D900F or W870CU???

Hello,

I am deciding primarily between these two systems after eliminating many others. I am going to use this system mainly as my desktop replacement for producing electronic music, plus the occasional game and watching some HD tennis matches.

Which system would you recommend? Besides the obvious difference in CPU types, how else do these compare? Which has the better keyboard? Touchpad? Screen? Better battery life? Quieter? Has better dual-monitor support?

From what I have read here, the W870CU with the 920XM CAN be OC'd, but the D900F cannot. Is this correct? Also, do Clevo's have any of the throttling issues that all the other manufacturers seem to be having with the new core i7 mobile chips?

Going with that, seems if I get a barebones W870CU and buy the 920XM separately, all the other components being basically equal, the 870CU will be around 800 dollars or cheaper than going with the 960 on the D900F. If the 920XM can be OC'd, would this make the better deal CPU-wise?

Also, I don't really understand what it means when some of you say the D900F doesn't support IDE mode for SSD (as I am planning on getting the Intel 80G SSD). What does this mean exactly? Also if the D900F is going to be the favorite, is the 960 really worth it over the new 930?

Also, as far as resellers. I live in Japan and would need this shipped to me. Which reseller would you recommend to go with? I have exchanged a few mails with Justin at Xotic, and he seems the most helpful so far, but their shipping prices are just ridiculous.

 

I wonder why the D900F didn't get a 5870 upgrade...

 

the D900F is alot heavier, personally, if you won't get the D900F with the new hexacore, I would say 870CU is better, the mobile i7 is not that much worse off, especially since most games are GPU bottlenecked.

The shipping is like that, because it requires warranty that's the reason for the price. Shipping to Singapore costs US$200 as well.

 

200 would be high, but not ridiculous. The xotic site quoted something like 350 dollars. That is just ridiculous.

Please note that while I will play a game from time to time, that is not the motivating factor in buying this machine. Thanks for the reply though.

 

read the clevo guide which might show a reseller closer to where you live HERE

 

I know the two Clevo resellers here. Even with the shipping, i can get a much better spec and about 30% cheaper. And they only offer one or two models, they aren't really even resellers.

 

I think you really want the D900F, so why not go with that?

 

The W870CU and 860CU have both received the ATI 5870 as a video card upgrade choice. Is there a reason the 900F hasn't yet? If it did it would be much better choice than the W870CU. I am wondering if the 900F has enough space inside. Maybe the desktop cpu takes up too much space and so they can't fit a 5870 inside?

 

Yeah, actually I had pretty much decided on the d900f before and was just waiting for cebit to finish. But I didn't even realize about the 870 model until just the other day, so now I am unsure and that's why I started this thread.

 

Hey guys, thanks for the replies so far, but I was wondering if I could get some more info about the actual differences between these two machines besides the obvious CPU and GPU. How about the screen, keyboard, touchpad? Things like this.

And, can the CPU in the 870 be OC'd? I thought I read somewhere on here that it can.

 

You can change the turbo mode multipliers with the evga eleet program as long as you have an i7-920XM. No bios OC'ing currently.

 

Do you have a link to the eleet utility? For some reason I can't download it from EVGA even though i have an account.

 

Take a look here, LINK.

 

Ah, thanks Mandrake, +rep to you as soon as it lets me!

 

Was there ever a definitive answer for this? or is it just a matter of time? I'm pretty much decided on the D900F but would like the 5870

 

It's the matter of politics . The performance difference between the 285 and 5870 is too negligible to worry about it. Now add the R&D that needs to be done on D900F just to make another similar option for us The system is polished with the Nvidia GPUs. Look at the AW M17X-R1: had 2 options and Dell still patching and fixing. The R2 only has one option

 

Could anyone actually give any info comparing the two machines?

 

He is a faceoff review between the D900F, M98 and the W870

Linkety Link

Hope it helps

 

Snooze,

Thanks for that link! +1 rep added for you.

Didn't really understand all that data about the difference between the screens though. Nice article.

 

Your Welcome,

I was very keen on the D900F myself but I have opted for the X8100 in the end because of the additional Graphics potential.

 

Thanks, making me rethink yet again