Hi all,

After 5 years with my 3790, I'm looking to upgrade. I keep waffling between the following setups:

Sager 9262:
Dual 9800M GTX (2GB total RAM)
Core 2 Quad Q9650 12MB L2 Cache | 3.00GHz | 1,333MHz FSB
4 GB DDR2 RAM

OR

Sager 5797:
9800M GTX (1GB RAM)
Core 2 Quad Extreme QX9300 12MB L2 On-Die Cache -1066MHz FSB
4GB DDR3 RAM


All non-performance factors aside (weight, battery life, etc.), which rig do you guys think will give me more gaming power? How does the lower FSB speed of the 5797 affect performance?
How does the DDR2 in the 9262 compared to the DDR3 in the 5797 affect performance? Of course, I can always up the RAM to 8 GB in the 9262...

The price is fairly comparable (unless I up the 9262's RAM to 8 GB). Given that I don't know much about anything, does anyone have an informed opinion?

Thanks in advance!

Here's my 9262 Review.

And Here's my 5793 review which is the same chassis, but different components.

Thanks Steve. I've shifted gears, and now I'm choosing between buying a maxed-out 5797, or waiting for Sager to come out with a Calpella-Clarksfield rig. I started a discussion about that here: http://www.notebookforums.com/thread225494.html

To answer your question more specifically....

The performance difference between the DDR3 and DDR2 and the different FSB speeds is almost negligable.

The 5792 obviously has a faster CPU but the Q9300 is still a good performing CPU.

The real difference here is the fact that the 9262 as described above has two 9800GTX cards versus a single card in the 5797. That is the single most important distinction between the above two setups when it comes to game performance. The dual graphics cards will give you between 40 and 60 percent more performance in most games that are SLI compatible.

How about now then? The 280M is now available in the 5797 (it may have already been). I've been waiting for the mobile versions of these cards to come out. I'll have to look for some benchmarks.

Yes, this changes everything. I'm waiting for someone to run tests on this.

So the 280M is expected to give better performance than the 9800 gtx and the FX 2700M? And the latter two options are more expensive. I had all but decided to hold off on making a purchase until the fall, when the Calpella rigs will hopefully come out. This is going to make it tougher.

The price for a maxed 5797 on pctorque dropped $300 from last week.

I'm reviewing the 5797 at the end of the month.

Nice. That sounds like fun

Has the jury delivered a verdict? Maxed out 5797, or a 9262 not-quite-maxed out? I don't think I'd splurge for the 8GB of RAM - that adds a lot to the price tag...

slight delay on that review. it's a hot item from sager and it's been delayed.

I'm reviewing the 2096 first which is arriving next week.

Keep in mind the 9262 uses actual desktop CPUs which are cheaper and considerably more powerful than the mobile CPUs in the other notebooks. Given the same graphics card the 9262 will still outperform any other laptop for that reason alone. The different types of memory and bus speeds will not matter.

How much it outperforms will be dependent on how processor intensive the application you're running is but generally you can get a much faster quad core processor for the 9262 much cheaper than you can get a slower mobile quad core for anything else. CPU power does play an important role in game and application performance.

There will be a core i7 based version of this notebook available soon and that will set the bar even higher.

Well currently the 9262 outperforms every notebook I've tested so far in almost every benchmark without overclocking it... that's pretty impressive.