Trying to Finalize My Options on a Sager

I have been spending the last several days trying to decide which size to get for a brand new Sager. Fortunately, I have a 15 inch and 17 inch laptop laying around at home (not mine) to try them out. I think I've settled on a 15 inch. While the 17 inch screen is pretty darn nice with the extra screen real estate, I think most of the time I will have it plugged into a bigger monitor, sometimes on my lap, or the occasional output to a TV.

My last decision is trying to decide which graphics card to get. If I go with the 670m, I'd end up just getting the P151EM1 for exactly $1200. The only thing stopping me is I'm just not too sure how well that graphics card would age over the next 2 to 3 years. Anyone have any thoughts on this? I could possibly stretch my wallet and consider the 675m/7950m, which will be about $250-$300 more but I'm trying to justify it to myself. If I were to go with the 675m, I priced the total of the notebook to about $1450. But if I go with the 7950, it seems like it might only be slightly higher at about $1475 (after $50 off $1500). So in my mind, there's somewhat of a gap between the 670m and 675m/7950m. I'm also not sure how much of a battery drain difference there is if I were to just browse the web with a 670m versus 675m/7970m with optimus/enduro. I am aware that technology changes so fast, so I'd imagine no matter what graphics card I choose, the notebook would last about 3 years tops before considering another one.

I'm coming from a desktop running an Nvidia 8800 GTS. I've had it since 2008, and have still been able to play recent games at 1600 resolution (no AA/AF) at relatively smooth frame rates so i've been pretty happy with what I've been using. I play casual web games a lot as well as 3D games. Now I'm looking for my next computer to be a notebook that will last me another 2-3 years.

Any thoughts to help me lean one way or the other?

 

If it helps, the 7970M is about 60% faster than the 675M and about 80% faster than the 670M.

 

7970M if you want to be future proof.

 

I'm a fan of nvidia cards (have a gtx 485m in my laptop now) but even I would say go with the 7970m. It's such a huge boost and imo it's bridging the gap between desktop and mobile GPUs with that kind of performance.

 

If it helps, the 670m is more than enough for most people, and will run EVERY game thats out right now on at least medium, if not high, settings.

 

Has Enduro been confirmed for the 7970m yet? That's a huge factor for my decision on whether to go for a 670m or a 7970m as getting the 7970m goes over the budget i wanted to set for a new 9150.

 

Yes, yes it has.

SOURCE: http://forums.whirlpool.net.au/archive/1910579