Need Help X205

Ive decided to buy Toshiba X205 series but can not decide which one. X205s9800 with 1 8700gt GPU card or X205 with 2 8600gt gpu cards. i have read and read but I am at a loss. If any owners or experience with either of these computers could help with performance and advantages.


Thank you.

Mark

 

I have the x205 sli1 and it plays Oblivion, Call of Duty4, All the games in Orange Box and some more at max settings. Especially when you update the drivers to 174.31, DAM! you got one beast of a machine! I got a score of 7155 on 3dmarks with the 174.31 drivers. I hear that's almost 2000 marks higher than the x205 with one 8700 card, and that's not even mentioning when I overclock it, I hit 7610 with 555/1180/837 and I hear thats a modest setting, I've read posts where other sli1 owners have hit more than 8000 on their 3dmark06 scores with overclocking. Even though not all games support sli now, SLI is the future and it'll be standard, as the saying goes 2 is better than 1.

 

Well my mind WAS set on the 2 is better than 1 and of coarse the more i read the more confused i got. How is the cooling and noise with 2 ? and Thanks for the quick reply to previous post.

 

I get 60c idle on my gpus and it get's up to about 74c when gaming. As far as noise, it's whisper quiet, I love this notebook, it's pretty huge but I take it with me to Starbucks to use wifi and to show it off and I get a lot of comments on how awesome the graphics are and how nice the notebook looks. Toshiba made a quality product. =)

 

if you are doing any sort of gaming definitely go for the dualies! the 8700m is a POS for gaming. you will get a huge increase in 3dMark06 score with Sli as opposed to the 8700m. also if you are looking to save money i would check out the gateway with the 8800 card, although the processor sucks, it is only $1350 and performs pretty close to the Sli1.

 

I actually went back and forth as well back in October when the SLI's were first coming out and no one had any results... so, i bought both ;-)

The dual 8600's are definately faster than the single 8700 in MOST games. Any game that supports SLI or Nvidia has a driver profile for it, you'll see noticeably better performance. I buy a lot of games, and have quite a bit of the them released over the last year, and honestly can't think of any that give me problems off the top of my head... Frontlines initially didn't support SLI, and i got mediocre performance, but the latest drivers have solved that and almost doubled the framerates.

Downsides are they do run hotter than the single 8700, and battery life is noticeably shorter... heat isn't really a factor though, as they don't overheat and cause problems, you'll just notice a little bit more hot air blowing out when you put your hand by the exhaust. As for battery life, in totally unscientific tests and not really even measuring closing, I get somewhere around an hour with the SLI, and would get about an hour and half with the single 8700, so neither are great in that reguard.

Other thoughts, either will have the AWESOME speakers, which is honestly one of my suprisingly favorite features. Build quality is good, noticeably better than my last Sager. No other real problems... have completely dissasembled the thing and back together and still running good. good machine overall.

And finally, I would definately consider and look at the Gateway that Best Buy had for $1300 a few weeks back... can't remember the model number, but it had the 8800GTS gpu, which from what i can determine, is roughly similar to the SLI 8600's. I feel from handling the store display for a bit that the Toshiba feels a bit more solid, is more appealing visually, and the Toshiba has a better keyboard and WAY better speakers. Sorry for the novel, lemme know if you have any questions...

Either will be a good machine though, I was happy with the 8700, in my opinion it's definately not a POS by any standards (no offense to above post), it's just the dual 8600's are faster most of the time.

 

Also, did forget to mention, upgrading is a weakness of the X205... RAM is an easy upgrade, along with hard drives, but upgrading the CPU is a major annoyance and I can't recommend trying it in most situations, as it requires dissasembly of the entire computer. Also, don't plan on any GPU upgrades. So, buy what you'll want for the life of the laptop and you'll be fine, just din't skimp on the CPU and plan to upgrade easily later... it's doable, but not easy or quick, and definately a bit risky.

 

Well ive decided to get the 9800, my reasons are, this laptop will not be just for gameing as it will also be used for some light CAD software and the price, though not an issue at 1255.00 shipped with some credits i have is to good to pass up like everyone else i like to keep my money in my pocket. With the 8800 GPUs and quad CPUs around the corner i will wait to have my dream machine, and in the meantime I hope have decent laptop and have some fun with a few upgrades(hard drive and CPU)
The Gateway does seem nice, but my very first lappy was a gateway and i have to many bad memories and i swore id never buy another, but i guess never say never as they seem to have heard the poping sound of their head from their ars and are making a better product.

Thank You jocob808 ,abehanna, and be77solo for your replies and advice it is much appreciated this a great site and community.

 

you'll be totally happy with it i'd guess, they are nice machines.... and like you said, for the money sure hard to beat right now

 

No offense, but the 8700M is not a "POS" for gaming. It's a fine mid-range card that will play most games very well at reasonable settings. It's well matched for the 1440x900 resolution of the X205-S9800. (Its performance tapers off rapidly at higher resolutions due to the 128-bit bus.) It will run cooler (and longer) than the SLI cards, but the dual SLI cards will usually be faster, of course. But they cost more, too, and have more compatibility issues.

In my opinion, everyone is way too carried away with benchmarks and "maxing out" the settings. A lot of games look great and play very well on less than "maxed" settings. People reading this thread should take the posts here with a grain of salt and not be mislead. If possible, ask someone who actually owns a similar rig to yours. You will often be pleasantly surprised at what is possible, even with the mid-range graphics cards. And think of all the money you've saved. That means you can buy more games!

Cheers!

 

Yep, ya summed it up quite well Bron, the 8700 is a totally acceptable GPU. We like to tweak and get the best possible scores on here in tests, but in reality, both will play games quite well, neither is the fasted available, and the next best thing is always gonna be out there. It is all about fun anyway right?

 

You got it! It's all about the fun. Sometimes I think that gets lost sight of.

By the way, being new here and doing a lot of reading and research before purchasing my X205-S9800 (which I love, btw), I got a lot of good info and greatly enjoyed reading many of your posts in various threads. Very helpful to me and you always have your feet firmly planted on the ground which I like.

Best,

Bron

 

Well, I must say X205 S9800 is a nice laptop and I love it so far and I can say I had a good idea of what i was getting because of this forum so thanks for all the input.

Mark

 

I just bought a x205-SLi4. I've been going non-stop except for sleep now for two days and finally have XP installed on the second HD with device manager clear of unknowns. If I hadn't survived that ordeal then I'd say stay clear of the SLi4. Under XP with the right drivers, I'm in love.

This machine is heavy enough to put my legs to sleep but it's a tough machine. I'm going to be fully pleased having this thing anchored to me in my travels. I have yet to even push it in Dual SLi mode, yet.

 

Mark,

Yea, see my post in the "Do you like your Toshiba?" thread. What a great rig and a really good value for the money. I am extremely pleased. I just downloaded and ran the Crysis Demo at medium settings (under Vista Home Premium, btw)- woo hoo! (This is with the stock unit - no drivers updates yet or anything. Well, Crysis did tell me to install one update, forget what it was. A Vista hotfix for floating point graphics or something, I think.)

This thing exudes quality. The audio is fantastic and I'm well pleased with the 8700M GT so far. With some tweaking and driver updates it can only get better.

A beautiful display - very bright and crisp. Had to adjust the contrast and gamma a bit for my tastes. I, myself, like the glossy screens because you get richer blacks and a better color pallet. And this screen is so bright that even in a sunny room with the light coming in flush on the screen, it was still completely usable. Pretty rare for a laptop screen in my experience.

Great keyboard, nice case, very nice indicator lights for drive activity, battery, power, etc - I love the "Satellite" logo light on the left - very cool looking to me. And everyone who has seen it so far has ooohed and ahhhed over it. They love the case. Overall just a great design. Life is good!

My only nit is the 4 USB ports crammed up front on the right side (I'd like a few in back, I'm OK with the two on the left). But I can live with it.

Bron