How I learned to stop worrying and love the 7970m

Hello again, NBR. It's been a little while since I was last here, but I assure you, it's been for good reason. My XoticPC NP9170 arrived last Tuesday, and I've been playing with it as much as possible over the last week.

After using a C2D desktop for the last 4 years, let me just say that the NP9170 is just pure power and amazingness.

I was watching the forums before the laptop arrived, and there seems to be a lot of negativity and doubt surrounding the AMD 7970m. I'm exactly the kind of person who gets overwrought and agitated by hardware problems. I spent 2 weeks tuning my first processor only to discover I could only make it worse.

This time, I have resolved to completely ignore hardware monitoring and benchmarking. I run Afterburner to ensure that my games are using at least 75% of the GPU, and then I turn off the stats display. As long as the game maintains 45-60 fps, ignorance is bliss! I can comfortably record full HD gameplay on every game I own without dropping frames, and that's basically all that matters to me.

Sure, I want my PC to run to its full potential, but until Sager officially updates the drivers, it's just not worth the energy to worry about that performance I'm missing out on. I greatly appreciate the work that modders and testers are doing to make the driver update a reality, but for me (and most users for that matter) it's just not worth working yourself up over the issue. If you're looking at the NP9170 but holding off because you've seen complaints, just get it, you won't regret it immediately, and by the time you start feeling the drag of underutilization, a driver will be out to solve your problems.

I'd like to thank XoticPC for the amazing (and fast) service, and Sager for their continued dedication to producing high-quality laptops. Here's to not needing an upgrade for another 4 years!

 

I hear what you're saying, and honestly, it seems the Enduro issues affect a only handful of games or certain sceanrios. That being said if one of those games is one you play regularly, like BF3, dips to 20 fps is unacceptable and shouldn't even be an issue with a $1500+ gaming laptop.

I do feel and hope that these problems get sorted out, but if it works to your liking, and isn't an issue, then good. I've been down that road before too, obsessing over an issue that you really can't resolve yourself, just have to either live with it and wait for a fix, or return it and opt for another laptop or configuration while possibly shelling out more money.

 

The driver situation is out of our hands you know, worst case scenario is that it will never be fixed. Glad you have a positive out look though, that goes a long way my friend.

 

If the problem won't be fixed... AMD is going to be troubled, several problems with Enduro are happening on the Alienware forums too, mother of god

 

I wouldn't be happy if the GTX680M performs like a GTX675M, which it didn't... In the case of HD7970M, it's performing like a 6990M when utilization issue pops. If they don't fix it... You pretty much wasted your money, they have to fix it.

 

This is a true set of statements. If it runs well enough to play ignore it for now, it can only get better. But exactly as WingNut said, in certain situations, namely ones you bought the laptop specifically for, it is unavoidable and not ignorable. Sadly that is the case for commonly played games like BF3 and Skyrim (though it is mostly playable, needing windowed mode and a shadow fix to make the interface work and stop tearing is sad, it ran on my 335m amazingly).

It runs a few of my games in stunning fashion. the performance in those games is unquestionably good. Defiantly as rated. However in the others with issues it is dipping to the level of a card that would come in a laptop costing half as much. That is unacceptable.

I'm patient. I understand how new technology works. I also know if you want something that is going to be issue free out of the box don't go with something brand new. Going on 3 months of release without an official acknowledgement of a problem is a different issue though. I really hope they fix it. I love the idea of this card. They need to hurry up and at least openly admit there is an issue and tell us they are working on fixing it. That would be a good start.

 

What are these graphical artifacts and screen tearing I've heard of then? I wouldn't trade stable and smooth screen for 50 times the performance.

Maybe I've misunderstood, can someone correct or confirm?

 

All it would take you is a simple google search, but i'm in a good mood

Graphical artifact - Will happen, for instance, if the drivers aren't good, the gpu is overheating or too much overclock. Whatever alteration in the screen that you shouldn't be seeing. Corrupted graphics - http://img403.imageshack.us/img403/8643/bf22006110112574889xd4.jpg

Screen tearing - Will happen when your gpu and display aren't synched. If it's happening, you should use VSync. Screen tearing - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

As you can see only the first of these issues can be a consequence of "50 times the performance"

 

I mean I know what they are, but if they really happen a lot with the 7970m, then there's a much more serious problem than "my frame rate should be more than 60."

 

Well... As i (tried to) explain, to fix Screen Tearing you just have to turn VSync on.

Graphical artifacts aren't currently an issue for the 7970m (mostly any card) unless you overclock, or the game is new and still needs a new driver (nothing comes to mind). And if you're overclocking, meaning pushing the card to higher limits, then it's not AMD's fault.

 

I never needed vsync with my previous nvidia card, so it feels like you could get identical performance with the cheaper gtx 675m against 7970m's performance issues combined with vsync.

 

The major tearing issue I refer to is not exactly Vsync orientated. I am talking about the horrible stuttering that exists in games like Skyrim if you are in Fullscreen. It only occurs inside of buildings and switching to Windowed mode does fix it. From my research on it it is not only the 7970m suffering from it however, it seems to be a list of cards when using certain amd drivers. V sync does nothing to remedy this.

Sorry if I caused confusion in my point.

 

Oh, that's not the same thing but... that's another thing they're probably fixing

 

Good post. I'm also enjoying my new gaming laptop immensely and it's just gravy if there's some hidden performance in there. There are parts of the laptop that I'm not so happy about, but the CPU and GPU are definitely not one of them.

That just sounds like Bethesda's crack team of <strike>Gamebryo</strike> Creation Engine programmers.