I am buying a new laptop( and this is going to be my new main computer) and have come down 2 choices, one is a laptop from Sager and the other is one from Alienware. The computer are exactly the same except for two thing and what to get some opinions of it. here are the specs for the 2 computer(the important ones) Sager: AMD 64 X2 +4200 DualCore Geforce Go 9750 GTX PCI-Express 16X Graphics Card 512MB DDR3 17inch 1920X1200 display 2BG Ram 400MHz 120GB(5400RPM) Alienware: AMD 64 Mobile ML40 2.2GHx Dual 256MB NVidia® GeForce™ Go 7900 GS - SLI Enabled 17inch 1440X900 display 2BG Ram 400MHz 120GB(5400RPM) My question is Which video card setup is better. If the dual video card is, is it worth the downgrade of the process(i a assuming it is a downgrade since the sager is Dual Core)?

tough one. Looking at the stats, I don't think the twin GS warrant the cutdowns, although I would think the alienware would be more power efficient. A 7950 GTX is plenty of horsepower, you get better processors, and better native resolution (is that native?).

My opinion, which is fairly uneducated.

I'd say it depends on what your going to be doing. Obviously game design, otherwise you probably wouldn't be on this site. But overall the better computer I would say is the Sager.

Come to think of it, 2.2GHz seems really slow for a single core, i mean i have a 2.8ghz in a computer that is about 2 years old. Maybe it is a dualcore and does not say it. here is the link to the alienware, mabye soemone can tell me.

http://www.alienware.com/Configurator_Pages/aurora_m9700.aspx?SysCode=PC-LT-AURORA-M-9700&SubCode=SKU-DEFAULT
Retrieve Saved Configuration : test@test.com-990455

at the price point you're prolly getting those for you should switch over to intel & get a core 2 duo setup , both of those are prolly gonna be processor capped anyway on most but the best games unless you crank all settings to max

Let's just say in the Sager one you get one card which is a bit better (double ram, DDR3) but in the Alienware you get two cards in SLI (so ram go to 512 too).

Between 7950GTX and 7900GS it's suer 7950 is faster, but it's kinda close. I think 2x7900 beat the crap out of one 7950 but I'm not entirely sure. I wasn't even aware SLI existed in laptops. I know lot more about desktop cards than laptop cards..

Quote: Original post by RyanZec
Come to think of it, 2.2GHz seems really slow for a single core, i mean i have a 2.8ghz in a computer that is about 2 years old. Maybe it is a dualcore and does not say it. here is the link to the alienware, mabye soemone can tell me.

http://www.alienware.com/Configurator_Pages/aurora_m9700.aspx?SysCode=PC-LT-AURORA-M-9700&SubCode=SKU-DEFAULT
Retrieve Saved Configuration : test@test.com-990455

has nothing to do with mhz , mobible processors are clocked lower but do better clock for clock , but as i said if you're decision isn't already unrevesible , switch to intel's core 2 duo

edit: watched your setup , as i thought you picked vista , sli won't work for a bit on vista so it's as if you had 1 card , also note that this very expensive setup (& not so good imoh) will not let you play DX10 games , sure none are out yet & only little hardware exists for it but it'll be mainstream way before you want to change laptops so if you're gonna blow ton of cash on a laptop i'd wait for a bit

btw do you really need transportation once in a while or are you just getting a laptop because well , it's a laptop? because you can get much better at half the price on desktops & it'll be more comfortable

The main reason i want a laptop is so I can move the computer from room to room and place to place when i go on a trip. I want to get this laptop before the summer and teh reason is in the room i have my computer, that computer gets very hot and well my computer inturn gets very hot. With a laptop I will be able to use my computer the the areas of my house that have AC. How long till you think video cards will support DX10? Also i really don't think that when DX10 supported video games comes out, that anyone with a video card that does not support DX10 will not be able to play them, that would just be dumb IMO(becuase then you are forcing your customer to spend alot of money on a new video card and make all current Laptop useless aswell). I figure they will either support older video cards and poeple with newer one will be able to get the benifit of DX10 or something like that.

dx10 cards are out (the 8800 series at nvidia) but dunno if they make some for laptops yet & i doubt it's a decent price if so , i'd wait a few month since vista only came out for things to stablizie & for a dx10 title to be out to make an idear by myself , as for DX10 games being backward compatible , no they're just not it's really that simply DX8>DX9 as all previous one was an api revision but DX10 is a new api by itself (not a direct improvement of DX9)

while some games will prolly come out for both (not as in one for both but as in one version for each & the DX9 version having crippled feature) it's simply not possible to have a DX10 game magically work on DX9

Quote: Original post by ranakor
edit: watched your setup , as i thought you picked vista , sli won't work for a bit on vista so it's as if you had 1 card

SLI do work on Vista with latest nVidia beta drivers, it's just a matter of time before they get final / whlq certified