9880 or XPS Gen 2 - Page 3

the 3800+ has a 6800GT, but its running on an Ultra bios, and at the ultra clocks but at 1024x768 this won't matter much since the bottleneck is the CPU.. RAM is PC3200 BH-5 @ 1.5-2-2-5 on a DFI Nforce4 LanParty Ultra-D. The 3800+ did beat the 2.13 P-M in UT2k4 but not in Farcry, or HL2.. I remember Farcry being pretty close(within 5FPS) but the P-M did win..

Did you turn off Cn'Q when you benched the 3800+, that would make a significant difference.

Cool and Quiet? lol yeah.. that's the first thing any OCer turns off.. its actually off default in the DFI bios

EDIT* but its pointless debating over this.. I already mentioned why in my other post.

But if we stop saying this article says this and that article say that and have bench marks from 10 users of each machine (10 XPS, 10 9880 3.6 and if we can 10 9880 3.8) we can see where each really excels and determine which will meet our need. None of these articles are going to show what these machines will do, they will only who what machine that *might* be configured like it can do.

I didn't say the XPS doesn't have upgradable graphics, please reread the post. I have not seen anything from Dell that claims they will upgrade, but I never commented on it. Upgrading the motherboard is no biggie! I had to upgrade my desktop's motherboard many times when adding new graphic cards throughout the years... the big difference is even if the laptop requires a new mother board at least Sager is giving the option... I don't have to buy a NEW LAPTOP, just the motherboard - and I've had to buy a new laptop to get better graphics three times already.

Again please reread the post, you are assuming that those who brought in their Dells "don't even know how to work a PC "; these are people who got feed up with their system not getting repaired right, with the run around on the phone to get help, with not being able to understand a person when they could get someone to help them. I find your comment that they "don't even know how to work a PC " to be very fanboyish at the least - a person not knowing how to desolder and solder components has nothing to do with the knowledge of a PC, a persons inability to diagnose that a fan stopped working and is causing the system to cash has nothing to do with the knowledge of a PC, a person not having the tools to test a stick of memory that is causing a blue screen has nothing to do with the knowledge of a PC. These people are average users, not computer geeks like most of us (yes I count my self as one of the geeks)! One reason I might pick the 9880 is the support from PCTorque, they have bent over backwards for people who bought units from them. I may never need their help, I have never needed a laptop repaired and I've had 3 in the past 5 years... bought a new one each time for graphics upgrades.

I'm judging Dells support based on the frustration my customers had trying to get their units fixed. That is it, nothing more, nothing less. One of those customers were my Aunt and Uncle who got a Dell on MY recommendation, but at the time they had first class service. We would have 30 to 40 Dells come in to our location each month, that was more than any other unit we did not sell. I have heard through the rumor mill that XPS owners might be getting special attention and good support, that there might be a special support group for that system, but that could change and become like the support for everything else when it is no longer the new hot system.

I don't care if the name on my system is Sager, Dell, or Asshole for that matter, I just want the system that can meet more of my needs than any other; if we can get these benchmarks done on the units I'll probably get whatever comes out the clear winner in Video Editing, DVD encoding, Games and math intensive business applications. Will these bench marks solve every debate... yeah they would, you can point to what the benchmarks state and say based on them and your needs whatever system you picked was the best choice for you and have the numbers to support it!

ugh... I somehow doubt with all the fanboy attitudes in the forumn that we could get these benchmarks pulled off. If we spent half the time it takes to argue and actually can work together to get some benchmarks it would be so cool and probably a first for this forumn.

I got my current picks down to two systems (for now), the XPS and the 9880... leaning hard toward the 9880, but I am not 100% there. I don't think its the perfect machine, but I don't think there is going to the perfect machine. I just need to find the one that comes the closest and real benchmarks from these machines can help all of us.

See... The 9880 might be faster your right... But the xps2 is so cheap... thats why i'm gonna get one... kind of sad i argue against it but yet i will get one for myself

You are aware that that upgrade was something like $700 or $800? Are you willing to fork that just to get the ultra card?

As for dells support, I ALWAYS get the parts I need from them. I had a 9800 pro go out. 2 days later It was in my PC. I had a bad LCD for my XPS 3 days later I was installing it. Delayed order on my XPS, I got a $90 dollar concession coupon to buy whatever I wanted. Maybe I get all the good people, I don't know.

700-800 is less then a whole new laptop....

But when you already spent $2800 Plus that's a lot of money. I don't have $800 bucks to spend on a new video card. Not to mention switching to the ultra is only going to make the machine even hotter. Performace to dollar doesn't seem like a wise upgrade.

You are right! you need less than $700-800!
You can sell your old xps and get a new generation one for that money!
Why upgrade your old machine when you can get a new system for the same price?

We are talking about the Sager 9860 vs. the 9880. They were charging 700-800 just for the upgrade to the ultra.

a 2.13gjz pentium m is faster than a pentium 4 3.4ghz and becnhmarks prove this. in gaming it can gi as fast as an 3.6ghz. Petium m are the best in gaming beating both amd and pentium 4. look at benhcmarks if u think im lying.

Which benchmarks are you referring to, PM beating A64??

I guess you are talking about tomshardware or GamePC again.


As I said, Doom III bench is not an indicator of what is normally the comparison between P4 and PM on games, just look carefully at what I said. But Wolfenstein: Enemy Territory would be much closer to the truth. In benchmarks that I have run, a 3.4 GHz P4 usually beats a PM 2.13 in Farcry, UT2004, etc. There will be some games that favor PM, i.e., those that are not extremely physics intensive, but depend more on cache; but overall, P4 will perform better.

Outside of some business apps and certain games, PM is usually a pretty poor performer, as most of the benchmarks show, that in many of the multimedia tasks, P4 has almost an insurmountable lead over the PM. If you think that a PM 2.13's overall performance can top a P4 3.8, then there isn't very much hope.

You mean you compared a system with a mobile graphics card against a desktop card and the PM still came out on top in one of the tests

Regardless, we are going to see some interesting things when intel releases its dual core desktop version of the PM chip next year.

In the tomshardware tests they show a PM clocked at 2.53 Ghz beating an FX55 in gaming and being at the top end of pretty much every other test, I wouldn't call that poor performance.

So...

Whats wrong with the tomshardware tests?

LOL, I guess you haven't been following any of the threads in the last two weeks.

http://www.notebookforums.com/showth...432#post923432

he says Tomshardware is biased towards Intel, but (Shrugs) my results have been comparable to Tomhardware's so whatever.. my P-M 2.13 at stock beats my 3800+ at stock in games, so I guess a 3.4Ghz P4>3800+ I wasn't really aware of that.. oh well..

I'm not saying that their results are necessarily wrong; but only that their results cannot be trusted, and need independent confirmation. If your results confirm theirs, good for you.

Edit:
One thing you have to realize is that Games are not a amorphous monolith, but different games can favor different architectures by a wide margin. Right now, the majority of the games tend to favor the wider and more rubost FP and BP aspects of K8 (AMD64), but certainly there are games that would favor the P4 or the PM. You have to take case by case.

Considering how low the PM is clocked at I have not seen a situation where the P4 "destroys" PM even with huge limitations on the Pentium M system.

$800 is cheaper than the $6000 I've spent getting new laptops so I can have better graphics in games over the past 5 years. Its an option, I can get a new laptop or pay less and upgrade my current, never had that option before.

These people had the warranty where Dell would do the repair, Thats the one thing I never understood about Dell they'll send you the parts to do the repair yourself. If Ford did it they would get trashed to hell. If you make a mistake are you up a shits creek or do they cover any damage you may do?

I'm still in a holding pattern, I am not in urgent need of a new laptop; it would just be a convience to have a better one than my others.

For the person who stated money was a reason for them getting an XPS; yeah I would love to get what I want for cheaper but I'm at a point in life where money isn't an issue at all; no kids or any major responsibility. I settled on what I could afford for my last two notebooks, got the best at the time for my third. The XPS may turn out to the machine I need, or something that is not out yet may.

i honestly dont think there benchmarks are wrong or biased. It just a shocked how well the pentium m can prefrom even they said still the pentium m does not dominate all in prefromance it has its weaknesses doo and video rendering is one of its weaknesses and same with scientific notation and blah balh balh..but gaming and stuff liekt hat the pentium m is the king and overall the pentium m is a fster chip than the pentium 4 and amd 64.