Is m9700 SLI worth it

You can't get the m9700 platform from anyone other than Alienware. Are you thinking of the mALX?

So far, the m9700 is one of the most solid platforms I've seen from any manufacturer for reliability and gaming performance. You can get more powerful processors with the dual core intel in other laptops, but for graphics power, the m9700 is top end right now unless you're interested in the mALX. It has more powerful graphics cards but the performance difference isn't huge.

As of right now the m9700 is a tough sell and I'll tell you why. The performance is outstanding, but if you compare benchmarks of the m9700 to the mALX there is not much of a difference. The reason is the the processor is hurting the high end numbers. I had placed an order for a m9700 but I ended up cancelling it. I am going to wait and see what happens when Alienware releases an SLI laptop with Turion X2.

i agree with ewolff, buying a m9700 right now is not very good idea unless you really really want it, but im certain that next year there will be core2duo and turion x2 mobiles with SLI so if you can wait a couple of more months for it and dont really need a lappy wait if you have $3000 burning a hole in your pocket and need a lappy rigth now get a smaller system for around $800 just for work and wait a little longer :P

I've said this before, I'll say it again...

The SLI process will continue to be processed through a single core, and the X2 is basically two turion's on a single chip, so I don't see any benefits of going with the X2 for SLI over the single core turion except for multi-tasking. While future games will be multi-threaded, all the SLI stuff will be handled through one core due to the way SLI works. The SLI chipset recombines the data before it goes through the processor, it doesn't split the data to multiple cores, then recombine it.

You may see an improvement with core 2 duo SLI systems, as the intel core outperforms the turion core. Still though, the SLI data will only go through one of the two cores in the core 2 duo processor, so it will still be like running the graphics through a single core.

I still haven't heard any info on an X2 version of the m9700, so I'm not sure it's even in development anymore. AW is smart enough to see once the core 2 duo processor line is SLI capable, that will be the way to go.

I've also not seen anything about DX10 mobile cards, so I don't see why anyone would hold back on buying the current m9700. In fact, I suspect the single core turion at 2.4G will outperform an X2 at it's max clocks... 2.0G, as the vast majority of game content will still be run through a single core for consistency, and the dual cores are clocked lower due to heat issues.

Anyhoo... The topic is whether SLI is worth it, not the processors. I think it's worth it as I'm getting exceptional performance, better than a single 7900gtx. If you're looking at cost to benefit ratio though, you won't see double the performance for double the graphics card cost, so if you're only concerned with performance per dollar, it may not be worth it. If you're concerned for outright performance, hell yes it's worth it...

I went from an Athlon 64 3500+ (2.2ghz) to an X2 3800+ (2.0 per core) and noticed a definate increase in benchmarks.

You would as most benchmark programs test the processor, and each component also. I just don't see how a dual core processor will improve SLI performance when everything SLI still will pass through a single core.

Dual core processors will help by offloading background stuff to the second core, but as I understand it, the SLI chipset won't split SLI duties between processor cores.