NP9370/P370EM: Will an i7 3630qm bottleneck a GTX 680M sli setup?

Title pretty much says it all

This doesn't seem to be a topic thats discussed often, as most of the discussion on the internet is usually centred on the GTX 680 desktop version.

But I've seen some criticism of the M18x having bottlenecking issues with the lower end i7 cpu's, and I was wondering how valid these complaints are, as the NP9370/P370EM is also a dual GPU system.

 

The i7 36xxQM will be fine for most games, but yes CPU dependant games such as Guild Wars 2 or FFXIV (also Skyrim) are bottlenecked by the CPU. You can't overclock it either, so I would opt for at least the 37xx, especially when spending so much on a 680M SLI setup that should be somewhat future proof.

 

sirana nailed it.

A 3740QM and above future proofs you really, due to the OC.

 

Thanks for the replies!

How badly do you think a 3630qm will bottleneck a set of 680's? If The fps loss from the bottleneck is negligible I'll live with it for awhile until I can pick up a 3740qm later down the line.

Reason being my reseller has 3740qm's back ordered and they won't have new stock for 2 weeks. Odds are I'll be out of the country for 6 months by then :S

 

Not badly, but it's always nice to have something future proof, I mean you'll be fine

A 3840QM is a good choice too, but again, that's pricey.

 

Most computers we sell with an SLI setup go with the 3630QM and i havent heard anyone have a bottleneck issues.
While its the "entry" level quad core its still a very capable CPU.

 

Is the 3630QM able to be overclocked in any way?

 

unfortunately not. 3720/3740qm and upwards are capable of a limited OC by 400mhz, but only with a respective unlocked bios which only alienware machines are equipped with IIRC.

Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using Tapatalk 2

 

Yes, the 36xxQM can NOT be overclocked in ANY way. But any 37XXQM and higher can be overclocked, in both the 150EM and 170EM and also in the 370EM via XTU. The 150EM needs a special BIOS though, but a guide for that can be found in this forum.

 

ah cool, didnt know u could enable that OC potential via xtu as well thx for the heads-up.

 

Yeah XTU is quite nice, just make sure to use the older version 2.1 instead of the latest one (since the latest has dropped some features like Auto-Tune)

 

yeah ive noticed that, its weird how they kinda "regress" xtu with the newer versions