D900C: SLI or not to SLI?

Hi,

I'm a total "noob" regarding hardware (not total but quite). Since march i've been waiting for santa rosa to come out, and for high end mobile video cards to come to market. I'm looking for a portable (not a laptop ) computer to substitute my 3 years old Tablet PC. This time I'm going for power rather then portability. Why? Becouse my fellow workmates play with each COD and I want to play too , and I don't like desktops at home. I've been apart from games for about 5 years now, I don't know why, I guess I was just fed up (Apart from CIV IV). Now I'll be back to be a challenger on FPS games once again, indeed I remember to kickass on UT2001 and the first Ghost Recon. So looking forward to it as I don't buy a gaming machine since then (since I started finding little use for a desktop at home for my work) and portables were not that upgradable.

Now my questions:

1) Is SLI worth it in a machine like D900c using Go 7950GTX?

2) Do you predict that SLI will be more and more important to run maxed out games at the D900c native resolution in the next
3 years? In other words, is the second generation SLI more efficient? I heard that SLI only gives about 10% increase in performance, tops. I thought that this was odd, I would expect around 50-75% increase not a puny 10% for double the price.

3) Are MXM IV cards different for SLI and not SLI? I'm asking this becouse I'm thinking about buying one cards and afterwards buying another one just the same.

4) I heard about the possibility to have a dual core on a single card (X2), does Clevo usually supports these cards? This would allow quad graphics cores or not?

5) According to the media the 8800M GTX consume around 25W. What is the max voltage that D900C gives to the video card?

An finnaly to share some info about the furure of CPUs:

http://www.electronista.com/articles/07/03/29/intel.penryn.chips.coming/

Based on your technical know how, what is the impact of the new chips on D900c?

Thanks in advance for any technical info.

Trance

 

1) Is SLI worth it in a machine like D900c using Go 7950GTX?
>>I don't think so , as new graphics cards are coming, SLI 7950 will much useless as you are going to upgrade to 80M models

2) Do you predict that SLI will be more and more important to run maxed out games at the D900c native resolution in the next
3 years? In other words, is the second generation SLI more efficient? I heard that SLI only gives about 10% increase in performance, tops. I thought that this was odd, I would expect around 50-75% increase not a puny 10% for double the price.
>>Again you better buy single card configuration as new card generation are going to be release,
For the next three years ? this laptop should be upgradeable for at least the next year.

3) Are MXM IV cards different for SLI and not SLI? I'm asking this becouse I'm thinking about buying one cards and afterwards buying another one just the same.
>>MXM IV allow you to attached the next generation graphic card that support DX10

4) I heard about the possibility to have a dual core on a single card (X2), does Clevo usually supports these cards? This would allow quad graphics cores or not?
>>hhmmm actually 7950 have 2 cores, so it is already supporting that.


5) According to the media the 8800M GTX consume around 25W. What is the max voltage that D900C gives to the video card?
>>D900C should be easily able to hand such card, as another 15" laptop from Asus called C90 (smaller and have smaller power supply) can handle it.


Based on your technical know how, what is the impact of the new chips on D900c?
>>D900C should be upgradeable to quad core processor

and lastly don't forget that D900C is using desktop based processor

 

1) Is SLI worth it in a machine like D900c using Go 7950GTX?

Maybe not with the 7950 GTX (since it's older and soon to be replaced), but definitely with the upcoming 8800M GTX.

2) Do you predict that SLI will be more and more important to run maxed out games at the D900c native resolution in the next
3 years? In other words, is the second generation SLI more efficient? I heard that SLI only gives about 10% increase in performance, tops. I thought that this was odd, I would expect around 50-75% increase not a puny 10% for double the price.

SLI becomes more efficient as drivers mature. And since SLI is particularly helpful with running higher resolutions with gratuitous amounts of anti-aliasing D ), I'd say it would be helpful for running future games. I don't know where you got 10%, but SLI usually gives an increase of 50-75% , as you stated. (although it depends on the game)
You can find benchmarks all over the internet, but just to pick a random example, see here : In FEAR @ 1920x1200 a single 8800GTX gets 75.5 FPS, and SLI GTX's get 126.8 FPS, for a 68% performance increase, which is pretty typical for an SLI setup. I personally think it's worth it for the money.

3) Are MXM IV cards different for SLI and not SLI? I'm asking this becouse I'm thinking about buying one cards and afterwards buying another one just the same.

I don't think they're different. You could probably buy a single card now and upgrade to SLI (with the same card) at a later date, although it'd probably be cheaper to go with SLI from the outset.

4) I heard about the possibility to have a dual core on a single card (X2), does Clevo usually supports these cards? This would allow quad graphics cores or not?

Perhaps you're referring to the desktop 7950 GX2 (two GPU's in a single card)? Two of these together make "Quad-SLI", but that's for desktop users only. As far as I know there are no single, dual-GPU laptop cards.

5) According to the media the 8800M GTX consume around 25W. What is the max voltage that D900C gives to the video card?

An finnaly to share some info about the furure of CPUs:

http://www.electronista.com/articles/07/03/29/intel.penryn.chips.coming/

Based on your technical know how, what is the impact of the new chips on D900c?

The only thing I know is that the D900C has a 280W power supply, which should be able to handle the 8800M GTX just fine.

As for Penryn, it's unknown at this point if it would be compatible with the D900C, but it would probably require a new motherboard, since Penryn increases the front-side bus to 1333 MHz and requires an updated voltage regulation module.

 

Hi, thank you both for your time take to share your wizdom

Joga, what you've written makes sense to me.

Regarding my last question I've found out that is not possible at the moment. I did some research and unfortunately the chipset currently on D900c is the Intel G965 and not the G35 or P35 as required by the next generation CPUs. This as definitely constrains the CPU upgradability for the next year. I wished that Clevo had thought of this as I would by it right now I do a lot of software development using a myriad of tools that includes SQL Server 2005, IIS, Visual Studio and so on, so definitely I would benefit from an upgrade on the CPU to a Quad Core. I'm not planning in buying a Quad Core right now but next year definitely would be in my tech list, especially since the current Quad CPU's do not allow one to "dynamically shutdown" unused cores.

As for SLI I'll read more about it. I wish decisions would come easily to me when money concerned I guess I need to loosen up more about it instead trying to fully cover next year tracks and trends today. But it's a lot of money ...

Trance

 

lets try to clear this up a bit. . . .

1. SLi was never worth it begin with, from the GeForce 6 Series to the 8. It offers a maximum of 30% performance increase, obviously not worth the double money. Two good aspects of SLi are: A.) When playing games SLi offers a more stable rate frame rate, or in other words, a higher minimum FPS. B.) SLi offers the ability for bragging rights , not bad for an extra $500 .
Unless, you want a mobile radiator, that can max out games, and heat you up in winter, go for it! (A single 7950GTX, or 8xxx card will MAX out ANY game possibly currently and in a year or so).


2. SLi on 7950GTX's is useless in 3 years, as will almost be the 8xxxGTX's. Both cards are high end for their respective support of DirectX. 7950's are now become phased out. . . and 8800's are coming in by this Summer. 8800's will serve you well for about 2 - 3 years, SLi just stretches the life span of the cards, but not by much. In lifespan I mean: How much longer you can play Game X on Y Graphic details. SLi offers ABOUT relatively 30% performance increase, you do the math, double price for 30% increase. BTW: I believe the D900C will be using the Nvidia GeForce 8700GT w/ 512 mb.

3. Don't think that a laptop is a desktop, because it is relatively the opposite when it comes to video card upgrading. Very few laptops can, such as most Clevo's DTR, but you can only upgrade to what MXM type it is. I believe that the 7950's and 8xxx's in the D900C are both MXM IV, allowing for an upgrade. BE WARNED, UPGRADING YOURSELF WILL BE: A.) Hard to find a 8xxx MVM IV card, and will be a much more costly upgrade than having your reseller do it for you.

4. Don't hold your breath for Quad-SLi, or even a dual core graphics card, the 8800's haven't been released for a good reason: Heat and power consumption, why would Nvidia decide to release Quad-SLi ? . . . Although I heard somewhere hear, P1 was going to release a 7950GX2 for a laptop *shrug*.

5. D900C should be compatiable with Quad-Core Conroe, although I have no clue on how huge the power supply brick will be, or how many Watts all the components will use. Opinion wise, this is bad for the """"""""MOBILE"""""""" market, using desktop parts, although yes it is a 17'' gaming monster, i doubt it will spread, only problem I think with the D900C will be heat, with SLi, and Quad-Core?!?!? yea about that. . . .

 

Just to toss in my two cents, more then the Clevo D series have used desktop parts, and it has been that way since the first notebook computers (I used to own a CTX notebook that used desktop socket 7 CPU's and normal PC133 ram). This is nothing new, so I don't see how it is bad for the market, or how it won't spread. It's a stable established market already.

Also want to add that I think the lot of you are a bit extreme. I know ALOT of people that I game with that still have P4's with HT (5 years old?) and they game just fine with 3-4 Year old 256mb cards that don't have SLI, and I don't expect them to not be able to play any games by xmas.

Not everyone on the planet plays games with the resolution's maxed. Low resolution with higher settings, or high resolution with lower settings (if you pick them right) will normally come out to about the same gameplay and look. For example, the higher the resolution, the smaller the jaggies get around the edges of objects on the screen.. at some point, running AA @ 8x is moot.

Why do you think that the benchmark software still defaults to 1024x768? Because at that resolution more of the market can jack up the settings.. Most people don't really play games at native res, and as far as software developers are concerned, most testing is still done for playability at 1024x768.

 

I'm not your anti-SLi guy, I just don't think it's worth it. What i meant in my #5 was: Originally the first systems used desktop parts, because that was technology back then, and thats how this went along. Also, now the mobile market has shifted towards mobility, and wireless capabilities. The luxuries of evdo, long battery life, fast wireless internet. I worded my statement horribly, but overall the Clevo DTR's are what they are, they use desktop parts, cram a lot into a little, that IS what they are notorious for. Overall, my point was the new 'trend' is mobility, and even having just 1 single card you can get at least an hour of battery life, while maxing out settings, but SLi will drain more battery, and give you unnoticeable difference in gaming.

I actually use my desktop P4 2.8ghz w/ HT, and a 7600GT, and I can tell you, a 7950GTX will give me unnoticeable difference in gaming, if a 7600GT can play CS:S max, 40fps average with 18 people. I still watch my friend play CS:S on his 6600GT on med settings, and I enjoy the game just as much, I don't play games to stare and say "Wow wonderful graphics", I might do that when i start up the game, for about a day, and after that it all boils down to actually 'playing' the game.


So my point is SLi is an overkill, you cannot see the difference, but you will suffer in battery life, and heat. If a 7600GT can play MAX. gfx, why can't a single card 7950 do the same? If so, why get SLi?

Game on peeps.

 

Gotcha..

I didn't think you were pro/anti-SLI, you stated a pretty balanced view on the topic. Alot of what I said was directed at the thread in general and not you.

I think alot of people mis-understand the original intent of SLI because they read to many hot-head's and tweak junkies websites (you know who you are! ) and think they need SLI to play the games they get teased into wanting. One of the hardest things to convince someone is that after so many FPS.. the game won't get better, just process extra junk, which at some point any good rendering engine will drop to improve performance anyways, which can cause odd jerking actions in the animation.. (V-Sync cap's for this very reason).

*GENERAL AUDIENCE*
SLI was originally a marketing idea designed to help an end-user prolong the life of their system, by allowing them to buy a single hot card today, and in a year or two, buy the same card as a budget card to make the SLI configuration and help sustain your frame-rates on the newer generation engines.

What they didn't take into consideration is that the GPU's are evolving faster then anticipated with SLI's birth, so that upgrade path isn't really worth it.. (Plus for you desktop gamers, eVGA will do this really nice trade-up program that also is more appealing for most situations then SLI, plus they sell good cards at a fair price).

 

Hi All,

This is my first post but I've been reading the site quite a lot recently.

I received my Clevo D900C (Hypersonic branded) yesterday. I did *not* get a SLI config (although I did get raid 0 and an E6700).

A quick hit through 3DMark06 rated at 5524 with no overclocking.

All in all, this laptop is huge, although weightwise it's not much more then my 3 year old 15" Gateway with a NiMh battery.

One *very* interesting thing... it's quiet. And I mean quiet. It's for all intents and purposes as quiet as any non-water cooled desktop with proper fan speed control. It's also quite cool, with the air blowing out of the back not very warm at all (admittedly I have not run graphics intensive games more then 10 minutes or so as I'm still in "install" mode).

I ran Fear on the laptop at native resolution (1920x1200) with no AA (let's face it, on a 17" monitor at 1920x1200 you don't NEED any AA) and 8x Anistropic filtering and everything maxed out with HD lighting enabled and did not drop below 40fps during the performance test.

This is a hell of a laptop. I bought it primarily to use for work when I'm away on business (I'm a SW developer). The combination of the E6700 and the raid array allows me to compile code very quickly (I'm no longer fearfull of doing a header file change!).

The laptop itself is quite large (obviously) and fairly heavy. However the power brick is enormous! The koskin (fake leather) case that I got from Hypersonic is basically useless as it won't hold the powerbrick without stretching the case if you try to close it. The brick itself has to weigh a good 2-3 lbs.

All in all though, it's quite a nice tabletop (laptop doesn't apply... and even notebook is misleading).

 

Congrats on the new beast.

It is definitely going to last... just remember the following:

1) Battery: to maintain the longevity of any rechargeable battery
- you must NEVER overcharge it [especially for long durations of time] by keeping it plugged into AC
- when it reaches 100% you should unplug it and let it discharge to 5-15%, then plug it back to power
- OR you can just charge it to 50%+ and remove the battery and store in cool place [remember to use it occasionally to charge and discharge it].

2.) Heat: to prevent a healthy notebook from overheating
- ALWAYS use the notebook on a hard & flat surface
- RECOMMENDED to be used on a notebook cooler... namely the Zalman ZM-NC1000
- (for Clevo's) ALWAYS use the Fan Speed Toggle (Fn+F2) to switch all fans in the notebook to Max Speed (defaults at Auto Speed) when gaming and such.
- check your fans underneath occasionally (at least once a month) for any dust clogs [clean them out with Q-tips and air cans/compressors]
- ALWAYS monitor the temps (CPU, GPU, HDD, etc..) to watch for fluctuations, which would indicate overheating

By doing these simple things, your entire system will easily last for more than 3 years.

 

Hi Much,

Would you say it is transportable enough to take every day to the office by train and sub and come back? The journay takes around 45 mins, from whiich 25 mins I have a seat. I mean not just the laptop but the powerbrick too.

Trance

 

With the case you're probably talking about hauling around 20 lbs or so. I'm not sure I'd want to do that using a shoulder strap standing in one place for 20 minutes. If you bought a nice back-pack then it might be doable.

If you really are considering this then I'd think seriously about purchasing an extra power brick so that you have one at home and one at the office. That would cut a good 3lbs off the total weight, not to mention quite a bit of bulk.

The laptop is huge, but I'm entirely happy with mine so far.

 

Thank you all for your views.

Unfortunately I'm getting more and more confused if actually you get what you payed for when buying this PC.

* It's heavy and bulky to the point where you might not want to take it to work every day. So it is barely transporable.

* Is SLI capable, but why would you want that really if you don't get that much from it, or at least you get it for a very short time, a year?

* The battery doesn't last. It works more like an UPS system.

* According to the 3DMarks I've seen is not way abve the M750U (+100 points?) in a non SLI setup, as naturally it uses the same graphics card

* Yes it uses a PC processor. That is supposed to make a laptop cheaper and not more expensive as it is clearly the case here, but yes you get the power of a desktop, but cost x3 more then a desktop.

*CPU and GPU are upgradable. In the case of CPU it's upgradable to the point of the current dua core extreme CPUs. In the case of GPU we don't know really. Quad Cores migh be possible, but will probably warm the beast. In he end it's upgrdable if you think about doing so in the next year and a half. But be prepared to pay for it.

* Upgrading the GPU is extremely expansive since it comes alredy with a very powerful graphics card. Upgrdability was my first main reason to go for Clevo, but since I started reading this forum it looked very expensive to do so.

* It doesn't use cutting edge technology such as E-SATA, HDMI, 2.0 MegaPix cam or finger print reader, HD-DVD or blue-ray. Doesn't even come with a remote control like Media Center, well it might come but tou have more over already a very high price.

Finnally but important. The people who have bought it love it. This is a paradox to me that is common when marketing spin is on driving the desire of people to have the fastest laptop in the world .

I wonder if I should just buy a laptop for half the price of this (say 1700 Euros) now, and buy another next year with better graphics card?

Tell me, why should I buy this laptop apart from being the fastest today, but only for a couple of milliseconds in normal usage (5 frames?). Overclocking?

Help me,

Trance
PS: Almost forgot, don't forget to press ctrl F1 (or something like that) to put the fans at full throttle otherwise it might get malaria. And you can always invest in a cooler as he likes fresh air on his butt, otherwise his life can be short.

 

Hi Trance,

If you want a "laptop" or a "notebook" then the D900C is definately not for you. If, however, you need an easily portable desktop then the D900C is as top of the line as you can get. I bought this laptop to travel with... not to go back and forth to work (I work from home), but I need to periodically (every month or so) take a flight to another of my companys offices. I spend about a week there when I do go (about every month or so). I'm a software developer and having a fast processor and a fast raid array is a definate advantage for the type of work I do. For me this setup is ideal.

Like anything, you have to evaluate it for your own needs.

If you compare prices, I think you'll acutally be surprised. a D900C comes out cheaper then a comparatively priced laptop with less. An M750U is actually a few hundred more then a D900C (or was.... you can get them with an end of life discount right now).

As far as cutting edge? Yes, the camera isn't huge, but let's face it, the bigger the camera the more bandwidth you need to transmit, which means the jerkier the image as the codec will have to adjust transmission due to bandwidth limitations. You can get the D900C with blue-ray (it'll cost you though, and the drives are often in short supply so it's hard to get). It doesn't use have ESATA, you'll have to use USB for an external driver, but at the same time it also has 3 *internal* drives (which is not something you see everyday in a laptop).

If you really want to see what the parts cost go to RJTech and take a look at their barebones prices. The D900C is really competatively priced.

Just make sure you get a machine that is suited to your needs. The D900C was perfect for what I wanted... you're mileage may vary.

 

Thank you Much for your insight. I went to a recomended store and made a configuration. The price was around 2895 dollars without a second IDE drive and SLU but with WUXGA, a E6600. Where I live, Europe (Portugal) this is around 3000 euros (including VAT). In comparison, I can get a desktop with the same specs at 1200 Euros and a competent laptop (G2S) at around 1800 euros. So this would make the 3000 euros but I would have to PC's (one desktop working as a Media Center/X-Gaming connected to the telly) and one reasonable laptop for gaming and work (and an excellent multimedia system).

The reason I like the D900c against the other options is the ability to put more then one drive in it. I wouldn't need 3 drives but two. Becouse i figured I could put an SSD drive in a couple years to boot performance. But that is all.

Having said this I get the fealing I'm paying premium prices for old technology when it comes to D900c. In other words, I'm paying above premium for a very good compact PC chassis design to cool a PC down where the rest is tweaked PC stuff with the exception of the Graphics Card. Considering the drawback I'm starting to believe that this machine hardly gives value for money when puting it in the big picture.

Probable PC parts inside Clevo D900C:

* A PC CPU costs 300 Euros such as the one mentioned
* RAM Costs 200 Euros (2 Gigs)
* IDE Drive 100 Euros (100 Gigs 7200 RPM)
* Camera (49 Euros)
* Motherborad (300 Euros), a good one supporting RAID, gigabit and integrated AGN wireless.
* + 200 Euros say for other stuff such as DVD drive etc.

Total of PC parts: ~1150 Euros

So we have 1800 Euros for the Chassis, the Video Card (wow) and some R&D. Yes the machine is unique, but is it 1800 Euros unique? If you compare it to a desktop the price is not balanced. And if you compare it to a laptop the price is, but is it really comparable to a laptop? Only in the form factor I think, but the rest ... not really as far as the info people shared go, and rest is only 1150 Euros.

Trance
PS: Forget euros, just think that the number are in dollars.

 

One thing you're forgetting is the monitor... a fast 1920x1200 17" lcd display isn't exactly cheap (I actually can't find any 17" lcd monitors at 1920x1200 to get a price).

You're always going to pay a premium for a laptop, and simply due to the nature of the beast, it's always going to be old-tech just because of the delay in engineering.

but if you want "portability"...

 

A LCD 24" (widescreen) supporting 1900x1200 cost between 500 and 800 dollars.

Yes Much your needs are quite unique in the sense that you don't need a laptop to be portable to transport it daily. I could bare 5-7 kilos in my back for 20 mins every day but not 10 kilos.

I need to see it live and try it out.

Thanks once again,

Trance