On the fence for my video card

I'm getting an M571RU and am having a tough time justifying spending extra on the 8800 especially when I'm not sure that I'll need all the power. What are some games that the 8700 can handle at almost full settings? Currently, the newest game I own is Neverwinter Nights 2, but I've only been using it on a friend's computer.

 

Still might be worth getting the 8800GTX how long do you plan to keep this laptop?

 

If you have the money, buy the 8800. If you don't have the money, save up some more and then buy the 8800. Seriously, it's that much better than the 8700 regardless of the games you are "currently" playing.

 

Looks like I might do that then. I probably want to keep the notebook for at least a few years, unless at some point I need to swap it for something more portable.

 

Well the single 8700 compared to the 8800M gtX difference in performance is comparable to the difference between a ford festiva and a porsche 911 GT2, no seriously its literally that different!

 

Hi there, another newb here with pretty much the same question as the OP. I figured I'd add my question here rather than start a new thread.

Does anyone know if the 5792 is upgradable to the 8800M GTX without a mother-board change? If so, wouldn't it make sense to get the 8700M now (assuming it handles what you need it, like it does for me) and upgrade to the 8800 once prices have fallen a bit. As a ~$450 add right now it's a tough pill to swallow since nothing I currently run (COD4, Quake4) requires anything close to the performance that the 8800 offers. Most of the casual gamers that I play with run XPS 1710 machines using the 7900GT and from what I can find the 8700M actually benches better than those machines.

Thoughts and advice greatly appreciated and nice forum you guys have here.

Nate

 

I'm not even sure if that is possible Nate, but my sincere advice is to get the video card you want when you buy the notebook. Prices are not going to fall as long as the 8800M-GTX is king and that should be a long time . . . and even after that, I doubt prices are going to fall to decent ranges. So no, it would not be economical to get the 8700M-GT now and install an 8800M-GTX later (if that's even possible, once again).

Here is a review of the Sager NP5791 with the 8700M-GT so you can see what kind of performance it is capable of. It's a decent card but does not even begin to match the 8800M-GTX:
http://www.notebookreview.com/default.asp?newsID=4056

 

Thanks for the reply Chaz. The other option, and honestly the one I'm leaning towards is to buy direct from Sager (fingers crossed) and get the GO 7950GTX. I have emails into both Xotic and PowerNotebooks to see if they can offer the 7950 at the same no-charge that Sager currently is.

Here's the exact configuration that I'm thinking of getting:

17" WUXGA
45nm Intel® Core™ 2 Duo Processor T8300
Nvidia GeForce GO 7950 GTX
Vista Home Premium
2GB Dual Channel DDR2 SDRAM at 667MHz
160GB 7200rpm SATA 300 Hard Drive
1GB Intel TurboMemory

w/o additional warranty that clocks in a $2089 and seems like it'll do everything that I could conceivably need. I'll never be a hard core gamer so the 8800 doesn't seem like money well spent, but I know where you're coming from comparing it to the 8700.

 

I am in a similar position insofar as I might want to save the money and NOT wait 6 months to upgrade my ancient laptop, then upgrade to the 8800 later. I spoke (online) with Justin W. at xoticpc.com yesterday and he assured me that the 5792 is upgradeable from the 8700 to the 8800 without a motherboard change and that you can, in fact, order the 8800 through them at a later time.

I can get a system that will cover my needs from xotic (or powernotebooks.com, btw) for about $2,000 which is my current and foreseeable price point. The difference for today's needs is probably negligible (and I suspect you feel the same way) as I currently work/play on a 4 year old laptop. Coming up with the extra $500-600 might take awhile, and an improvement now with the potential for upgrade when I get some extra cash is a nice deal.

I hope this (partly acecdotal) explanation is truly accurate and that this helps in your decision.

 

It certainly is helpful, thanks. The last outstanding detail/question is whether or not any of the reputable resellers can offer the 7950GTX as the same no-cost option that Sager is. I think that'd be my idea setup.

 

Hi n_maher,

I thought I'd go ahead and post what I told you in my email, just in case anyone else has the same question:
Sager has an extremely limited stock of GeForce GO 7950 GTX cards, and Clevo has told them that there will NOT be a stock replenishment, so buying direct from Sager is the only way to get a GeForce GO 7950 GTX. This is so that they can more closely monitor their stock and immediately pull the 7950 GTX as soon as the last one sells.

 

I also was thinking about swapping the 8700 for the 7950, as the 7950 is 256 bit as opposed to 128, and can take better advantage of the 512 MB memory. But the 8700 also supports DX10, which the 7950 does not. The 7950 still seems to outperform the 8700 though.

 

ZZZzzzz just go with a 8800m gtx... you will need this power next year anyway

 

Bah, options are of course making this hard.

First, thanks to Tim for the kind and fast reply to my question. Hopefully I can wrap things up with one more question, I've heard that buying direct from Sager is something to be avoid at all costs, is it really that awful?

 

n_maher, it is not that Sager is awful to deal with. Sometimes there is a language barrier that comes up. PowerNotebooks and XoticPC add our own 24/7 Domestic Support to the purchase.

 

I think reports about Sager not being so great to deal with are mainly coming from a few years ago, when you would usually have to leave a message for Sager and have them call you back if you wanted support. Now, though, they've got lightning fast response on support. Like Justin said, PowerNotebooks and Xotic add 24/7 support to the deal, which can be useful if your support needs don't fall into Pacific Time business hours, but the folks at Sager aren't bad to work with by any means.

 

I appreciate the great pre-sale service from both of you, thanks!

 

Well, I'm hopefully on the fence no more. An order was placed tonight for a 5972 w/ the 7950. I'll do what I can to benchmark it when it arrives and see just how fast it is.

 

I think you will be very happy with the Go7950GTX's performance. It has been proven time and time again that the 8700M-GT does not hold a candle to its performance. I have had the pleasure of using many Go7900GTX/Go7950GTX notebooks as well as several 8700M-GT-equipped notebooks and the Go7900s are much, much more powerful - I could feel the difference as soon as I started playing a game. The difference is especially apparent at higher resolutions.

 

The thing is, that although u may be able to play medium resource demanding games such as COD or Quake 4 on the 7950 or 8700, they may not be able to stand up to the medium resource demanding games of the future, wheras the 8800mGTX is very futureproof in this regard.

 

Agreed and that's why you buy a platform that can natively support the 8800mGTX so that future upgrading is possible with limited pain.

 

the config i have is in my sig.....the 8800 is deff worth the money.

i had a dell xps m1730 ordered and edned up cancelling it because of all the good feedback from sager/xoticpc/the 8800

trust me its well worth it. single config i push 300fps with full settings is counter strike source

roughly the same in day of defeat source, and around 150-200 average in hl2 and hl2-episode 1

my personal opinion.....thats insane for one graphics card...cant wait till i can get the sli upgrade

 

I'm actually on the fence right now as well as to what to do. Has anybody actually upgraded their 7950 to the 8800? If so, have you noticed a difference? I have 7950 SLI on Vista x64 right now and am thinking about upgrading to a pair of 8800s [when available in SLI] and I really want to know if it'll be "worth it". I mean, for almost $1,800, am I going to go "wow, this was totally worth it" or am I going to feel like a tool? I couldn't care less about benchmarks and crap -- I use this for both programming and playing games so I just want as much performance as I can ekk out of my laptop for a while.

 

7950 gtx in SLi is nice, but the performance difference would probably the difference of let say Gaming performance wise the difference of a "playable" crysis on medium shaders and shadows (2x 7950gtx) all other high dx9 about 18-27 fps vs. 8800m gtz sli = crysis 35-40+ fps all shaders high shadows high. all other in in game options very high dx10. Now i would in dx9 the fps would be 45+ in crysis same settings atleast and well i would say about 3-4 years future proof. So in the end I would bet that with the proper driver support the 8800m gtx SLi would give you ANOTHER 3 years of high gaming on high res support, as opposed to 7950 gtx sli 1 year on high. Make since?