When will the 9260 be knocked off its pedestal?

When will the 9260 be knocked off its pedestal and what will the sytem spec out?

 

*Rubs his crystal ball*

It will be knocked off its pedestal tomorrow with a 50.0Ghz Septuplet Core Extreme Processor and 25 TB RAM, Raid 50TB SSD's and Quad SLI with 10800's.

Get it quick before its gone!

In all seriousness, it won't be dethroned for a while. Especially if the new G0 stepping works to give it quad power. Otherwise the 1st Quad Core notebook will do it.

Expect it to be able to play games for the next 2-3 years.

From testing the new 1333Mhz bus doesn't do too much for performance increase (See Anandtech for the details) so it will be a few chipsets down the road before it is knocked.

 

Not to mention that if Nvidia sticks to its new MXM-IV, the 9260 has the cooling solution of a fire-breathing dragon. The entire back half of the thing is one giant cooler. Lotsa copper. Based on that beefiness alone, I'd say that it should accept many new video cards to come, so long as they don't mess around with the socket type. Which, based on the age of the shell (a couple months...) I think Clevo would be very very angry if no more stuff came out compatible with it.

 

Tomorrow afternoon, at about 8.15 PM Central time.

 

It depends.

* If it is compatible with the next M8800 GTX it will be the Gaming King for at least untill the end of next year. This provided that next year games still don't make much use of Quads.

* Now if Quad G0 compatibility is confirmed by Clevo it will be the overall king for at least an year for sure. That is, this until the new Penryn Quads come in and provided that Clevo or some other company manages to put them in a Shell like the one in d900c (I think they will by the summer next year in preparation for holiday bonuses, christmas or even University allowances).

But this is all speculation, who knows.

Trance

PS: I really hope the current configuration remains upgradable for 2 years at least. That is why I bought it really.

 

I'll give you a little clue on the longevity.

The previous Clevo D900K using AMD Athlon FX-60 is still considered one of the best notebooks out there. Its been around for about 2 years now... and still kicking with dual core CPU, dual HDD's and 7950GTX.

 

good to hear, i just upgraded my 5790 to a 9260, due to the backorder on the 7950GTX.

 

would you really call that an upgrade though? isn't the 9260 much heavier and bulkier? I heard the battery life for that thing is only like 40 minutes when gaming. They are two completely different laptops in terms of portability.

 

and when someone buys a DTR...they arent going for portaility/least wait possible, they are going for power.

and when you say its not really an upgrade, i invite you to look at the upgradeability (probably not a word) of the 9260...SLI capable, can hold 3 hard drives, RAID options...

yes it is an upgrade. and no I do not care about battery life...this beast will be plugged in almost all the time.

 

Its definitely an upgrade of at least 30 more FPS in most games. Maybe not so many in next-gen stuff, but yeah.

When you get a 17" laptop, you get it for one of three things:
Performance / Portability, moreso than 15 inchers.
Performance / Budget, with more $$$ than 15 inchers.
PERFORMANCE!!!11!!!!1!!, with gobs of FPS and $$$.

Its actually a very versatile weight class...

 

yeah i know that the 9260 is much more powerful. I was just saying that the 5790 is more of a "laptop," while the 9260 leans towards a desktop replacement. its like saying that buying a new desktop is upgrading your laptop, because the 9260 is so large.

 

But....using that same logic the M1330 or Sony Viao TZ is a "Laptop" while your 5790 leans more toward desktop replacement, as it's more bulkier, heavier etc.



The 9260 is still a laptop no matter how you slice it. Think of it like boxing.

Featherweight: M1330 etc

Lightweight: 1420 Dell, etc.

Middleweight: 5790, etc.

Heavyweight: 9260 etc

They are all still boxers, just categories. Same with laptops.

 

well im mainly going to be playing CSS, R6V, WAR. however, for CSS i am used to 80-140 fps, and i need it to at least match that performance (i dont care what anyone says, i CAN notice a difference...) of my current desktop.

I will also be playing titan quest, HL2, farcry, bf2, and other games...i should be good. If the notebook cannot handle WAR, then I can look toward SLI for this beast...if not SLI, then maybe there will be new cards out at that time I can upgrade to.

 

I *want* a desktop replacement. when I cant take my 40-50lb tower, and my 37" 1080p monitor, i CAN and WILL take my 9260. also, my desktop is going to be turned into a media server eventually, and I will use my 9260 as my main gaming machine.

 

A 7950GTX will most definitely deliver 100+ fps in CS:S, at almost any resolution.

My rig got 208fps average on the Source Stress Test (within HL2) with:
1920x1200 @ ALL MAX w./ 4xAA & 16xAF.
So if half the card is half the power... 1x 7950gtx should get the fps just fiiiiine.

 

Here is my take on transportability of D900c. I've been taking it every day to work by Train and then Sub (sometimes bus) for the last 1.5 weeks. I'm 1.82 meter tall and weight 86 kilos so I'm reasonably strenghtfull. Also at work, this notebooks is 99% of the time over my desk.

I bought this laptop for power, not only games but also. For a laptop this notebook is quite heavy. But not heavy enough to make it unbarable on my day to day traveling.

In terms of weight this laptop is adequate for my traveling context. What I mean by this, is that if your traveling context is more dynamic then mine then take your mind off this one.

I can't imagine myself carrying it from classes to classes or meetings to meetings every day, or even going regurarly to a cyber cafe. For the last couple of examples I use my Tablet PC. As I've said before, within my current traveling context I would say transportation by train and bus is bareable but unconfortable (no so unconfortable that makes me want not to carry it to work still).

Trance
PS: At home I do play with it from time to time over the couch, but definitely not as much as my Tablet PC as it used to be like every day.

 

The Clevo D900C won't be knocked off performance wise, the Alienware m9750 is a much better laptop (from an egineering standpoint) since its even thinner thean the Clevo M570RU but since its "only" using mobile processors etc.it won't be faster. The Dell XPS 1730 looks promising (performance wise- its stil fugly as hell) with the Mobile Core 2 Extreme and maybe SLi...

 

The FPS is limited by the refresh rate of your monitor/display. For laptops with LCDs this is usually 60 Hz.

Any FPS > 60 is not noticeable -- period.

If you disable vertical sync, then your graphics card will change frames while in the middle of clocking the previous frame. The result is a visible "tearing" of the display. But you are still witnessing each pixel clock out at 60 FPS, period.

So NO, you can not tell the difference between 10000000+ FPS and 60 FPS.

 

as i said, and Ill say it again. I DONT CARE WHAT YOU SAY, I CAN TELL THE DIFFERENCE. even if you bring scientists on this forum to prove it, I can tell the difference..how? you might ask? simple...

in CSS for me, at 60fps with vsync enabled, the hit boxes are even MORE fubared then when i play at 80-140fps. so when you tell me...hey your stupid and heres why! im telling you save your breath, you wont win the fight..i feel the difference, and my score shows it. especially since all i use is the scout...at 60fps the hit boxes barely register..at 80-140 the hit boxes are much better, and they register. so maybe i dont SEE it, but i do FEEL it.

period, end of story.

thanks and goodbye

 

Well that's something different... you just agreed with me by saying you don't SEE it. You can't see the graphics update faster than 60 FPS.

BUT... you may be experiencing better game response because your system is not burdened by graphical performance. That's very reasonable.

btw, I will never call someone stupid on the forums... and I didn't do that to you.

 

The problem with the Alienware and the Dell 1720 will be processor bound.

Alienware max processor: 2.33Ghz 667FSB
Dell 1720 max processor: 2.8Ghz 800FSB

D901C max processor: 3.2Ghz 1066FSB (+possibility of a Quad 2.66Ghz)

It will be next year at least before mobile processors get up to speed with the desktop ones.

And with SLI systems, the CPU bottlenecks the dual GPU's. Put a 1.66Ghz processor in an Alienware m9750 and watch those scores plumet. Put in a 2.33Ghz and watch them climb. This will become more evident when, and IF, the 8800's are released. They are very powerful GPU's. If your processor can't keep up you might as well go for a single GPU solution, IMO.

 

Exactly, Wu.

Also, with having gratuitous amounts of FPS. You might not see any difference, but mouse lag and hitboxes will be the most evident FEELING. lol. I know that in the source engine, my desktop, with about 60fps without vsync, the player models can sometimes skip around in a funny way. At 100+, they simply don't.

 

bingo. when a person is skipping, the hit boxes aren't on the player. the shots will not register.

i know you didnt call me stupid, but everytime this argument comes up on any forum, or in any conversation, the result is the same.

person A says the science (you cant see over a certain amount of FPS), and person B stats his seeing/feeling (person playing the game), and that he/she can tell the difference.

while there are many things different about it, I can tell you in CSS when vsync is enabled and when it isnt.

do I see more than 60 fps? i dont know, but I can tell you I play a lot better with vsync off and at 80-140+ fps, and thats all that matters to me.

im not looking to make this a debate, i am simply stating my stubborn opinions.

 

Yep. In slower paced games, I concede that you can walk the line of 30FPS and not have it much matter. Remember, Oblivion is perfectly playable at 20ish FPS. Same deal with Splinter Cell. But in an xcore first person shooter, you need excessive frames per second.

 

This is really good news in that I'd hate to spend this kind of dough and have it have the longevity of a Yugo......

 

Sure it'll last but you have to give it occasional tuneups for the statement to apply- like a new CPU, GPU, HD's, etc. The shell will last for several several years- it just came out, and its meant to be the penultimate gaming laptop for some time to come. It'd be embarrassing for it to not accept upgrades for a while to come.

 

True dat. when you are comparing the 9260's weight or portability with something, you have to consider that this beast in very much on-par with some of the best desktops out there.

Considering that the 9260 will most likely be stable (we hope ) with the q6700, this monster will tear through any game you throw at it, especially in the future with more multithreaded games and the 8x00 GTX cards.

I consider this computer extremely light and portable (when compared to a desktop of the same class/power.)

^^In other words i totally agree with you...

BTW, pb, did you say you got your 9260? or are you waiting on xoticpc like me? what did they say to you?

 

i got mine last monday.. it took xoticpc a total of like 8 days (with weekend, and changing from the 5790 to the 9260) to get it to me with overnight shipping...i got the 9260 BEFORE i got the tracking number.

its a great DTR, and i love the service from xoticpc.

 

Oh, upgrading it along the way was always my intention. It's just nice to know that as I can and do upgrade it that it's useful life will still be quite long.

 

Very encouraging words as I ordered mine from xoticpc as well.

 

People here talk alot about really great FPS counts. My experience is that on COD 2 in SLI (Windows XP) and using 1600x1200 with max out settings my FPS vary from 40 to 70. Is there something wrong that I'm doing with my setup or is are these values standard? If I want more FPS's then I should just lower the settings?

Of course if I use 1024x768 I get about 200, but is this the point of having such as beast? 1600x1200 seams the be ideal resolution.

Trance
PS: I really don't want to overclock my laptop. The CPU reaching 68C on heavy load is high enough , isn't it? By the way, this is the faster computer I ever got

 

SLI isn't quite "plug and play". Are you using a profile in NVidia Control Panel for COD2? If not, you have to force SLI to a certain mode (depending on the driver there is 2-3 SLI modes). Then depending on what mode you choose, it gives the best FPS.

Also video drivers can make a huge difference. There's many drivers from Nvidia at laptopvideo2go.com ...In the M590K SLI setup, using Nvidia driver 160.3 modded by Laptopvideo2go.com worked best.

 

I installed the lastest drivers on laptopvideo2go as mentioned by Wu. It comes with a set of profiles including for COD 2 (both multiplayer and single player). Don't the specific game profile gets activated automatically when I run it?

Trance

 

Yes they do. They overwrite the global settings when playing a specific game.