M570ru: Vista, 8700Gt vs. XP, 7950GTX -- help!

After visiting Eurocom's factory outlet I'm pretty much sold on a m570ru. However, I still need to make an important decision regarding the OS and GPU. Any advice or information you think would help me make the best choice would be greatly appreciated.

On one hand, the guys at Eurocom were trying hard to sell me a 8700GT with Vista by giving me the whole DX10 sales pitch.

On the other, I've read the benchmark threads and know that the 7950 greatly outperforms the 8700 in DX9 games. BUT - a rig with the 7950 will take 2-3 weeks due to the shortage.

Also, while I haven't actually used Vista myself... I'm quite turned off about it due to the amount of complaints (regarding compatibility and performance) that I've come across. Yet, there's talk about a service pack that will change all this.


So! What do you guys think?

 

If you're a heavy gamer, who wants to game @ native/high res, go for the 7950
If you're a casual gamer, or want to game at a lower res (1440x900 or so), go for the 8700

the 7950 will work on both XP and Vista, it just doesn't support DX10
XP is indeed better for gaming, but I imagine you already have a copy of XP, so you might want to order Vista for the future, if you want to try it

 

I finish playing right now in vista 64, Bioshock is one amazing game... Play very very nice in vista 64

7950 here so i vote in 7950...

 

This is a very tough question and has been tossed around again and again. I think it boils down to whether or not you want DX10 capability in your laptop now (and not through some future upgrade which may or may not be possible).

If you want DX10 now then your only choice is the 8700GT.

If you'd rather have performace (especially at higher resolutions like those on a 17" display) -- then your best choice is 7950GT.

I just bought my NP9260 yesterday (I'm very excited about it). I struggled with this for over a month... wait for 8700GTs to arrive or go with 7950's. I opted to go with the 7950s because the 8700 is just not a good enough performer in my opinion. Also when DX10 becomes main stream, I think there will be better DX10 GPUs available -- So I guess you can say I'm banking on future upgrades.

Also the point mentioned before is very important. DX9 is still available in Vista and some day will be faster than DX9 in XP -- due to the improved hardware driver model (the same model that's causing all the manufacturers grief atm).

Anyway, that's my 2 cents

 

Personally I'd go with the Go7950GTX and forget about Vista. Vista is bloated and slow - it needs a lot of work. Gaming performance is decreased about 20 percent compared to XP. And finally, XP is compatible with more devices.

With Windows XP + the Go7950GTX, you should be able to run most games with high settings at WSXGA+/WUXGA. It's a beast of a card.

 

Hello CHAZ,

I have the two OS vista and xp, i upgrade both to maximum setings (a lot of tunning) and now, i feel vista more powerfull than xp... i have some problems to get some programs to work, but they come more and more with 64bits capacity ...

I say, vista (64 bits) with some work and some fine tunning its a great OS, the only piece that misse in this puzzle is lack of opportunity of upgrading drivers...

I will run some tests under vista 64 and put it here in forum...

 

I'm also going to dual boot XP and Vista-64. I'm going to benchmark both in 3DMark06 before and after OCing. I ordered the 9260 with E6700 and SLI 7950s and 4GB 800MHz RAM.

I'll post some results after I complete the benchmarking (should be next week Friday 14th since my lappy will be arriving near then).

 

I'm no expert this just my opinion. I use Vista 64 and have the Go7950GTX. I been playing Company of Heroes without problems.

I went through the same problem when I ordered my Clevo m570ru. Luckily I found a company that had them in stock with the Go7950GTX. That solved my problem.

 

Hello all
YES XPS 1730 is OUT Now on dell site

But is it better then the Alienware m9750

from both these which has a better graphic card ?

is true tht the Dell we will be able to upgrade its 8700 to the 8800 cards when they are out ?
If so then isnt the Dell a better buy ?
OR IS THERE ANY OTHER BETTER THAN THIS LAPTOP
Money is not aproblem need a Extream & Fast machine
Please Help

 

7950 GTX and vista home x64. Vista will get better in time, think of the long run. I'm gaming on Vista64 and it rocks . In time, it will absolutely rock :>

 

i vote for the 7950GTX, its more powerful, and of course Windows XP. If you get the 7950GTX, i really don't see a point in getting Vista, cause you won't have DX10 capability anyways.

 

I had this problem and and ended up choosing the 8700m GT my reasons!

Cooler
cheaper
Dx10

Yes sure its not a powerful, but i would much rather widen my ranges with dx10 and save $100 for a future card, actually with the 100$ i will manage to get a Norebook Cooler, New Mouse and New Keyboard, and Possibly a bluetooth headset (i got connections). also i game at 1440x900 usually

so for me the 8700M GT was a no brainer after i thought about it...since i dont game on UBER high res. i figure a couple more FPS VS. More accessorys i can use that wont be out dated as fast

 

I would recommend 8700. Frankly, you wouldn't see much differences between 1920x1200 vs 1440x1024. Besides, DX10 makes the game look much better.

 

I notice a whole lot of difference between 1920x1200 and 1440x1024. IMOA if you have to drop to 1440x1024 to get playable frame rates, DX10 will not make your game look better than the 7950 GTX at 1920x1200.

 

arghh i ordered the 8700gt i hope i made the right choice... i dont use this only for gaming its more for when i want to play i want to play whatever i want with no issues.. so i do hope the 8700gt will be okay... man now i hope i made the right choice

 

Once you pull the trigger, never look back. You should be fine with 8700GT. If you want to cheer yourself up a bit look at DX9 vs. DX10 comparisons for:

1. Call of Juarez
2. Crysis
3. Age of Conan

Do NOT look at 9/10 comparisons for Bioshock nor Lost Planet.

It's difficult to find good information. Some games with DX10 are really DX9 with a last minute DX10 add... those games just suck for DX10 and show minimal quality improvements.

True DX10 games were designed with DX10 from the beginning and show stunning effects. Frame rate data is available for Call of Juarez and the DX10 penalty is not substantial IMO. Also keep in mind that a DX10 card is doing WAY MORE WORK when operating in DX10 mode. This is due to the intense shader effects and improved texture quality.

If they ever hack DX10 into XP you'll see a lot of disappointed DX9 owners *****ing about low ass frame rates -- a DX9 card will struggle with the killer shading -- again, just my opinion.

 

How many video card slots are there on the Clevo m570ru? If there is another slot you might be able to add another 8700GT and run in SLI mode.

 

can i safely assume we can interchange the 7950 gtx and the 8700m easily?

 

Envision: no, the 570 has only 1 slot
the 900 has 2

theorist: it should, since they're both used in the same laptop
(finding one might be more difficult though )

 

im getting vista and 8700gtX, and then run xp until sp1 comes out.

 

7950 and wait for better DX 10 cards.

 

So whats a better Dx 10 card ?

 

At this point, I'd say ones that can handle DX10 games at full resolution and eye candy turned on. In other words, next summer when 8800M GTX/Ultras come out (hopefully).

Crysis was named that way because it will make your PCs cry trying to run it maxed out without atleast a desktop class DX10 card. SLI'd 8700s maybe, but it won't last long.

Right now the choice is really DX10 or performance. The only thing you lose with getting a 7950 GTX is DX10 which is not as big of a deal as people are making it out to be. A few games support it, most of the support is very minor. Crysis (the DX10 prodigy child) might not even be that great of a game. Even still, it will be 1 game and (some do) but most people play more than just one game.

I'd go with SLI 7950s if the laptop allows it or single 7950. Then in a year or two, upgrade as needed. By then DX10 will be more than just some fancy pre-renders.

DX9 isn't going away anytime soon. Other than 1 or 2 games, I haven't really seen much from DX10 (although those two games look great).

 

like u said"although those two games look great" in x10

Only problem with 7950 is its not upgradble & after a yr Spend another $ 3/4000 on a latop
So better to get a Slower 8700 BUT atleast will be able to upgrade & get better games latter
& Latop will last 3 yrs But if ur going for Desktop then its diff

 

why wouldn't the 7950 gtx be upgradeable if the 8700 can be in the same notebook?

 

thats wht they said at Alienware
Dont like Sager & Clevo
But Dell says they will if we get a 8700

 

anyone else have a definitive answer as to 8700 being upgradeable but 7950 not?

 

call justin at xotic. he told me he just took out his 7950 and out in a 8700 so i assune they are able to be swapped out

 

yeah i agree as well.

 

Im talking Brand names
does Toshiba Dell Alienware Sony upgrade 9750 cards to upcoming ones ?
Site like Exotic, Clevo, Sager, not yet name brands & majority dont buy from them

 

why are you so against xotic, clevo, sager?

 

Honest Not aginst
Just dont like the same look for 4 companys sharing the same dsesign
Its like saying when people buying a Car Bmw, Merc, Volvo, etc all dont have Exact same look, u know wht i mean
Some companys charging $500 + just to paint the laptop thats So stupid, I think voodo

 

Ah. I can see your point.

 

so dont go with those comapnies then, go with teh cheapest ones, nothing to have against xotic, sager etc, they are cheap. just voodoo racks up their prices alot.

 

I prefer Alienware But it doesnt have Laptop with
Quad Core
8800 Card
Finger reader
heheehhe so i think ill wait for now
2nd choice is Dell if no good laptop by Dec, max Jan i will by dell

 

well, there is one thing you are missing bro..when you compare notebooks to cars it looks more like this:
-Clevo is BMW
-Sager, Eurocom, RJ Tech and Rock Direct are car importers
-XoticPC, Power Notebooks and similar companies are local dealers

so you can't really expect BMW;s to look and work different when you get them from one dealer or another, right?

what about VooDoo and WidowPC? well, imagine local dealer that puts a M3 body kit on 323i...and charges you twice that much as a M3 is worth..

moreover, Alienware is not manufacturing their notebooks..5750 and 5790 were Siemens-Fujitsu notebooks, 9700 and 9750 are Arima's and m7700 were..well Clevo's =D
so they are just another reseller..

and one last thing: read what people think about Alienware and Dell tech support and customer service..i don't really have to comment that one, besides saying that people are bringing brand new and covered by warranty Dell's to our computer store/repair center. why? i think you already know it. we even had few Alienwares ecently..but i have not seen any Clevo yet.

hope i didn't bore you to death with this post =)

 

What? The 9260/9261 have MXM GPU's in them.

 

Like I said before if you have to turn down the resolution and eye candy to get playable frame rates with the 8700GT it wont look better than the 7950GTX at a higher resolution and all the eye candy even if the 8700 is running in DX10.

IMO Kozi your future 9261 system with 8700 SLI will not run the games you listed like the comparison screenies, not with playable framerates anyways. Those screen comparisons were run with a much faster desktop system, something like 8800 GTX SLI. I have to turn down the resolution on Call Of Juarez cause it brings my system to its knee's, and by your argument that DX10 is more demanding than DX9 there is no way your going to get the same results as those screen comparisons.

 

Check this out:

http://enthusiast.hardocp.com/article.html?art=MTM4NCw2LCxoZW50aHVzaWFzdA==

The DX10 card is definitely doing more work... but you missed my point. It's designed for that DX10 workload. I don't believe DX9 card can't handle that shading (even the puny 8700GT performs shading operations 3x faster that the beastly 7950).

Even if the 8700 runs at lower frame rates, the graphical appearance improvement is huge -- so yes I think you still will see an improvement between DX9 and DX10 appearance even with reduced settings (like screen resolution for example).

 

i posted iun the wrong area :S

 

ah. why not just buy both graphic cards and interchange them when you play either dx9 games or dx10!!!!

hehe.

 

Did you look at the test setup machines? They are running those screenies on a Desktop with 8800GTX. They get barely playable frames with a 8800 GTX. You will not get the same eye candy when you turn down the settings to run those games on a single or even SLI Go machine. If your buying a GO 8700GT to play DX10 games you might as well forget about the image quality being on par with a 8800 GTX desktop system.

I could go and upgrade to 8700GT SLI but why? Just to turn down the settings and get less eye candy than the 7950 SLI. The 8700GT is a mid range card and even less for the GO series.

Your talking like the GO8700GT is blowing the 7950 image quality out the door, and you could not be any farther away from the truth. The fact is you will have to turn off most of the DX10 settings to get playable frames on a GO 8700GT. Have a look at these DX comparisons. http://www.extremetech.com/article2/0,1697,2174759,00.asp

 

i agree the 7950 is a better card right now. i ordered the 8700 .. only because im not using this as a dedicated game machine and the 8700 should suit me just fine (i hope) the extra money for the 7950 would prob never get utilized by me.. not all the time at least

 

Here is a quote that I found that really puts DX10 performance into perspective. Below is a link to the article.

"AMD and NVIDIA had the chance to define the minimum performance of a DX10 class part higher than what we can expect from cards that barely get by with DX9 code. By choosing to design their hardware without a significant, consistent performance advantage over the X1600 and 7600 class of parts, developers have even less incentive (not to mention ability) to push next generation features only possible with DX10 into their games. These cards are just not powerful enough to enable widespread use of any features that reach beyond the capability of DirectX 9.

Even our high-end hardware struggled to keep up in some cases, and the highest resolution we tested was 2.3 megapixels. Pushing the resolution up to 4 MP (with 30" display resolutions of 2560x1600) brings all of our cards to their knees. In short, we really need to see faster hardware before developers can start doing more impressive things with DirectX 10."

http://www.anandtech.com/video/showdoc.aspx?i=3029&p=3

Kozi look at the performance of the 8800GTS with no AA and 1280x1024 just playable frames. Do you truly believe that the GO 8700GT can keep up with the 8800GTS Desktop GPU even in SLI? I doubt it.

My point is not to knock the 8700GT into the dirt, but your not being honest with yourself thinking that the GO8700GT is a better card than the GO7950GTX

 

I never said it was a better card... I did say it was better at shading ops which are heavily utilized in DX10.

I also said you can get playable frame rates in DX10 with two 8700's in SLI. Unless you think playable is > 60FPS (which isn't even perceivable since the LCD pixels can physically change state only 60 times per second).

A single 8800 plays Call of Juarez at playable frame rates with the eye candy. So you're saying two 8700's in SLI cannot? We've seen the scores from Justin's post at just over 8100 in 3DMark06. The 8800 scores nearly 9000.

So I think you're not being fair when you say two 8700's in SLI cannot play Call of Juarez in DX10 -- and if it can then it will definitely "look" better than 7950's because of the sweet shading and higher texture quality.

Yes the 7950's will get higher frame rates... but at some point who cares? I want playable frame rates AND sweet looking graphics. Two 8700's in SLI with DX10 should give me that.

 

hmmm should i have got the 7950 arghhhh

 

dont base if off of call of juarez, it was a patch to make it DX10, its coded terribly. i also only found DX10 looked better if it was at the highest settings, medium settins and low didnt differ from directx 9

 

I believe that if at least a minimal amount of future compatibility is more important to you than even less, then you made the right decision. However, if you really wanted the best performance in DX9, you blew it!

 

Read the link Kozi, I know your trying to refuse any argument against your purchase. The benches tell the story, YOU WONT BE ABLE TO PLAY CALL OF JUAREZ with the GO8700GT in SLI with all DX10 Eye candy or even close to your native resolution on your laptop. All you will get is DX9 and the resolution on the benchmarks and less frames than the 7950 GTX in SLI. And nobody was ever talkin about 3DMark06 and comparing your score to DX10 code.

Geez, the 8800 GTX desktop GPU only gets 23FPS with 4x AA and 1280x1024. I am sorry but the GO8700GT is more like a 8600 GTS Desktop GPU and that only gets 4.7FPS **** even give it 10fps I would say that is not playable FPS, would you?

"So I think you're not being fair when you say two 8700's in SLI cannot play Call of Juarez in DX10 -- and if it can then it will definitely "look" better than 7950's because of the sweet shading and higher texture quality."

No it wont, b/c you won't be able to run full DX10 and get playable frames 25-30

"Yes the 7950's will get higher frame rates... but at some point who cares? I want playable frame rates AND sweet looking graphics. Two 8700's in SLI with DX10 should give me that."

The graphics will look less sweet than the 7950GTX b/c you will have to crank down the resolution from your lappy's native and turn off some of the DX10 eye candy, and it will be at a lower FPS.

"A single 8800 plays Call of Juarez at playable frame rates with the eye candy. So you're saying two 8700's in SLI cannot? We've seen the scores from Justin's post at just over 8100 in 3DMark06. The 8800 scores nearly 9000."

No the 8800 GTX does not. The desktop 8800 GTX get's only 23 FPS with 4x AA and 1280x1024 resolution. The GO8700GT in SLI will get less than that or maybe on par in a perfect world, I would not call those playable frames.

"I also said you can get playable frame rates in DX10 with two 8700's in SLI. Unless you think playable is > 60FPS (which isn't even perceivable since the LCD pixels can physically change state only 60 times per second)."

You can't get 24fps with the 8800GTX, who said anything about 60FPS.

 

I agree with Scooberdoober, who said, "I believe that if at least a minimal amount of future compatibility is more important"
so better to get a 8700 or Higher(which we dont have so get something u can upgrade)