Advice on laptop processors and GFX cards

I summon you Tech gurus!

I am getting ready to buy a new gaming laptop, probably around Christmas. As usual, I am doing my “3 months before purchase” investigation. Some of the specs I want the laptop to have are 6 GB DDR3 SDRAM, 17” UXGA 1.920 x 1.200 screen, fast hard drive (7.200 rpm) and probably Windows 7 64 bit OS.

I have doubts about the differences between processors and GFX cards models. I have done some research, but the findings didn’t help me much. Please, keep in mind I want the laptop for CoH, LOTRO (which I would love to play with the Ultra-High-Res textures client) and some occasional demanding FPS (Crysis et al).

So I have 2 questions:






1) What are the main differences between those 3 processors? Which one is the best and why?

• Intel® Core™ 2 Extreme X9000 (2,8 GHz, 800 MHz FSB, 6 MB L2 Cache)
• Intel® Core™ 2 Duo T9800 (2,93 GHz, 1.066 MHz FSB, 6 MB L2 Cache)
• Intel® Core™ 2 Quad Q9000 (2,00GHz, 1.066 MHz FSB, 6 MB L2 Cache)

What is the difference between Extreme and Duo? I realize the Duo T9800 is the fastest… but that’s it? For gaming I would be better with a Quad although it has less GHz? Or the Extreme one is good enough?





2) And once again, same questions for these 2 GFX cards:

• Dual SLI™ 512MB GDDR3 nVidia® GeForce™ 9800GT
• Single GTX 1 GB GDDR3 NVIDIA GeForce 260M

Both set ups have the same RAM, but would a dual 9800GT outperform a single 260M?


Thanks in advance!

@Arda

The quad core depends on if the game in question uses all 4. That's my understanding. I have a Q6600 in my desktop and it screams. It does EVERYTHING on my computer fast...but... In gaming(CoH), it is just above average, because City of Heroes doesn't use all 4. My *computer is using all 4, so background applications don't slow the game down, but it is not actually applying all 4 to the game, as far as I know. The extreme line of processors is supposedly the cream of the crop. If the game can use all 4 cores or if you're just preparing for games that do(like me), then go quad. If not, get the extreme.


Graphics-wise, SLI 9800GT should be better...but(<---note the but again!)...if the SLI is not supported or doesn't really get applied correctly, then it's worse than the one 260. I am rolling with two GTX 260's in my desktop, so I don't care if the SLI works, I'm good. If it's not enough, I upgrade, but only Crysis really kills anything past a 9800GTX. In a Laptop you don't really get the choice to upgrade if the SLI doesn't suit your games. Plus as far as I know, SLI means more power, desktop or laptop. Depending on plugged in or not, it will kill your battery fast. Personally, I would just go 260 and be good, or if you can find a 280, 285, or 295 mobile, then one of those.

Hope I was at least a little help in shedding some light on what you may/may not already know. Someone with more technical knowledge will definitely come. I only speak from experience. I had 1 9800gt, then went to 2, then to 1 gtx 260, then to 2. Generally my 260 was better, because SLI was having issues. They may have been fixed by now with better drivers.

My own personal recommendation is to steer well clear of SLI for laptops. Well clear. The thing will get so hot, the case will start to burn brown. It will be impossible to rest your hand on. Battery life? Don't be absurd.

On the other hand, a single card will be all you need. City of Heroes is one of those games that doesn't like SLI, and those that do won't be much faster on the dual 9800s than the single 260M. Also, as time goes on, games will want more and more graphics memory. The 9800 SLI setup gives each GPU 512MB, which will start to restrict you in a year's time. I myself am feeling extreme strain with my 320MB 8800GTS; the 640MB version is now twice as fast in current games. Conversely, a 1GB 260 will be happy for a long time, being good for another year or two over the 512MB 9800 before games move on to bigger things.

Also, at the end of the day, a laptop - like any computer - is going to end up outdated. When this happens, at least with the 260M you'll have something with usable battery life. My friend got himself a big ol' Alienware desktop replacement, and while it was really fast, it was absolutely massive and couldn't run on battery power while gaming for more than 30 minutes. When it became outdated, he was left with a slow, power hungry beast that had to be lugged around on his back. At least with a cooler, less power hungry laptop, it's more usable in it's elderly years.

Hey guys, thanks for all the input! And nice webpage you got there FatherXmas, very handy.

So to sum up, Live_Wyre suggests Extreme X9000 (or Quad) and single GTX 260M card, FatheXmas goes for Duo T9800 and Dual SLI 9800GT because both are the fastest and finally Necroton votes for single GTX260M card because it has more RAM. I think all of you gave support to all the options available, hehehe! But you helped me to get more valuable info now.

You convinced me to go for a single GTX260M card... although I am pondering about going Dual SLI GTX260M, but that is 370€ more (around 525$). The laptop with the single GTX260M card can also get the Dual SLI version. It comes with the Quad as default processor, or you can upgrade to the Duo T9800… I think I will go for the Duo T9800 processor and single GTX260M, although I am still on the fence about spending more money to go Dual…

Any thoughts? Thanks for all the comments and advice!

@Arda

Umm, yeah, "Father knows best"! That front side bus would edge it out in most stuff, because the only real draw I saw in the extremes was indeed the overclocking ability. They were just easier, for "extreme gamers", supposedly. Like I said before, with the graphics, it does come down to the money gap, and 370 Euros(?) does seem a bit more for the overkill of overkill. It's like if someone gave you a big bowl of icecream, and then dumped pure sugar on it. Sure, it's sweeter, but does ANYTHING need to be that sweet?!

On the subject of dual versus quad, the 2.93GHz dual core would be 40%-50% faster than the 2GHz quad core in City of Heroes. Usually, if you don't know which kind of processor you want, a Quad isn't for you; in my opinion only the most powerful of power users will ever fully take advantage of a quad. Video encoding, Supreme Commander, and Far Cry 2 are the only tasks you would do I can think of that would ever benefit from those two extra cores.

Me, I'm the kind of person who will try to do 3DS Max rendering while playing Team Fortress 2, dedicating two cores to each. I'm the kind of person who watches full HD movies while playing City of Heroes; or maybe even encoding HD video. I demand my computer to be fast, no matter what I throw at it. I have a RAID 0 array that's clocked at 260MB/second, with the first 6GB partitioned off as a page file; that's along with the third hard drive for Windows.

However, even me, with my insane thirst for beefy hardware, would never expect a laptop to accomplish those feats. I believe that hardware should do the job it's meant to do. For a laptop, I want something that I can fit in my bag, use on my lap without sterilising myself, and not have to worry about plugging it in all the time. I can only reccomend you go with the dual core.

Well I recommend the fast dual core but I was fuzzy on the video (SLi 9600M GT is anywhere from -25% to +50% of GTX 260M). Also I was still rather rushed when posting that and really didn't make my video reasons as clear as possible.

When building desktops, I personally discourage people from going SLi or Crossfire, partially due to cost standpoint, partially due to inconsistent benefit. A game needs to be very GPU bound to gain the maximum benefit from multiple GPUs consistently rather than just smoothing over occasional dips in framerate. Given a choice between spending X dollars on a single video card or the same X dollars on an SLi setup, I'll choose the single video card every time.