xpsm170 2ghz vs i9300 2.13ghz

Running applications... I9300 will be the best performance.
Running intense graphics games... M170 will be the best performance.

It depends on how you are planing to use it. Both are nice notebooks.

exactly... running games may requires more ram but definitly need a good graphic card.

CPU at 1.6Ghz will be still able to run intensive graphic games because during your game time it uses to most on your GPU chip. CPU runs most when preloading the game or loading another map.

I was just looking for some more detail. I would get the M170, if I were not satisfied with my 9300. It will run everything you said with no problems. It also depends on how well you like the screen on the M170. You may not like the glossy screen. You can get the non-glossy screen as an option with the 9300

Um.. you know some people here pinmod their 1.6Ghz 400Mhz bus to 2.26ghz 533Mhz bus and eventually they save tons of money.

For a pin mod you need a CPU, with a 400bus speed. There is a sticky at the top of the threads.
Here is a link for the first instructive post.
http://www.notebookforums.com/showthread.php?t=80879

I'd get a stripped M170, just because the 7800GTX is the only thing you cant get for a 9300. Sell the gig you get with it to buy 2GB of RAM, sell the CPU (if you want, it's fast enough already) to get a 1.7GHz and pin mod it to 2.26. The 7800GTX is really what you want here if you're into the best eye candy. My 9300 plays games fine though, and on low brightness I can game for about 2 hours straight on battery , dunno how well hte M170 does on battery, but I'd imagine it's less.

2 min gaming on battery... hehe

The XPS Gen 2, in a review, went 1 hour 20 minutes full boar gaming. They ran it 'til the battery died. I'm sure they had the screen brightness up a lot, though, and such. The Go 7800GTX has PowerMiser 5.0, which should do a lot better than the Go 6800 series at managing power... at least that's what Nvidia says.

I mainly bought my lappy to do things like that on the go and these are the things I think you should keep in mind.

1.) Memory. Maya will eat memory for dinner and then want more. I HIGHLY recommend ending up at 2gigs. Because fire effects can kill...
Photoshop opens faster with more ram and its much easier to alt+tab out of things and what not.

2.) Video card. that 7800 is powerful but then again so is the 6800. If price is your concern then I recommend the 6800, I've been able to max Farcry, half-life and doom 3. So for gaming its solid.

3.) Extras. If you max out your budget on the 7800 and what not, where's the money for extras? Wifi, bluetooth may just seem like extras right now, but its amazing how handy they truly are.

Here's personally what I would recommend...

Get the i9300 with all the lowest options except the video card. That means 512 of ram and a 1.73 cpu. Get the a/b/g plus bluetooth card and the 80gig 5400rpm hdd.

With the coupon you can get that at about $1300. You can then spend $150 to get 2 gigs of ram. Sell the cpu (get about $150 out of it, i believe) buy a new one for $300ish pinmod it, and bam you got something more badass then before for cheaper.

Thats what I'm doing and it really does save you money assuming your willing to put forth effort