XPS1730 with 9800gtx nvidia graphics

[maverick25]

Planning to buy xps1730 gaming laptop.Currently its available with 8800nvidia graphics.Checked out the nvidia site and found they have launched 9000 series mobile graphic cards,9800gtx
being the topend version.Should I wait for dell to launch this card.Any further chipset and processor launches for mobile gaming platforms?Please advise as I plan to keep laptop for atleast 3 years.I can wait if necessary.

 

[Maziar]

No.
8800MGTX=9800MGT.
9800MGTX has 112SP and 8800MGTX has 96SP,so 9800MGTX is better but not much,i say go for 8800MGTX,u will get 2 of them in SLI which beats 1 9800MGTX with ease

 

[maverick25]

What about 9800 in sli?What about about latest chipsets?Buying a gaming laptop is expensive thats why I am asking u pros for advise

 

[Maziar]

Read my XPS M1730 review in this forum and u will see how 2x8800MGTXs perform.

9800MGTX will be faster but not much IMO,i say go for 2x8800MGTX.Also i dont think there will be a chipset change.

 

[frozenlead]

I agree with Maziar. The 9800m GTX is more powerful than the 8800m GTX, but the difference (my guess) is probably going to be around 5%.

To me, that's not enough to wait.

 

[chikit]

make sure its the new montevina chipset. not the santa rosa p965. montevina pm45 can support ddr3 up to 1066mhz

 

[frozenlead]

Don't worry about the chipset. Desktop machines may worry about them - but they do much more overclocking. You're in tight margins with a notebook.

The advantage of ddr3 vs ddr2 and 1066 over 800/667 isn't enough to fret about.

 

[cjl]

If you want the absolute latest, look at Sager, but realistically, the XPS isn't too far below it in performance. The 9800 vs 8800, as well as the newer CPUs, chipset, and RAM will only make a 5 or 10% difference at most.

 

[theworminator]

Well, the thing is, you can always wait, because prices /will/ drop and parts /will/ get better. But really, look into the immediate future, and see if there's anything huge coming up. As of now (that I can see) nothing too huge that will dramatically affect performance, so you can pretty much go for it. I don't want to pressure you into buying now or anything, just pointing out that there will always be better thing if you wait another few months, or another year.

Same as the others said, things like RAM won't make too much of a difference right now. It's like when DDR2 ram first came out, the timings were too high to get any real advantage from using it.

 

[maverick25]

What about the processor?Should I go for core2extreme2.8 or regular2.4/2.5/2.6 core2. Believe me the 2.8 is very expensive and anyway I don't plan to overclock it as I am **** of ruining the laptop.Should I go for raid0 and a blueray drive.
After hearing u pros out I do plan to go for xps with 8800 in sli, all I have to
do is decide on cpu,harddisk config. and blueray drive.And yes, should I
go for vista home premium or vista ultimate?Thanks a ton guys.

 

[Maziar]

Go for T9300,its the best bang for buck CPU between those.
For OS go for VISTA PREMIUM because ULTIMATE has really some features that u barely may use.

 

[maverick25]

Thanks Maziar, but what about raid0 and blueray? What features of vista Ultimate u think I will not use. And will old games like counterstrike run on vista?

 

[Maziar]

No problems mate
Yes counterstrike will work fine i think.
VISTA ULTIMATE has some security features which i dont think u will need.look @ this link:
http/www.microsoft.com/windows/windows-vista/compare-editions/default.aspx

For BLURAY,i didnt go for it because its too expensive,about RAID0 what do u want to know?

 

[maverick25]

Will raid0 make a big difference in performance i.e. gaming performance.I checked out the vista site and ultimate has hardware based encryption which I guess will not be supported by xps1730 mobo.If it does then I can think of going for it.Let me know pal and thanks a lot.By the way I am from India.I am not much of a blogger so really appriciate your advise.

 

[killernotebooks]

Will DELL sell a second cardf upgrade kit for the GPU seperately?
LIke if you buy a system can you upgrade it in the future?

 

[Maziar]

to maverikck:
Well i dont think u can choose a HDD without RAID in XPS M1730,yeah RAID helps improving the performance.

Btw, no problem mate ask anything u want and i will be glad to help

to killer:
Dell allows customers to buy 2x8800MGTX card kit to replace their 8700MGT(or dual 8700MGTs)

 

[maverick25]

Thanks a ton to all u pros and especially Maziar for your valuable advise.I am personally not going to be writting on this post.Will let u know when I
get my xps laptop.In the meantime keep blogging.

 

[Maziar]

No problems mate glad i could help u and good luck

 

[killernotebooks]

It's cool DELL allows user upgrading, or them upgrading it, as long as some sort of path exists to upgrade.

Many times companies (not DELL expressed or implied), after the sale will pretty much dissuade the upgrade path and make it very hard to upgrade the system. For instance warranty void for something simple like adding RAM or make the prices of components so high it isn't even worth it to upgrade etc.

To be able to upgrade IMHO should be what it's all about, and beneficial to the end user. This industry changes so fast that sometimes upgrading is costly or just doesn't make sense due to advances that make newer technology so much better. I would much rather have that (a far superior product) the reason why I don't upgrade if my other choice is, "You just can't do it because we want to sell you something else."