Crossfire

I am in the market for a new laptop and it is a very hard decision, up until now I thought the one I would be getting would be a Clevo. I just saw the post in the Alienware forum in reference to the Crossfire 5870, and I am thinking of getting it instead. Luckily I have some time before I make my decision. So onto the reason for this post.

Does anyone know if the Clevo will be getting this upgrade anytime in the next two months? The best would be SLI 480s but reading about those I am guessing it would just be a pipe dream right now with the power consumption.

Thanks in advance.

 

The only Clevo scheduled to get crossfire 5870m support is the X7200 due in July. As far as I know, X8100 will not be getting it.

 

Well, the X7200 is supposed to have SLI GTX 480M as well (which should beat crossfire MR 5870 in real life performance), but nobody can be sure right now.

 

Yah do yourself a favor and wait for the X7200. It's going to have desktop I7's (like the 980X) not to mention have more video card options than the M17X. I've been waiting since November for the M17x to come out with the dual 5870's since I wanted direct X 11 cards. Now that it's finally come out I don't mind waiting 2 more months for a much more superior laptop like the X7200 to come. As another member said, patience is a virtue

 

Good thing is, even if you go for the Desktop i7 920 (which offers more than enough performance for actual gaming), you still have a far superior CPU than the i7 920XM and even the i7 940XM will be in terms of performance and it will even be cheaper.

 

These notebooks become GPU limited way before being CPU limited when on a mobile GPU. The desktop CPU is useless for most gamers except those that are avid RTS players. It will be useful for professional workstation use but not as a gaming platform. The upside is that desktop CPU's are more powerful and cheaper than their notebook counterparts so you can get 940XM speeds at a fraction of the price. The cost is going to be a hotter and more power hungry running system. Also don't forget, no RGB LED for the X7200.

 

It's not going to have more video card options than the M17x. Currently the M17x is selling their systems with Crossfire 5870's, and support for the GTX 480M's is already in it's newly released A05 bios. The only reason and I mean only reason for me to buy the x7200 would be for the desktop processor and I'd be trading a lot up to do that.

I don't even need a desktop CPU, I guess when the x7200 comes out I'll have to determine if I want a desktop CPU or not. Just because I don't need it doesn't necessarily mean I wont want it lol. But really the only thing the x7200 will have on the M17x IMO is desktop processors.

 

Just wait for more information on the x7200. If rumors are true, it should also feature liquid cooling which mean a lot of other things will be different (such as size and weight).

Don't let your decision become too difficult because of the RGB screen on other notebooks. People like The_Moo have said it's not such a big deal.

 

Sometimes it is a big deal to see those graphics popping out lol, it does hurt the eyes here and there.

 

Well, I don't disagree, even for gaming you do not really need the power of the 920XM or 940XM. Still you can get more power with the X7200 and a i7 920 while spending less money. That was my only point. And with SLI GTX 480M which should be a very powerful combination, it could be the case that some games would be limited by a 720QM or 820QM. Anyway, price was my main argument in this case. But still, it's true, in the long run you loose the price argument due to the much higher power consumption of the desktop CPU.

Talking about the RGB LED. It might make a difference, on the other hand it's just about the backlight, it's not such a huge difference. The difference between conventional displays and OLED displays will be a much bigger difference.

 

Well, my i7 820QM is already bottlenecking for SC2 and WoW, so I won't say CPU doesn't matter for games (unless you only play FPS or something).

 

If I am not mistaken, and I can attest to this with personal experience from the past 2-3 years of lurking the forum...the GPU is usually the weakest link in gaming.

 

Your CPU is not bottlenecking WoW. Dual 4870s still have trouble with WoW at 1920x1200 with full details so I know for sure your single 5870 does as well. Throw more GPU power at it and the fps will continue to scale upwards. SC2 is an RTS like I mentioned earlier that does scale with CPU power to a degree.

The difference between WLED and RGB LED is color gamut and it's quite significant. When you compare a quality desktop monitor to a traditional notebook monitor you can see the difference in colors between them right away--that's how this appears because the color gamut of the RGB LED rivals or beats most desktop monitors. The biggest caveat is that it needs proper calibration to bring out it's true potential.

 

I am not certain we know that for sure yet.

One thing I would like to point out is that new laptops with extremely new and power hungry technology might end up having some problems. Just to iterate a few examples...the flickering of the M17x R2 when it first came out, overheating of the ATI5870 in the W860CU by clevo, stuttering of the M17xR1...etc. These problems are eventually fixed by bios updates, driver updates, etc. but it takes time. The x7200 is trying to pack quite a punch with some heavy duty components. I personally would wait and see how the x7200 can handle those components or go for another option such as the M17xR2 which has been around for a while and hopefully most of its problems have been resolved (we will know very soon how it handles the crossfire 5870).

 

Everyone is great here thanks for the advice. I am definitely waiting for what the real specs are for the X7200, the 880, of whatever else they decide to release in the next two months.

Hopefully whatever it is it won't be as heavy as the Acer Aspire I have at home, that thing was 20 lbs but it served its purpose. For that matter this Dell i1520 has served its purpose and beyond really.

 

RGBLED is awesome but it does sometimes hurt the retinas but it does make games look amazing but with the contrast of a g73Jh with 1043:1 then its awesome, games look really great. I would wait, the m17x R1 which i have even with a single gpu it stutters so much but there are some games i would love to max out and play them sli and i kinda don't want a R2 due to the design etc.. even though more metal notebooks are coming. There are more gpu options yes sometimes the cpu does bootleneck but just wait until people buy the barebones etc.. and see how things goes, i hope nothing not at all.

 

Awesome man! I remember initiating that $3400 payment to Sager when I bought my Sager NP5796 Clevo system. I've never been happier. This computer is awesome!

 

Well thts an old one with the fan problems and overheatin.