Greetings!! Joining the family soon.

Greetings,

This is my first post here in the Sager/Clevo forums

I currently have an ASUS G73 that while has served me well has not really lasted as long as I had hoped in terms of keeping up with the latest games.

So I am looking to go with a Sager/Clevo where I can configure it a bit more future proof.

Currently I am looking at something like:

Leaning toward Malibal as retailer of choice .

I am not really too concerned about screen quality considering that while I do travel alot...most of my destinations have nice external LCDs to use.

I have a SDD and HDD that I will be putting in it myself.

My real concern is the 6990m -vs- NVIDIA. The 5870m in my ASUS has really had problems in several games ive playes compared to whatever the equivalent NVIDIA card was at the time. The price difference is a real kicker thou. I don't mind paying a little extra for something but the difference between the 6990 and 580 is drastic....yet benchmarks are almost identical from the few ive seen. I am not sure if this is a specific GPU problem or just a general games just seem to like NVIDIA brand better? i.e Benchmark -vs- actual game performance.



Appreciate any comments or suggestions.

Thanks,

 

Welcome

What games are you talking about?

 

Didn't NVIDIA recently cut the 580M to be no less than $75 more expensive than the 6990M recently?

In either case, welcome

Mr. Mysterious

 

welcome to the family thats virtually the identical setup to the 8170 I have arriving today.

in terms of amd vs nvidia, fact is that amd has really been lagging on driver support for new releases. its not an issue specific to the 6990m, there are also problems with 6970 and xfire (see the hardocp skyrim test). there also were problems with rage. hopefully amd can get their act together soon.

however, when the driver support is good the 6990m can come within 5% performance of the 580m for a fraction of the price. i decided to go with the 6990m since eventually the driver issues should be fixed.

 

Obligatory link I like to use when members have questions about actual FPS in-game:

Computer Games on Laptop Graphic Cards - Notebookcheck.net Tech

That being said, the 6990M is a steal right now

 

A huge factor to consider when choosing Red vs Green is that the Green team has amazing notebook GPU driver support thanks to the Verde program. The Red team has decent support, but it doesn't come close to the Green team.

Green team also offers CUDA/PhysX, so if you like that stuff, then that's another point for Green team.

Hope that helps you out.

 

Appreciate all the replies so far

I play several games...everything from Rift to BF3, Skyrim and MW3.

Mr_Mysterious, I wish the price difference was $75...i'de just take the green pill without thinking. But everywhere I have looked the price difference between 580 and 6990 is ~$330.0...which is nuts.

J.P.@XoticPC, thanks for the link.....that really helped put things into perspective.

 

Lol, I was referring to this:

Link

Mr. Mysterious

 

Yuck, Dell....=P

They are right....gotta look at the whole package instead of a single item. Just gotta decide if $330 is worth some piece of mind when it comes to drivers hehe.

 

$330 is worth it if you are not the kind of person that enjoys fiddling around with possible registry editing, .ini modding, driver modding, etc. and you just want it to work right away, well... probably go with Green team.

The choice is ultimately yours. Some days, I enjoy tinkering with .ini files and what not, while other days I don't want any hassles. Up to you, though.

 

It seems that i'm to be joining this family too in ze future.
What are the temp difference between the 6990 and 580? Also wich could be more overclockable with time?

 

That depends on the silicon lottery. Your mileage may vary, etc.

But where the GTX 580m is based on the desktop GTX 560 Ti, you could potentially reach some very high clocks. But again, silicon lottery.

 

The temps should be about the same between them. You should probably expect between 80-90C under load on either. Overclocking will push those temps higher. As was pointed out, your mileage will vary with overclocks.

 

Order placed

While it was a tough decision to swallow I decided to go with the 580m. Too many recent bs issues with ATI drivers and games I play that I just need to take a break from ATI.

 

good decision if you have the money! also if nvidia reduces the price by dec 31st, you ll get refunded the diff

 

Received my laptop on Wed. Loving it so far....Windows 7 install went smooth and fast. So far every game ive played has run great @max settings.

 

Glad to hear, Rafael - please contact us if you ever need help with anything!

 

I'm trying to join the family too... would like a little feedback

I'm looking to replace my busted laptop, and trying to decide between two setups, MSI and Sager... both setup from xoticpc. Unfortunately, it's been a long while since I purchased a new laptop, so I have no idea which is really better. The choice between the two is:

Sager NP8170 - $1599.53 after $200.00 off from Sager Sale
17.3" FHD 16:9 "Glare Type" Super Clear Ultra Bright LED Glossy Screen (1920x1080)
2nd Generation Intel® Core™ i7-2670QM, 2.2-3.1GHz, (32nm, 6MB L3 cache)
ATI Mobility Radeon™ HD6990 2048MB PCI-Express GDDR5 DX11
8GB - DDR3 1600MHz Dual Channel Memory (2 SODIMMS)
500GB 7200RPM (Serial-ATA II 300 - 16MB Cache)
6X Blu-Ray Read/8X DVDRW Super Multi Combo Drive
Intel® Ultimate-N 6300 - 802.11A/B/G/N Wireless LAN Module
Windows 7 Home Premium 64-Bit Installed
LIFETIME Ltd Labor* 1 Year Parts Warranty Lifetime -24/7 DOMESTIC Based- Toll FreeTelephoneTech Support (Labor Warranty through Xotic PC)

Vs.

MSI GT780DX-406US - $1608.26 – no real discounts
17.3" FHD 16:9 "Matte Type" Super Clear Ultra Bright LED Matte Screen (1920x1080)
2nd Generation Intel® Core™ i7-2670QM, 2.2-3.1GHz, (32nm, 6MB L3 cache)
nVidia GeForce GTX 570M 1,536MB PCI-Express GDDR5 DX11
16GB DDR3 1333MHz Dual Channel Memory (4x4GB SODIMMS)
750GB 7200RPM 16MB Cache Buffer (Serial-ATA II 3GB/s)
4X Blu-Ray Reader + 8X DVDRW/CDRW Super Multi Combo Drive
Intel® Advanced-N 6230 - 802.11A/B/G/N Wireless LAN Module + Bluetooth
Windows 7 Home Premium 64-Bit Pre-Installed + Drivers & Utilities Disk
3 YearMSIUS & Canada Parts & Labor 1 Year Global Warranty w/ Lifetime Tech Support
+ 1 Year Accidental Damage Warranty

Honestly, I have no real clue about the differences in these specs. MSI seems to have a lot more bells and whistles (backlit keyboard, nice speakers, etc), a matte screen, and a killer warranty. I can also fit a larger hard drive and more ram in the same price point.

The Sager has a better graphics card, although, the last computer I bought was in 08, and I don't really know much of a difference between the two.

I have to buy one or the other within the week (for tax reasons), so any advice I might be able to get could really help me out. Thanks!

 

hi,

i own an np8150. it's the 15" version of the 8170 w/ roughly the same specs.
6990, i7 2670, 8gb.

i can say, whichever laptop you choose, do not skimp out on an ssd. as everyone who ever purchases one says -- you'll never go back. it's easily the best performance upgrade you can invest in besides a video card if you're in it for gaming. i bought a crucial m4 120gig; it is my first ssd. what's odd about ssds is that when you do begin to use it, you just kind of become used to the speed and take it for granted. if you do opt for ssd, your options are to buy an external hd, put your closet in it and access items from the external when you need them (this is my method. a bit of a regrettable decision when you want to unplug your laptop though) or you can remove the blu-ray/dvd drive and purchase an optical caddy to put your second drive which would be your 500gig hdd.

i had to watch a guy playing skyrim on youtube to really understand my upgrade. he was playing w/ a 6990m (same as mine) but an hdd and his loading screens took roughly 25-40 seconds while mine take 2 to 5 seconds.

if a backlit keyboard is that important to you, i guess go for the msi. i owned an msi gt725-074 that lasted me roughly 3 years, not as long as i hoped to be honest but part of that is because i wasn't nearly as savvy a consumer nor owner as i claim to be today.

i also own the audio-technica ath-ad700s + a dac. (if i understand things correctly, dacs essentially replace the hardware/software that is used to play music through your laptop speakers. pair this with a nice pair of headphones, and you attain a much more dynamic experience) i ordered my dac from a very small businessman online. i still don't know all there is to know about the audiophile world and in that sense, it might be argued to be a bad purchase but i think i did enough research to know that my purchase has greatly improved my aural pleasure (no pun). i would urge you to do the research and see if the headphone+dac setup is optimal for you if you're really into listening to the nuances of .flac files, of listening to music before the advent of the mp3. i'm not saying you need to buy this certain pair of cans, but it is a very good value for $110 or so. the more research you'll do, you'll find it gets harder to make a decision often times. i found out some headphones are better for rock n' roll, hip-hop, dubstep, etc.

i bought he upgraded matte screen ($95) for my np8150, and it's still by far the most difficult element to judge. to the layman, i don't think he or she will notice a great deal of difference with the stock and the upgraded monitor but i could very much be wrong about this. i may need to play on some other laptops to really see what i bought. dvds do look excellent on my computer but i've never been angry with the dynamism on my previous msi.

you'll want to get someone else's opinion on the video card but i think it's a wash with those two models.

i've got 8gigs of 1333mhz memory. i've read previously that the difference between 1600mhz and 1333mhz is roughly a 5% performance upgrade. i haven't noticed anything remotely bad about my decision.

sorry if this didn't make sense. rushed through it a bit.

 

stop comparing HD 6990M with 570M !!!!!!!! this is a sager/clevo room obviously we are going to recommend clevo!!!!! travismannn!!! plus msi only has one exhaust fan! its a big no no! sager is better quality and build!

 

Thanks to both replies... although I gotta say that iiqae was a bit more friendly to read... but thanks acroedd, as well, I didn't realize the msi has only one exhaust... not a big fan of having my computer burn up. I was more tempted by the standard included 3 year warranty with 1 year accidental damage from MSI... since my last lappy was lost due to a strap on the carrying case breaking... I may be just a little sensitive on that subject.