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***OFFICIAL*** M1730 news thread - Page 4

post #61 of 328
9/28/07 at 4:41pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by hammermd View Post
Hi all...time for another dance around the NotebookForums until I buy Dell's next game-crushing machine and go hibernate for another 1.5 years!

My cousin and I have broken things down into the following decision-tree for current 1710 owners (18+ months old, now). Anyone know how we can get EITHER of these questions answered?

1. Are TWO overclocked 8700GT's in SLI faster (even slightly) than ONE overclocked 7950GTX? (for ease of use, faster = higher avg FPS in Oblivion@1920x1200)
EDIT: I guess with the processor bump, though, the question should be: Is the 1730 w/overclocked 8700's faster at running games than my 1710 w/overclocked 7950?

2. Will there be 8800 *upgrade* released at any time in future?

3. If #1 AND #2 = [yes] ->Buy immediately; else if #1 = [no] AND #2 = [yes] ->Wait and buy upon 8800 release; else if #1 = [yes] AND #2 = [no] ->Wait for Refresh; else if #1 & #2 = [no] ->Weeping and castration

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PS. What the hell is this?!?! I found this under the1730's 'Design' tab on the Dell site:

"Feed your need for speed with Extreme Edition CPU for notebooks. Overclock the M1730 up to 3.4 GHz with the Intel Core 2 Duo Extreme Edition X7900!"

Is Dell actually ENCOURAGING people to overclock the processors on these things?!?! I may buy one on that basis alone, lol!

1. It's unclear but the 8700 alone suffers a huge hit when at high res. Having two is unknown at this point but with only a 128bit memory bus, it's not likely it'll be much better with overclock. The CPU and RAM speeds are already faster than 7950GTX. But that 128bit bus is the bottleneck.
2. I'm beginning to think even nVidia doesn't know if they're doing anything.
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post #62 of 328
9/28/07 at 4:58pm
well they support BIN 2 up to 3.2GHZ, which is only 40MHz above the T7600 with an increase in FSB from 667-->800. I am interested in how much performance that will bring.


As far as 8700 Performance, the non-SLi 8700M's did well on 3dmark , but were slaughtered (and I am not being overly dramatic) by the 7950 in real-world gaming. I don't know how they will offset the slaughter on that, but I spose if we picked up a SLi 7950 setup and ran it against the 8700's it would not be pretty.

People need to keep in mind that 3DMark was not designed to really challenge the 8 series cards so the numbers are not a reflection of actual performance in gaming.
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post #63 of 328
9/28/07 at 5:48pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by drizek View Post
Thats a pretty good setup for that price. They start at 3k in the US, which is the main problem with them.

If I were you I would have only bought 1 8700 and then just waited for the upgraded cards to come out

Yeah,I see the lack of options and prices on the US site and can't really understand why they're so expensive there or soo cheap here.Normally,even taking the exchange rate into account,notebooks are at least half the price in the US compared to what we pay.
Ordering one 8700 wasn't an option,could only buy it with the SLI card.
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post #64 of 328
9/28/07 at 6:51pm
Yea I think Dell US did a bad job on this launch. I tried to configure the base option and the middle option to include the Smoke Gray LCD x7900 and just a cd burner and they reps wouldnt do it. I was told by the rep that they load the promo code they were give and work from there even though Dell Canada has all of there options open. I kind of like the look of the m1730 in gray it has the option I want and need all thought it would have been nice if there was a dual 7950gtx option made for this with futuer upgrade plans like they are touting. And the on site service and acidental coverage in my book has been top notch another reason I would go with dell again have the video cards,ldc and keyboard replced on my m1710 usualy with in a day or two.


Quote:
Originally Posted by gerryjoson View Post
Yeah,I see the lack of options and prices on the US site and can't really understand why they're so expensive there or soo cheap here.Normally,even taking the exchange rate into account,notebooks are at least half the price in the US compared to what we pay.
Ordering one 8700 wasn't an option,could only buy it with the SLI card.
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post #65 of 328
9/28/07 at 7:16pm
found out cost on this "beast" is 5k.... teh sux around 38% profit margin...
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post #66 of 328
9/29/07 at 10:26pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by SolApathy View Post
well they support BIN 2 up to 3.2GHZ, which is only 40MHz above the T7600 with an increase in FSB from 667-->800. I am interested in how much performance that will bring.


As far as 8700 Performance, the non-SLi 8700M's did well on 3dmark , but were slaughtered (and I am not being overly dramatic) by the 7950 in real-world gaming. I don't know how they will offset the slaughter on that, but I spose if we picked up a SLi 7950 setup and ran it against the 8700's it would not be pretty.

People need to keep in mind that 3DMark was not designed to really challenge the 8 series cards so the numbers are not a reflection of actual performance in gaming.

I can't see how games would greatly differ from the 3dmark benchmark. If 3dmark was not designed to challenge the 8 series cards, then that would lead to scores that are lower than they should be. In this case the card's gaming performance could be greatly increased with better implementation of drivers. I could see how the 8700 excels at a certain facet of 3dmark but sucks at others, like CPU for instance.
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post #67 of 328
9/29/07 at 10:43pm
comparing a score of 10k on a 8 series mobile card to a 10k score on a 7 series card would not actually reflect "actual performance" in games.

with the shader and vertex tests, 8 series cards can devote all its resources to that operation, where in actual gaming that cannot be done because it would have to share the load with other operations. This skews the test results, resulting in higher performance numbers that don't reflect real-word performance.

I know someone reported on this in another one of the threads I just can't find it right now.

3Dmark scores are to be taken with a grain of salt, they give a crude estimation of performance & are more for bragging rights & troubleshooting severe performance issues than anything else.
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post #68 of 328
9/29/07 at 11:40pm
That might be true of the pixel and vertex shader tests, but what about the game engine tests? Those have a much wider set of features that are exploited, and they're not even DX10. How does the 8700 fare in those tests FPS wise?
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post #69 of 328
9/30/07 at 2:04am
This might have been mentioned before, but in case it has not what the reasoning why Dell stated this about a 8800 video controler in the 1730 manual on page 173?

http://support.dell.com/support/edoc...0/en/index.htm

NOTE: Your computer comes in different configurations with different video controller
cards.
Video controller: NVIDIA GeForce 8800 GS
Video type discrete video adapter
Data bus PCI Express x16
Video memory 256 MB
LCD interface LVDS
TV support NTSC or PAL in S-video, component, and
composite modes
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post #70 of 328
9/30/07 at 2:39am
I don't get out much, but there's this notebook manufacturer called Sager who's NP9261 shit-cans the M1730 by a little under 1000 marks in 3DM06. Oh, and the Sager is $300 less.
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post #71 of 328
9/30/07 at 9:45am
My first thoughts...

Physx? Interesting. Not great, but interesting.

Blu-Ray seems to be forced, I personally don't want it and can't stand Blu-Ray. Isn't it dying anyway?

Dual 8700GT is nice. Who needs battery life anyway?

230 Watt brick!! OMG!

965 chipset is a bummer. I hope they replace that soon with Intel's next chipset.

Audio is a bummer, no subwoofer? Still software Creative side, they have an X-Fi mobile chip now, why is it on inside this guy!!! DELL!!!!! Wake UP! You put in a Physx but not an X-Fi! WTF!!!

Anyway, that's my first thoughts. My M1710 is less than 1 year old so it's going to be a while before I buy, hopefully they'll improve some of the features before I do, but usually Dell doesn't update notebooks often.
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post #72 of 328
9/30/07 at 3:40pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by scottwilkins View Post
My first thoughts...

Physx? Interesting. Not great, but interesting.

Blu-Ray seems to be forced, I personally don't want it and can't stand Blu-Ray. Isn't it dying anyway?

Dual 8700GT is nice. Who needs battery life anyway?

230 Watt brick!! OMG!

965 chipset is a bummer. I hope they replace that soon with Intel's next chipset.

Audio is a bummer, no subwoofer? Still software Creative side, they have an X-Fi mobile chip now, why is it on inside this guy!!! DELL!!!!! Wake UP! You put in a Physx but not an X-Fi! WTF!!!

Anyway, that's my first thoughts. My M1710 is less than 1 year old so it's going to be a while before I buy, hopefully they'll improve some of the features before I do, but usually Dell doesn't update notebooks often.

Blu-Ray is hardly dying. It's still got a 2:1 share of the market plus most of the top studios in it's pocket.
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post #73 of 328
9/30/07 at 4:04pm
PLEASE don't turn this topic into a Blu-Ray / HD-DVD debate! I'm BEGGING you!
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post #74 of 328
9/30/07 at 5:20pm
Other interesting notes:

There is a flash memory slot internal for that Vista thingy, but only mentioned in the technical book, not in the specs. I can't figure if they ship with a card in it or not.

There have been reviews talking about 8800 upgrades for the machine. Anyone want to take a guess when?

There also seems to be internal Cellular network cards, but I haven't seen them mentioned much either. Nice to see them become part of the machines now. AT&T is giving cards away free though now, I wonder if the internal card will be offered free too?

The "Game Panel" really matches the same specs at a Logitech G15 keyboard. 4 action buttons, 1 app button, same applications. Wonder if it's the same/similar or not?



P.S. wraithrsw, Blu-Ray's "2:1" was 8 months ago, and it was actually 3:2 so Sony lied. Plus 2 of those studios jumped ship lately, or did you miss that. PM me for your reply, not here please.

P.P.S. loraz1284, I didn't want a BR/HD debate, but a force debate on forced purchased upgrades. If it were HD-DVD I'd be as ticked about that too! Neither are that good enough to force the buyer to have one. ESPECIALLY when it adds $800 to the cost!!!!
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post #75 of 328
9/30/07 at 5:42pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by scottwilkins View Post
P.P.S. loraz1284, I didn't want a BR/HD debate, but a force debate on forced purchased upgrades. If it were HD-DVD I'd be as ticked about that too! Neither are that good enough to force the buyer to have one. ESPECIALLY when it adds $800 to the cost!!!!
I wasn't really saying that it shouldn't be criticized w.r.t. the M1730, just that the merits of BD/HD need not be debated for the one bazillionth time in the "official M1730 thread". Also, as of Sept 30 2007, the BD drive is non-optional only on the mid-tier option, I think... in Canada, it is optional. I figure in a matter of days they'll loosen up their configuration options as they do more testing on different configuration combos to ensure they're stable.
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post #76 of 328
9/30/07 at 5:51pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by SolApathy View Post
comparing a score of 10k on a 8 series mobile card to a 10k score on a 7 series card would not actually reflect "actual performance" in games.

with the shader and vertex tests, 8 series cards can devote all its resources to that operation, where in actual gaming that cannot be done because it would have to share the load with other operations. This skews the test results, resulting in higher performance numbers that don't reflect real-word performance.

I know someone reported on this in another one of the threads I just can't find it right now.

3Dmark scores are to be taken with a grain of salt, they give a crude estimation of performance & are more for bragging rights & troubleshooting severe performance issues than anything else.


Sol,
I agree with you about the dx9 and 10. but, if you are playing a dx9 game, then you WILL get the performance that you see in 3dm05. which will rock with the 1730.
but you are right, we don't know what a dx10 game will play like yet and we don't know what a dx10 bench is yet. But in dx9, this thing is a superbeast! admit it bro!
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post #77 of 328
9/30/07 at 8:10pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by SolApathy View Post
Doubtful. The performance just isn't on par & the XPS series seem to hold their value pretty well. (my old XPS 2 still sells for around $1,000.00). In addition, most of the ppl that are interested in this new product seem to be ones that don't already own a 1710. As a 1710 owner myself the release of this machine with 2 8700 series cards doesn't interest me since it offers very little in the most important area...Performance increase... show me the game benches where it wipes the floor with the 7900/7950GTX cards & I might be interested..Of course I know that isn't happening...
I totally agree with SolApathy<SCRIPT type=text/javascript> vbmenu_register("postmenu_2735338", true); </SCRIPT> I've had my M1710 for about a year and 7 months, It's played every game i've thrown at it with excellent results. For me it wouldnt be worth getting a dual 8700 machine when the 7950gtx runs perfectly fine. Not to mention the fact that the M1710 wil be a decent laptop for years to come. And if I for some reason get the DX10 itch, I'll just upgrade my desktop to a DX10 card and keep my M1710 just the way it is.
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post #78 of 328
9/30/07 at 9:37pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by VincentFunk View Post
I totally agree with SolApathy<SCRIPT type=text/javascript> vbmenu_register("postmenu_2735338", true); </SCRIPT>

I've had my M1710 for about a year and 7 months, It's played every game i've thrown at it with excellent results. For me it wouldnt be worth getting a dual 8700 machine when the 7950gtx runs perfectly fine. Not to mention the fact that the M1710 wil be a decent laptop for years to come.
And if I for some reason get the DX10 itch, I'll just upgrade my desktop to a DX10 card and keep my M1710 just the way it is.

Also still true for the i9300 with the 7800GTX :-) Well, for the most part. There's some games that won't play full settings. But definitely high quality settings at decent frame rates.
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post #79 of 328
9/30/07 at 10:33pm
I hate to get in the middle of this pissing contest, but do you really think that our laptops will be good to go for another couple of years?
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post #80 of 328
9/30/07 at 10:52pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by TurbodTalon View Post
I hate to get in the middle of this pissing contest, but do you really think that our laptops will be good to go for another couple of years?

That question is too open to answer respectfully. But here's a shot:

Good for what? The "latest and greatest"? We're already seeing that a good M1710 with a 7950GTX is showing it's age on some of the latest games. But playable they remain (at a lower resolution). Any normal computer is good for up to 5 years, IHMO. Any good (high end) gaming machine is best used for only 3 at most. But this is where Moore's Law starts to wield it's ugly side. 18 Months is the true expectation by most hard core gamers and those who make the hardware to support their habit.

I personally upgrade my desktop machine every 12 months. Sometimes with small changes, sometimes the entire machine. My laptop I usually get around 4 years out of, but that's due to the cost of a high-end laptop. Because at the end of that 4th year, I'm hurting badly on the current set of games available.

YMMV of course...
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