I really can't decide here... P180HM vs P170HM

If I get the P180HM I have to deal with the glossy screen and the stock CPU without a SSD, but I get dual GPUs.

If I get the P170HM I have to deal with only getting one GPU, but I get the Matte screen, better CPU, and a SSD.

Both will hit around $2500 and I can't figure out what is the best option here... >.<

halp plox?

 

1. Are you going to carry it around?

2. Do you plan on being in very light environment?

3. You can always buy a SSD later on.

4. Are you going to be more CPU depended or GPU depended?

5. Do you plan to game or draw, you know (work?)

And btw, could you post the two different customed specs vs each other? I mean so we get a better inside which will help us decide or help

 

dual gpus not worth the trouble right now. the next gen single top end gpu will be almost as powerful as the dual now. Its not worth carrying the weight. also if you are going with dual , get alienware 18x its better and nvidia cards cost the same as amd!

 

Better Screen, CPU, SSD one GPU (GTX 580M) for the NP8170 would be better then 2X GPU and inferior everything on the NP8180.

You would be hard pressed to see any difference in actual game play from the 580M to 2x GPU's, but everything else the NP8170 has would give you a nice bump.

 

glossy screen? Aw, no.

 

I agree.

+ the p8170 looks sooo nice for a desk-note.

The 8180 looks over kill, big, and clunky. Might as well have a desktop.

 

Stand by what I said in the PM to you bro stick with the 170HM and the single GPU as the Dual GPU's on a laptop do not compete to the performance gain on a desktop you cannot go on the hype that benchmarks did because as an owner of the 8700M GT SLI which at the time benchmarked like a pro it jumped like a one legged kangaroo. The 6990M is on par with the dual 560M so why double the power consumption and raise the heat when you get similiar visual output.

There is only a size difference when it comes to the screen not a resolution difference IMO smaller screen higher resolution, I would like my Eee Pc to have a 1080P 10 inch screen if it could

In terms of performance upgrade CPU/RAM Meh Meh the HDD - SSD upgrade is by far the most important, you hear people saying a lot it makes no difference to in game performance which is true but it allows you to get into the game a whole lot quicker I can be suited and booted and in Skyrim while Jeffrey over here is whistling to the windows loading screen and when I double click to open my p**n it responds as it should do

If you can afford the 580M sure, but the single 6990M is winning most battles at the moment ATI/Nvidia wars aside it is the best you can get for the price.

P.s 2760QM FTW.

 

I disagree about a few things here.

A. The P180hm is always going to have more potential(nearly double) as a gaming/graphics machine with dual MXM slots.

B. Due to this you get redundancy. In other words, say one of your cards fail, you dont have a useless machine until the card is replaced. In other words you can take out the defective card for warrenty or replacement while running on a single card still and keep full functionality. Redundancy when it comes to electronics is KEY.

Also I find the drivers for SLI/crossfire to be fine. There are plenty of STABLE drivers for both Nividia and Ati. And remember if you have a game that doesnt support dual cards, you simple disengage sli/crossfire with the touch of a button. Simple as that.

C. The screen. The P180HM does have a glossy screen, but I found its a bit better than the P170HM. In fact the ANSI contrast ratio and screen uniformity is actually better. Colors are about the same, black levels and white levels though are better. Were not talking huge differences here, but enough so to warrant being mentioned.

D. The keyboard on the P180HM is much better IMO as well too, a real full sized chicklet style keyboard. The keyboard on the 170 belongs on a 14-15" laptop, not the 17" 170......

 

If he was going with dual 560m's he will have about 5-10% better performance over a 580m or 6990m, but if he does dual 6990m's there is no comparison. Again it needs to be brought up that in terms of gaming or graphical performance, the P180hm has basically double the performance/upgrade potential, and it has redundancy. Just this fact alone makes it a much better bang for the buck and gives the hardware a much longer real world lifespan for gaming/graphical apps.

 

I highly disagree with this. Dual gpu's in a laptop offer the same performance gains as they would in a desktop.

Perfect examples. 1 6970m Radeo card allows me to play Crysis 2(A game optomized for Nvidia cards)at around 30fps using 1080p native resolution and settings at "very high". Adding in the second 6970m using the same display and graphic quality settings nets me 55-60fps. There is a reason for that.

 

I don't get the $2500 quote. How does a P180HM w/ stock CPU and 6990M Crossfire get to $2500 without a SSD? That configuration should start at $1800-1900 with Windows and the $100 discount. You should still be able to afford a SSD and other upgrades if you want.

As for matte vs glossy, I think that is important if you cannot stand glossy. If you aren't going to be using a external display, definitely favor the one with a display you'd be more keen on using. It isn't worth spending $2500 on something you can't stand using.

 

If you're implying future upgradability, that's really not an issue here. For the price of a pair of future mobile GPUs, you could buy a whole new notebook that will be just as fast as what you're trying to upgrade.

Also, please use the multi-quote button (the little + button next to the standard quote button) when replying to multiple people. Creating multiple posts in response to several others is a violation of forum rules.

 

Not sure where your getting your pricing from, or what options your looking at specifically, but the P180HM is a more powerful laptop. A few things to add:

A. You wont notice any difference between an i7 2630, or an i7 2670, or an i72760 etc etc. All that matters is that you have that Sandy Bridge i7 processor.

B. You WILL notice though a big difference if your running 2 powerful GPU cards vs a single one.

C. Stick with a stock hard drive,RAM, entry level CPU(or an upgrade i7 option thats not obnoxiously priced) in whatever you do buy. Your much better off buying a Sata 3 SSD on your own(I got my Samsung 830 128gig Sata 3 SSD for $175 shipped for example). The amount of money these resellers charge for upgrading your RAM, hard drives etc, is borderline obnoxious. To upgrade your basically paying retail or higher just to swap out. These resellers make a killing on upgrades. For less money you can buy your SSD seperately and still have the stock platter drive that comes with the laptop and use as a mass storage drive for photos, music,videos etc.

 

You are saying that Mobile SLI is the same as Desktop SLI. Need I say anymore?

A 6990M is on par with 2 560M why pay for the same for a higher electricity bill and more heat weight and bulk?

It is like saying why should I buy a ferrari when I could buy a tank and put a ferrari engine in it. For the same price.

 

Not necessarily true in any instances, especially on the higher end laptop solutions. If we were talking about a sub $1k machine, sure, I agree with you. But on something like the upper tier Clevo models not necessarily the case. Especially if you factor in selling off the old cards(Perfect condition laptop MXM cards go for good money on Ebay, even the older ones)to help finance whatever new cards are being installed.

PS: Thanks for linking me the forum rules. Wouldn't want to break any of those...........

 

OK, so your comparing dual 560m's with a single 6990m? How about comparing a single 6990m with DUAL 6990m's?

And electricity bill........really? I didnt know people worried about electricity bills with laptops that only pull 200-300 watts worth of power(The powerful ones). Geez for those people running 1000 plus watt desktops, better keep an eye on the meter outside.......lol. I mean my HT processor(processor not amplifier)pulls more power out of the outlet than a pair of P180hm's combined. Regardless neither the 170 or 180 are going to be giving you fantastic battery life off the juice. COuple hours roughly at best. I dont think people look at larger 17 or 18" laptops for their batterlife or high portability. They are looking for most times something that can give performance on par with a typical desktop machine.

 

The power consumption of an extra 6990M operating at 100W will save you less than $2 a month even if you push it an average of six hours a day, seven days a week. I doubt anyone would get close to this amount. A raindrop in an ocean really.

 

1. Yes, but my current machine is 18.4" as well so it wouldn't be any different really.

2. No more so than already, so most of the time lights will be greater than the laptop. So the Matte screen would be a huge help for my irritability.

3. I have the OCZ Vertex 2 drive in my current machine, but I've heard that sandforce Solid State drives just don't like the Clevo systems. It's why I want one now.

4. That's what I'm wondering. Currently I'm CPU limited since I've seen what this GPU can do with a sandy quad and the same SSD. It's noticeable. So I'd like to eliminate that limitation this time around.

5. Gaming heavy. As in, everything from RTS games to Shooters. Games like Company of Heroes to Crysis 2 with the DX11 patch games.

Here's the P170HM I specced out on Malibal:

Customizations:
Promotions: $100 OFF Configurations Over $1500
Display: 17.3" 1920 x 1080 FHD LED AUO B173HW01 V.5 72% NTSC Matte Display
Processor: Intel® Core™ i7-2760QM, 6MB L3 Cache, 2.4-3.5GHz
Memory: (8GB) 8192MB, PC3-10660/1333MHz DDR3 - 2 SO-DIMM
Graphics Card: AMD® Radeon HD 6990M 2GB GDDR5
Hard Drive: 120GB Intel® (510) SATA III 6Gb/s SSD2 Drive
Hard Drive 2: 500GB 7200rpm 2.5" SATA-300
Optical Drive Bay: 6X Blu-ray Reader 8X DVD+/-R DL Super-Multi Drive
Operating System: None
Wireless: Intel® 6300 Ultimate-N 802.11A/B/G/N LAN Card
Cooling: IC Diamond 7 Thermal Compound, CPU & GPU
Keyboard: English: US & Canada
Power Cord: US & Canada
Branding: MALIBAL
Build Time: 5-7 Business Days (Estimated Time)
Warranty: LIFETIME Ltd. Labor and 2 Year Parts Warranty with 24/7 Support (USA)
Extras: Standard Black Carrying Case
Extras: Integrated 2.0 Megapixel Web Camera
Extras: Integrated 9 in 1 Card Reader
Extras: Integrated Fingerprint Reader
Extras: MALIBAL Software & Drivers Disc
Extras: PowerDVD & Bison Cam Software Package

TOTAL: $2,528 ( before the $100 off)

&​

Here's the P180HM I have specced out:

Customizations:
Promotions: $100 OFF Configurations Over $1500
Display: 18.4" 1920 x 1080 FHD LED Backlit Glossy Display
Processor: Intel® Core™ i7-2670QM, 6MB L3 Cache, 2.2-3.1GHz
Memory: (8GB) 8192MB, PC3-10660/1333MHz DDR3 - 2 SO-DIMM
Graphics Card: 2 X AMD® Radeon HD 6990M 2GB GDDR5 (CrossFireX)
Hard Drive: 80GB Intel® (320) SATA II 3Gb/s SSD2 Drive
Hard Drive 2: 500GB 7200rpm 2.5" SATA-300
Optical Drive Bay: 6X Blu-ray Reader 8X DVD+/-R DL Super-Multi Drive
Operating System: None
Wireless: Intel® 6300 Ultimate-N 802.11A/B/G/N LAN and Bluetooth Card
Cooling: IC Diamond 7 Thermal Compound, CPU & GPU
Keyboard: English: US & Canada
Power Cord: US & Canada
Branding: Red Edition
AC Adapter: Full Range AC-in 100~240V, 50~60Hz, 300W AC Adapter, DC output 20V, 15A
Build Time: 5-7 Business Days (Estimated Time)
Warranty: LIFETIME Ltd. Labor and 2 Year Parts Warranty with 24/7 Support (USA)
Extras: PowerDVD & Bison Cam Software Package
Extras: MALIBAL Software & Drivers Disc
Extras: Integrated Fingerprint Reader
Extras: Integrated 9 in 1 Card Reader
Extras: Integrated 2.0 Megapixel Web Camera

TOTAL: $2,563 ( before the $100 off)​

And the verdict is...?

 

One 6990 vs. 2x 6990 for the same price? Why is this even a question? I think the 2x 6990 more than makes up for the rest of the slightly lower specs.

 

My personal verdict is the P180HM, twice the power and I even noticed you got SSD in the P180HM (even though it's the 80GB 320 instead of the 120GB 510), I would rather go with a Crucial M4 since it's SATA-III and has fairly greater speed than the 320 which is SATA-II, but that's your choice.
Also, the P180HM is going to last longer and going to game stronger hardware required games further into the future, take in mind you've got almost twice the power and the SSD/HDD can always be upgraded, same goes to the Wireless and even processer (I think), and same goes to the RAM, you've chosen the 1333 DDR3 RAM that is going to work like a charm with the i7-2670, the 2760 really isn't worth the hassle or the money in this case, 8GB is more than enough and so goes to the RAM speed

My verdict (once again) is simply P180HM. Even though it uses more power, that buying such a machine, the least you should concern you is the freaking amount of power used
- you should maybe get the Bigfoot Killer-N 1102/3, contrary to belief then do work better than expected, well at least what I've seen and heard! Good luck brother.

Hope that helped

 

IMO, $2500 is the territory of the P180HM and the X7200. The bang-for-the-buck niche of the P170HM is more in the $1400-1800 range. In that range, there is still ample space to add various upgrades to taste so it's not like you are getting a metal frame with a graphics card sitting inside. By the time you doctor it up to $2500, a lot of it is bells and whistles add up and form a very large opportunity cost when you think of the dual-card configuration you are missing out on.

 

Dual 6990m's FTW. Ridiculous power for a laptop at a reasonable price.

 

Ah yes, couldn't be explained better. Well done sir.

Although the X7200 IMO is something above the $2500 limit, considering that it just holds better options such as the desktop CPU.

 

Fair enough and well said guys and gals. I'll still have to choose, so I'll flip a coin since I'm hugely torn. In all honesty I'll either get twice the GPU power or quadruple, so it's not that big of a deal either way.

 

Problem is the newer i7 notebook CPU's that you find in P180hm are now benchmarking significantly better than the older "desktop" CPU's on the X7200.

 

Really? Could you provide a source ?

 

Its been posted before, do a google search, but just as an example a midrange mobile CPU i7 2760QM outperforms a desktop i7 960 as an example, and does so using only a third of the power.

 

I suppose he's referring to something like this:

PassMark - Intel Core i7-2760QM @ 2.40GHz - Price performance comparison

 

Best advice ever. Wait 3 months, get HD 7990M should be about 50- 75% of dual 6990M. along with 22nm intel. will kick everything.

 

Incorrect, the new card will be about 50% on average better than a single 6990m, it still wont be as powerful as a pair of them though. Nice thing about buying now though is that the next gen mobile GPU cards will be MXM slot compatible. So if you buy now, you can always upgrade down the road when the need arises in games you play. And think about it, if you have dual 6990m's now, you can always upgrade to dual 7990m's in the future.

 

Well if you think about it, the 6990M is twice as fast as a 5870M, which was ATI's fastest solution beforehand. So the 7990M should be about the same.

The ending point is that I'll get a very potent upgrade either way, regardless of if I get dual 6990Ms or wait for the 7990Ms to hit. Really it doesn't matter.

And yes, the 2760QM is faster than the i7 960 by quite the margin. The Sandy Bridge lineup here is just incredible... There are reports of the 2960XM being as fast as the 2600K.

 

Yes indeed! Was looking for that, but didn't have the time to do a detailed search since I'm at school, but again thanks

75 % Oh god, do you have any OEM statement? That's insane dude, if this was the case this would blast the whole gaming industry away and destroy nVidia.
You might be aiming slightly over the limit there not that I know the amount of power increase in percent.

 

I would buy now, and then refresh summer/fall of 2013


edit: oh dear. this was meant for "buy now vs buy later" thread. oh well.

 

Well looking at my options, I've found that a machine over $2,000 enters yet another realm that I cannot afford to proceed into at this moment. So I've chiseled down the list and come up with this:

Customizations:
Promotions: $100 OFF Configurations Over $1500
Display: 17.3" 1920 x 1080 FHD LED AUO B173HW01 V.5 72% NTSC Matte Display
Processor: Intel® Core™ i7-2670QM, 6MB L3 Cache, 2.2-3.1GHz
Memory: (8GB) 8192MB, PC3-10660/1333MHz DDR3 - 2 SO-DIMM
Graphics Card: AMD® Radeon HD 6990M 2GB GDDR5
Hard Drive: 80GB Intel® (320) SATA II 3Gb/s SSD2 Drive
Optical Drive Bay: 6X Blu-ray Reader 8X DVD+/-R DL Super-Multi Drive
Operating System: None
Wireless: Intel® 6230 Advanced-N 802.11A/B/G/N LAN and Bluetooth Card
Cooling: IC Diamond 7 Thermal Compound, CPU & GPU
Keyboard: English: US & Canada
Power Cord: US & Canada
Branding: MALIBAL
Build Time: 5-7 Business Days (Estimated Time)
Warranty: LIFETIME Ltd. Labor and 2 Year Parts Warranty with 24/7 Support (USA)
Extras: Standard Black Carrying Case
Extras: Integrated 2.0 Megapixel Web Camera
Extras: Integrated 9 in 1 Card Reader
Extras: Integrated Fingerprint Reader
Extras: MALIBAL Software & Drivers Disc
Extras: PowerDVD & Bison Cam Software Package

Total is $2,063 which I think is plenty fair. The performance gain isn't enough to warrant getting a slightly faster CPU, I can just carry over my old hard drive over to this one and use the new SSD as the boot drive. I still get the Matte screen like I wanted, a very potent GPU, Same amount of faster RAM, and a bluray drive like I wanted as well. Oh and the updated Wifi card too.

 

Well its intresting you've posted it here, because mean machines, yes those big ones P170HM and P180HM are extremely expensive, so it would actually make better sense to wait until the newest tech gets released, by then resellers would be stuck with the older gear, which already would create a insane decrease in prize. That's my thinking for now, better off with a little bit elderly tech which would do all games on max anyways, and then refresh in summer/fall 2013 as you stated

Congratulations! Wish you the best with your choice and new built Malibal laptop

 

This is exactly like my build except I didn't opt for a Blu-Ray drive, the Bigfoot Wifi card, and no SSD.

 

My initial budget is $2200 for something like the P170HM/NP8170, but for barely $200 more I can get the P180HM with a trio of HDDs in Raid0 but counting out the upped CPU and screen from the P170HM.

Should I just drop the extra cash and get a more potent machine?

 

Personally that is all dependent on if you really want the 18" screen, and if you want ANY kind of battery life. If you want a nicer screen and better battery life then the P170 is where to be. Personally thats where I would stick with. If you want the 18" screen then obviously the 18" is the way to be there.

 

^^^ I too would go for the 17" model. Why? The 17.3" 120Hz 3D-Ready Full HD Display.

You could get a nice configuration with this screen, it would be in your $2,200.00 budget.

-

 

For $200 more you could put a nice SSD in the NP8170 and get far better performance than RAID0.

Unless of course you're thinking of RAID 5, but that's costly with little gain. You're better off w/ another form of backup, unless you need to be up and running instantly.

 

I have a Sony Vaio Z with quite fast SSD, and the one and only benefit I see from it is the Windows loading times. Sure, Windows loads insanely quick, in about 15-20 seconds, but that's about it. I see no benefits in games, at all. I compared between loading via the SSD and via the HDD, the difference was minimal, maybe 1-2 seconds difference in the loading times and that's it, very unnoticeable. Maybe it's because Microsoft has taken the slow HDDs into account and now rely almost entirely on the RAM, I don't know, but that's the way it goes.

Paying a premium mainly to shave a few seconds out of the boot process is not something I consider a hot deal. To each their own, of course, but I consider this beast a heavy duty gaming rig, not an iPad, so I don't need it to load as quickly as possible.

To the OP - as most already said here, you can replace the monitor of the 17" to a much better one for the same amount of cash. Plus, there's the weight issue: The 17" weighs a hefty 8.6 lbs (4 kg), not including the power brick and other stuff you'll most likely have to carry with you. I'm sure it can easily reach 5 kg, just barely considered mobile, mostly to drag along when moving or when switching rooms.

The 18" starts at 12.35 lbs (5.6 kg!), and I'm sure it can reach 6.5-7 kg with all the stuff. That's just not mobile. At this point I would consider a desktop, instead.

 

You've already asked this question in another thread:
http://forum.notebookreview.com/sager-clevo/640689-i-really-cant-decide-here-p180hm-vs-p170hm.html

CPU upgrade is minimal impact, upgraded screen is nice, I guess. Double gpu though = win.

 

Meh. You already got enough answers in the thread you've opened 3 weeks ago, why are you opening an identical thread? And why aren't pointing out that you already have an 18" laptop?

I had double desktop GPUs a year ago, it was quite horrible. Really awful support in games - some ran slower than even a single GPU, some refused to run, glitches aplenty..I actually spent more times setting and configuring stuff in order to get games to run properly rather than playing them. I'll pass.

As for my desktop - I returned the GPUs and got me a nice shiny single GPU, instead. Had zero issues with it.

 

A year ago makes a big difference in this field. Now that my P180HM and M18x are both up and operational, I wouldnt go any other way than dual video cards. All the major/popular games now support SLI/Crossfire. Dual video cards trumps a single one and then some.

 

Agreed with above, you already have a thread like this posted. As stated above, most of the answers were already given, if not, just add a new post in the other thread.

 

Perhaps. But I was burnt so badly that I still wouldn't risk it for quite some time.

But it doesn't matter, I picked the 17" due to the availability of the 3D monitor, which the 18" lacks. Again, to each his own

I'm just a bit sorry that I can't wait 2-3 more months for the new cards, but that's how the endless chase after technology works...

 

SSDs won't make much FPS difference in gaming, but games will tend to load faster, significantly faster in some cases (depending on the game).

in terms of launching applications and boosting speed and productivity outside of gaming, SSDs are amazing. i update formulas in some giant spreadsheets and what used to take 2-4 minutes now takes only 2-4 seconds. the example you're using with Microsoft relying on RAM sounds about right, but that's on subsequent loading of the same app that was opened previously. if you use more meaty applications, you'll definitely notice a huge increase in speed (i.e. nearly instantaneous vs. waiting 5, 10, 15 seconds for Photoshop to load). i picked up a 128GB Crucial M4 for $150 and having all of my applications load off of the SSD is totally noticeable and totally worth it. shaving 10 seconds here and there might not sound like it's worth it, but it all adds up on anything you do on your computer.

if all you do is facebook, write emails, surf the web, game, and that's it, then an SSD might not be the best bang for your buck. using the $150-300 to install a more capable GPU would obviously be a better bet. if you like having a ridiculously agile computer all around, then having an SSD is a must. once you've switched, you will never go back to a traditional HDD. if you're on a tight budget and have a decent 7200 RPM HDD, then you can put off the SSD until prices drop further.

 

I have merged the threads.

@OP, If you have posted a similar topic, it is advised to continue discussion from there by bumping the thread with updated information.

 

Your merge has ceased my brain to work anymore, and I though my Chrome was bugged ..

 

That's what I was going for.