottleneck anything before the single 280m

 

9280 is great if you're a casual gamer and/or gaming is a secondary concern but you want to have a beast system in every, other category.

If gaming is a priority, eye candy is a priority or the only reason you're buying a notebook, I'd go with a M17X, NP9850, NW90VP (in that order).

If chassis size is a concern along with wanting top notch gaming, I'd go with a 5797 or m17/840.

And for many, 1440x900 is a desired resolution. I actually prefer 1680x1050 and 1440x900 over 1920x1200.

 

I agree.I see no point in the 1900 res when it comes to gaming.All 1900 res does is make lettering smaller and reduce performance.

However, if you are into Blu-Ray movies then it makes a difference.

Back on topic:
If the OP is just getting a Single GTX 280M either way and isnt getting SLI, I would just get the Core i7.

 

there would be no point in buying a NP9850 without SLI unless you play to get another one later... i will be purchasing mine with 2 280's in sli...

 

That's not entirely true...since I started playing games in 1900x1200 I can't stand playing in anything else.

 

an NP9262 should run GTA 4 pretty damn well... better than this with a Q9650:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6B0TZMiMYGA&feature=related
Could anyone try it by forcing SLI in nvidia profile? Could be my perfect notebook but no GTX 300's then....

 

WHY is GTA 4 so important ?

Why is a poorly coded game important?

Why is a game that IMO is useless important ?