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GPU question: Worth the upgrade to ATI 4870 or 260M SLI?

post #1 of 8
1/11/10 at 9:16pm
Thread Starter 
So I'm thinking of finally upgrading my laptop and so it's better the M17x and the Asus G73JH. I'm leaning towards Alienware since the warranty seems better.

That said, I'm looking to keep the price down so I was wondering if it is worth the additional $270 for the single 1GB ATI 4870?

Is the upgrade to the Dual NVIDIA® GeForce® GTX 260M, 2GB – SLI a better deal? If so, what kind of performance boost do you get for the second 260m?

Thanks
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post #2 of 8
1/11/10 at 9:21pm
The Asus G73JH has an ATI 5870 (not 4870), which is currently the most powerful single graphics card in a notebook. It ought to run equal to or a bit better than two Nvidia 260M cards in SLI, and it has DirectX 11 support. Also, the Asus G73JH uses a Core i7 processor, which is considerably more powerful than the the Core 2 processor in the Alienware M17X.

Regarding warranty, Asus has a (much) better standard warranty, but Dell's warranty can be made better by paying more.
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post #3 of 8
1/11/10 at 10:33pm
Thread Starter 
Quote:
Originally Posted by Djembe View Post
The Asus G73JH has an ATI 5870 (not 4870), which is currently the most powerful single graphics card in a notebook. It ought to run equal to or a bit better than two Nvidia 260M cards in SLI, and it has DirectX 11 support. Also, the Asus G73JH uses a Core i7 processor, which is considerably more powerful than the the Core 2 processor in the Alienware M17X.

Regarding warranty, Asus has a (much) better standard warranty, but Dell's warranty can be made better by paying more.
Oh sorry, I was just talking about the M17x. Essentially on the dell site I can upgrade to either the ATI 4870 or dual 260Ms for $270. I couldn't find any good comparisons between the ATI and a single 260m but it seemed as though the two cards were close enough in performance that it wasn't worth the money.

After I wrote, I realized the 260M SLI was also just a $270 upgrade and I was additionally wondering if the performance was worth the price since from what I heard it has a decent impact on battery life (not a big deal) and heat (a bigger deal).

As for the warranty, I tend to need the better one. My last Dell I went through 3-4 laptops and my previous computer (a Dell desktop) I went through 3 computers and numerous components. So it may be bad luck with Dells but I prefer a better warranty since I tend to make good use of it.

Thanks for the responses
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post #4 of 8
1/11/10 at 10:38pm
when you run on battery the laptop disables the intigrated GPU and runs on an internal 9400 GPU thus vastly improving the battery life.

basically you can not game on battery power
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post #5 of 8
1/11/10 at 11:38pm
Keep price down? Asus G73JH-A1! If you can wait until people actually get will remove any chance major issues. It is not just the king of the value hill it is almost the king of any hill on paper. We just have to see if it can deliver. But those who dismiss off hand are either rich or foolish. Or both?
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post #6 of 8
1/11/10 at 11:53pm
Thread Starter 
Quote:
Originally Posted by powerpack View Post
Keep price down? Asus G73JH-A1! If you can wait until people actually get will remove any chance major issues. It is not just the king of the value hill it is almost the king of any hill on paper. We just have to see if it can deliver. But those who dismiss off hand are either rich or foolish. Or both?

Oh I'm definitly waiting the sticking point for me is the warranty since I either have terrible computer luck or I'm insanely hard on computers (on warranty I went though about 1 PC a year on average from 2000 to 2007 luckily I had Dell's warranty and only paid for 2 PCs).

Quote:
Originally Posted by dave-p View Post
when you run on battery the laptop disables the intigrated GPU and runs on an internal 9400 GPU thus vastly improving the battery life.

basically you can not game on battery power
That kind of sucks (not a big deal since it's rare) since my Dell 9400 lets me (of course at this point the battery life is like 1hr tops but still).

That said, anyone know how the single 260M compares to the AtI 4870? And is the boost from the dual 260Ms significant?

That said, I guess this is all just for my own edification since I'm definitely waiting until the G73 comes out and see what Alienware does with the new i7 CPU so who knows what GPU will be available and at what price in a few weeks/months.
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post #7 of 8
1/12/10 at 2:31pm
4870 is a significant upgrade from a 260. If your app/game can take advantage of SLI then dual 260s would be better than a single 4870 or even 5870 but we haven't seen any proof yet. For all we know the 128bit bus of the 5870 will cause a bottle neck making a single 260M out-perform it. I doubt it because of the GDDR5 memory bandwidth but we have to wait until someone gets one.
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post #8 of 8
1/12/10 at 2:33pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by Vash_HS View Post
... I couldn't find any good comparisons between the ATI and a single 260m but it seemed as though the two cards were close enough in performance that it wasn't worth the money.

...

You did take a look at these 2 threads for inputs?

http://www.notebookforums.com/thread231279.html

http://www.notebookforums.com/thread230061.html

cheers ...
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