First off, I agree with the last paragraph. Good call.
As far as the previous paragraph. Your entitled to your opinion, and you are correct in the fact that a lot of people do play games on laptops and it is big business. But I don't think you can call the rest of us "Naieve" just because we don't agree. I have gamed on a laptop, and I hate it. I don't think your stupid because you like to play on a laptop - I know several people that do. But not everyone likes to play on a laptop, and in fact, I think a minority of the people who play on a PC are willing to give in to a lot of the compromises that have to be made to game on a laptop - and there are many sacrifices that I feel are made in making that choice: I can say that with confidence and not being naive about it. But that last sentence is my opinion.
It's nice having you on the forums because you do know a lot about laptop gaming, which is an area I refuse to touch because I don't like it - much in the same way you don't deal with Desktops any more.
I'd have to disagree with eycel's last paragraph. The reasons people bash AW for are legitimate. In general, you can get the same performance elsewhere for less, as a lot of your money goes into the brand name and the lighting. However, they offer certain parts that other vendors don't, so that's one of the few reasons to get them. Another main point is that their customer support is actually horrendous. People who buy AW are more prone to get angrier at poor customer service than people who buy Dell, because AW tends to cost more. If you're paying thousands of dollars for a laptop, and then several hundred more for warranty coverage, you damn well better be getting amazing tech support and customer service.
Another thing is that eycel exaggerates his statements. A lot. Well, not so much exaggerates, it's more that he falsifies them. Example: "this particular one is a 14 inch but you can get them in 15.6 inch also and has a dedicated geforce gt 550m graphics card that will play all the newest games for a good 2 years to come at maximum detail."
Anyone who knows anything about laptops will know that this is false. A 550m isn't a particularly high-end card, and if it really could do this, there would be no reason to have anything more powerful than it. Quite frankly, I'm not sure whether or not he's just trolling, or if he legitimately believes what he says; if it's the latter, he obviously hasn't played /any/ graphically intensive games in a /very/ long time.
Sure it can play all games at max settings. Just not necessarily at double-digit frame rates. It's a respin of Nvidia's lowest end GPU from the generation before the current one. If that were all you needed for max settings, then why would anything other than low end GPU chips exist?
Originally posted by Ridelynn I chuckled when I read this. First off, I agree with the last paragraph. Good call. As far as the previous paragraph. Your entitled to your opinion, and you are correct in the fact that a lot of people do play games on laptops and it is big business. But I don't think you can call the rest of us "Naieve" just because we don't agree. I have gamed on a laptop, and I hate it. I don't think your stupid because you like to play on a laptop - I know several people that do. But not everyone likes to play on a laptop, and in fact, I think a minority of the people who play on a PC are willing to give in to a lot of the compromises that have to be made to game on a laptop - and there are many sacrifices that I feel are made in making that choice: I can say that with confidence and not being naive about it. But that last sentence is my opinion. It's nice having you on the forums because you do know a lot about laptop gaming, which is an area I refuse to touch because I don't like it - much in the same way you don't deal with Desktops any more.
I'd have to disagree with eycel's last paragraph. The reasons people bash AW for are legitimate. In general, you can get the same performance elsewhere for less, as a lot of your money goes into the brand name and the lighting. However, they offer certain parts that other vendors don't, so that's one of the few reasons to get them. Another main point is that their customer support is actually horrendous. People who buy AW are more prone to get angrier at poor customer service than people who buy Dell, because AW tends to cost more. If you're paying thousands of dollars for a laptop, and then several hundred more for warranty coverage, you damn well better be getting amazing tech support and customer service. Another thing is that eycel exaggerates his statements. A lot. Well, not so much exaggerates, it's more that he falsifies them. Example: "this particular one is a 14 inch but you can get them in 15.6 inch also and has a dedicated geforce gt 550m graphics card that will play all the newest games for a good 2 years to come at maximum detail." Anyone who knows anything about laptops will know that this is false. A 550m isn't a particularly high-end card, and if it really could do this, there would be no reason to have anything more powerful than it. Quite frankly, I'm not sure whether or not he's just trolling, or if he legitimately believes what he says; if it's the latter, he obviously hasn't played /any/ graphically intensive games in a /very/ long time.
Oh I wasn't defending alienware, I was applauding the part where he said "If you have to point out that your kind of a big deal - you probably aren't".
Alienware is .... kinda like Bose. It's not bad if you don't know much about computers and have some money to throw around on something that spends more on advertising than research, but anyone that knows anything about them knows there are much better alternatives.
A 550m is a very powerfull graphics card indeed, and at resolutions of 1366x768 that card will score over 10k in 3dmark06 as well as do very well in vantage and 3dmark11. When you start to get over 10k in 3dmark06 even though its an old benchmark that means your getting into enthusiast territory in my mind.
I have a gaming channel dedicated to laptop gaming, do you have something similar that you can validate your laptop gaming expierence? I posted it in the last reply of myn, but in case you missed it its http://www.youtube.com/notebookplayer. Sure the 550 isnt going to run 1080p on the most demanding games at full detail, but it will at the native resloution of the laptop I suggested the ideapad Y470. I dont see anyway how a brand new laptop like that with sandybridge processor wont run new games for a good 2 years, thats a very reasonable statement from where I stand. Hell my laptop with a much less powerfull ATI radeon mobility 5650 card in it runs all the games I can think of playing that are brand new more then enough for me and Im a hardcore gamer.
A 550m is a very powerfull graphics card indeed, and at resolutions of 1366x768 that card will score over 10k in 3dmark06
My G80 Geforce 8800GTS could do that too, but that doesn't mean it's a fast card by today's standards, and it certainly doesn't mean it'll play all games at "maximum detail".
I have a gaming laptop too, not because it's anywhere near a substitute for a gaming desktop, but because I already own a desktop, and used to spend long hours away from home every day with nothing to do between classes. The Mobility Radeon HD 5730 in my gaming laptop is about 90% the speed of a Geforce GT550M, and it most certainly does not play "every game at maximum detail". Even at the absurdly low resolution of 1366x768, with maybe 2x AA tossed on, Crysis runs at about 30-35fps on medium-high settings, and about 25fps at high settings (not maximum, just more or less high). At "maximum" settings, with full anti-aliasing, it'd be lucky to push 10-15fps. Even at those settings, 30-35fps isn't exactly ideal, which means that really, that game belong at about dead medium.
The MWLL mod is even more intensive, so I opt to run it on low-medium.
Sure, it can run the Call of Duty games at their highest settings, but so can nearly any gaming machine; Those arent' intensive games.
Does it look like it's giving 60fps at the highest settings on every game, or even coming close? Most games that are even remotely intensive look like they squeeze out the necessary 45+ fps at about medium settings, and again that's at an absurdly low gaming resolution of 1366x768, usually with little or not AA tacked on (and at those piddling resolutions, a least a bit of AA is about the only source of mercy on your eyes).
I'm not trying to be mean here, but what you're claiming about this card is flat out wrong, and giving people wrong information about their potential $800+ purchases is simply not a good thing to do.
A 550m is a very powerfull graphics card indeed, and at resolutions of 1366x768 that card will score over 10k in 3dmark06 as well as do very well in vantage and 3dmark11. When you start to get over 10k in 3dmark06 even though its an old benchmark that means your getting into enthusiast territory in my mind.
And it will still sometimes (but not always) lose to Radeon HD 6550D integrated graphics if paired with 1866 MHz system memory. Does that mean that integrated graphics is now enthusiast territory in your mind?
Now, if all you want is for games to run pretty well at moderate graphical settings, then a GeForce GT 550M is a capable enough card, as is your Mobility Radeon HD 5650. But so is Llano integrated graphics, which also lets you avoid all of the drawbacks of a discrete card.
A 550m is a very powerfull graphics card indeed, and at resolutions of 1366x768 that card will score over 10k in 3dmark06 as well as do very well in vantage and 3dmark11. When you start to get over 10k in 3dmark06 even though its an old benchmark that means your getting into enthusiast territory in my mind.
I have a gaming channel dedicated to laptop gaming, do you have something similar that you can validate your laptop gaming expierence? I posted it in the last reply of myn, but in case you missed it its http://www.youtube.com/notebookplayer. Sure the 550 isnt going to run 1080p on the most demanding games at full detail, but it will at the native resloution of the laptop I suggested the ideapad Y470. I dont see anyway how a brand new laptop like that with sandybridge processore wont run new games for a good 2 years, thats a very reasonable statement from where I stand. Hell my laptop with a much less powerfull ATI radeon mobility 5650 card in it runs all the games I can think of playing that are brand new more then enough for me and Im a hardcore gamer.
Having a "gaming channel dedicated to laptop gaming" doesn't validate your statements. All it means is that you record videos of you playing games on your laptop. That's it. If you really are such a respected member of the laptop gaming community, other people would be here saying how right you are, and you wouldn't be tooting your own horn. Guess that says something about you.
And like Catamount and Quizzical have said, all you're doing is falsifying information. I'm really not sure why you insist on doing this every time someone asks about laptops.
Good God, people talk out of there asses here more than anywhere I've ever seen.
I used to be a Desktop only gamer.
I'm now a staunch Laptop only gamer.
What changed? *MY NEEDS and MY PRIORITIES* Also the fact that gaming laptops are VERY viable now. When I'm home my laptop is closed and acts just like a desktop box, plugged into a monitor and keyboard, etc.
What laptop do I own? An m17X-R3, just upgraded from an R2.
People bitch about dell and AW, and some of them actually had bad experiences. I had a bad speaker on my machine. It got replaced in two days by a tech that came to my house. That's good service. I blew the speaker, btw, and they still covered it.
Now to handle the alienware is overpriced mantra you get fed full of. It may be 1-200 more than someplace else, but usually I have found that they are VERY close in price, and the warranty is HEADS and TAILS above the other companies.
Want to overclock your Alienware? Go right ahead.
Want to pull out that DVD and put in a Blu-ray Drive? Go right ahead.
Want to put in an SSD and 32MB of Ram? Go right ahead.
None of that voids the warranty.
Can I buy a more powerful desktop for 500 less? For sure.
Can I pick up my desktop, throw it in a backpack and run to my friends house to play games, or on a business trip, or home for the holidays? Nope
On my R3 with a 6990m(real close to a desktop 560TI in fps) I can play any games at high-ultra settings with 25-110FPS depending on the game you are talking about. My laptop is more powerful that 90% of my friends desktops. Yes I paid a premuim for it, but it is worth it to me for my needs.
So what do you need?
Edited to add: You want the real take on AW? Check out notebookreview. Some of the smartest and coolest people I've seen on forums. You can get a good handle of things there.
Good God, people talk out of there asses here more than anywhere I've ever seen.
I used to be a Desktop only gamer.
I'm now a staunch Laptop only gamer.
What changed? *MY NEEDS and MY PRIORITIES* Also the fact that gaming laptops are VERY viable now. When I'm home my laptop is closed and acts just like a desktop box, plugged into a monitor and keyboard, etc.
What laptop do I own? An m17X-R3, just upgraded from an R2.
People bitch about dell and AW, and some of them actually had bad experiences. I had a bad speaker on my machine. It got replaced in two days by a tech that came to my house. That's good service. I blew the speaker, btw, and they still covered it.
Now to handle the alienware is overpriced mantra you get fed full of. It may be 1-200 more than someplace else, but usually I have found that they are VERY close in price, and the warranty is HEADS and TAILS above the other companies.
Want to overclock your Alienware? Go right ahead.
Want to pull out that DVD and put in a Blu-ray Drive? Go right ahead.
Want to put in an SSD and 32MB of Ram? Go right ahead.
None of that voids the warranty.
Can I buy a more powerful desktop for 500 less? For sure.
Can I pick up my desktop, throw it in a backpack and run to my friends house to play games, or on a business trip, or home for the holidays? Nope
On my R3 with a 6990m(real close to a desktop 560TI in fps) I can play any games at high-ultra settings with 25-110FPS depending on the game you are talking about. My laptop is more powerful that 90% of my friends desktops. Yes I paid a premuim for it, but it is worth it to me for my needs.
So what do you need?
Edited to add: You want the real take on AW? Check out notebookreview. Some of the smartest and coolest people I've seen on forums. You can get a good handle of things there.
The only good thing about AW warranty is that it's easily exploitable. If you don't know how to do this, and you're not good at talking to outsourced CSRs, then you're out of luck.
That's not my experience. Sorry that it was yours. I can only speak for what I have gone through. Other people should only speak from what they have gone through. Too often that is not the case.
Good God, people talk out of there asses here more than anywhere I've ever seen.
Really?
That's funny, because I can't find a single post in here that actually disagrees with anything you've said. Perhaps you could point them out to me?
No one has ever claimed that it's impossible for someone to have use for a gaming laptop; that would be foolish, given that many of the people in this thread, including those recommending against the purchase of one, own a gaming laptop, including yours truly. Gaming laptops are inferior gamings machines, offering considerably inferior performance at all price points. It's also fully recognized that some people have as much use for the laptop part of a computer as the gaming part.
Can you show me a single post that disagrees, explicitly, or implicitly?
Good God, people talk out of there asses here more than anywhere I've ever seen.
I used to be a Desktop only gamer.
I'm now a staunch Laptop only gamer.
What changed? *MY NEEDS and MY PRIORITIES* Also the fact that gaming laptops are VERY viable now. When I'm home my laptop is closed and acts just like a desktop box, plugged into a monitor and keyboard, etc.
What laptop do I own? An m17X-R3, just upgraded from an R2.
People bitch about dell and AW, and some of them actually had bad experiences. I had a bad speaker on my machine. It got replaced in two days by a tech that came to my house. That's good service. I blew the speaker, btw, and they still covered it.
Now to handle the alienware is overpriced mantra you get fed full of. It may be 1-200 more than someplace else, but usually I have found that they are VERY close in price, and the warranty is HEADS and TAILS above the other companies.
Want to overclock your Alienware? Go right ahead.
Want to pull out that DVD and put in a Blu-ray Drive? Go right ahead.
Want to put in an SSD and 32MB of Ram? Go right ahead.
None of that voids the warranty.
Can I buy a more powerful desktop for 500 less? For sure.
Can I pick up my desktop, throw it in a backpack and run to my friends house to play games, or on a business trip, or home for the holidays? Nope
On my R3 with a 6990m(real close to a desktop 560TI in fps) I can play any games at high-ultra settings with 25-110FPS depending on the game you are talking about. My laptop is more powerful that 90% of my friends desktops. Yes I paid a premuim for it, but it is worth it to me for my needs.
So what do you need?
Edited to add: You want the real take on AW? Check out notebookreview. Some of the smartest and coolest people I've seen on forums. You can get a good handle of things there.
I think im in love, someone else that likes gaming on laptops!
Originally posted by NiteSkie Good God, people talk out of there asses here more than anywhere I've ever seen. I used to be a Desktop only gamer. I'm now a staunch Laptop only gamer. What changed? *MY NEEDS and MY PRIORITIES* Also the fact that gaming laptops are VERY viable now. When I'm home my laptop is closed and acts just like a desktop box, plugged into a monitor and keyboard, etc. What laptop do I own? An m17X-R3, just upgraded from an R2. People bitch about dell and AW, and some of them actually had bad experiences. I had a bad speaker on my machine. It got replaced in two days by a tech that came to my house. That's good service. I blew the speaker, btw, and they still covered it. Now to handle the alienware is overpriced mantra you get fed full of. It may be 1-200 more than someplace else, but usually I have found that they are VERY close in price, and the warranty is HEADS and TAILS above the other companies. Want to overclock your Alienware? Go right ahead. Want to pull out that DVD and put in a Blu-ray Drive? Go right ahead. Want to put in an SSD and 32MB of Ram? Go right ahead. None of that voids the warranty. Can I buy a more powerful desktop for 500 less? For sure. Can I pick up my desktop, throw it in a backpack and run to my friends house to play games, or on a business trip, or home for the holidays? Nope On my R3 with a 6990m(real close to a desktop 560TI in fps) I can play any games at high-ultra settings with 25-110FPS depending on the game you are talking about. My laptop is more powerful that 90% of my friends desktops. Yes I paid a premuim for it, but it is worth it to me for my needs. So what do you need? Edited to add: You want the real take on AW? Check out notebookreview. Some of the smartest and coolest people I've seen on forums. You can get a good handle of things there.
I don't disagree with you - in fact, I use many of the exact same arguments, only I replace Dell/AW with Apple - although I don't push them for gaming, I push them work work/school use.
Good God, people talk out of there asses here more than anywhere I've ever seen.
Really?
That's funny, because I can't find a single post in here that actually disagrees with anything you've said. Perhaps you could point them out to me?
No one has ever claimed that it's impossible for someone to have use for a gaming laptop; that would be foolish, given that many of the people in this thread, including those recommending against the purchase of one, own a gaming laptop, including yours truly. Gaming laptops are inferior gamings machines, offering considerably inferior performance at all price points. It's also fully recognized that some people have as much use for the laptop part of a computer as the gaming part.
Can you show me a single post that disagrees, explicitly, or implicitly?
Let's see:
1. Let's start with post #5: "to answer your question if alienware is worth it the answer is no its over priced for out dated technology".
Out dated technology compared to what? Yeah...that's what I thought. Alienware laptops usually have the most cutting edge laptop tech.
2. Then move to post #12: "Heed my call..stay away from gaming laptop. Edit: Alienware is expensive only bacause of its name. It is nothing spectacular.
Again, opinionated crap. And again, AW are at the top of the game.
3. Then to post #14: "do not look for laptops for gaming. they really are not designed for playing crystc... the sooner people realize you sacrifice high end graphics and system hareware for the ability to lug the computer around the world the quicker they can figure out what they really need a laptop for. "
My gaming laptop sacrifices NO high end graphics. I might not play at 100 FPS like a desktop, but i can turn everything to max and still get smooth framerates.
4. One of my favorites #33: 'Alienware is .... kinda like Bose. It's not bad if you don't know much about computers and have some money to throw around on something that spends more on advertising than research, but anyone that knows anything about them knows there are much better alternatives."
Bwhahahahah. Compare AW and Bose. That was a good one . And BTW, I bought an AW *BECAUSE* I know a lot about computers, and they were the most lax with letting you tinker with your machine, while still having all the high end toys. There were no better alternatives for me. I've repasted all my dies and replaced heat pads, switched out my drives, had it completely apart just for fun and it's all still under warranty. Many of the avid benchmarkers and smart people who are into laptops choose AW for these reasons.
So there you go, Catamount. Did I satisfy your requirements?
"Alienware laptops usually have the most cutting edge laptop tech."
While Alienware is pretty fast at adopting new processors and video cards, they don't necessarily phase out old technology as soon as the newest stuff is out. They were still selling Core 2 Duo processors earlier this year, though those seem to be gone now.
Their storage options, on the other hand, are rather lacking. I guess "can be modified to get what you want" beats "can't be modified to get what you want", but it's not as good as "is what you want right up front", as is available elsewhere.
"And again, AW are at the top of the game."
Again, it depends on what you get. The M17x and M18x can have some high end laptop gaming hardware inside, depending on how you configure them. The M11x and the M14x, not so much. That's more a problem with the form factor, but if you want a high end gaming laptop smaller than the M17x, Clevo has a 15" one with hardware basically equivalent to the M17x.
"My gaming laptop sacrifices NO high end graphics."
A Radeon HD 6990M is arguably the highest end laptop card today. But high end for a laptop isn't the same as high end period. Here's the nearest equivalent to your card in a desktop:
"Alienware laptops usually have the most cutting edge laptop tech."
While Alienware is pretty fast at adopting new processors and video cards, they don't necessarily phase out old technology as soon as the newest stuff is out. They were still selling Core 2 Duo processors earlier this year, though those seem to be gone now.
Their storage options, on the other hand, are rather lacking. I guess "can be modified to get what you want" beats "can't be modified to get what you want", but it's not as good as "is what you want right up front", as is available elsewhere.
"And again, AW are at the top of the game."
Again, it depends on what you get. The M17x and M18x can have some high end laptop gaming hardware inside, depending on how you configure them. The M11x and the M14x, not so much. That's more a problem with the form factor, but if you want a high end gaming laptop smaller than the M17x, Clevo has a 15" one with hardware basically equivalent to the M17x.
"My gaming laptop sacrifices NO high end graphics."
A Radeon HD 6990M is arguably the highest end laptop card today. But high end for a laptop isn't the same as high end period. Here's the nearest equivalent to your card in a desktop:
Now, that is a capable gaming card. But it's not high end.
1. Just because they don't phase out the old stuff, doesn't mean they don't have the new stuff. That would just be dumb of them and my point stands :P.
2. I have yet to see a manufacturer that I would by the HDD upgrade from rather than putting it in myself for 100 dollars less or more. Even someone with the most basic knowledge of laptops can put in an HDD. But yes, maybe they don't always have the most up to date storage options. I'll give you that. This is opinion on my part.
3. Of course it depends on what you get. You aren't going to cram a 6990m or a 580m into a 14 inch laptop because you'd never be able to manage the heat. We are talking about highest end stuff. Thus the bigger laptops. Clevo does make some pretty nice laptops. I don't doubt they have what you say.
4. You killed me with this one. That card is WAY slower than a 6990m. I have a slight overclock on mine and it performs as well as a Nvidia 560TI in games. On the AMD side it would be equal to a 6870 not a 6850. However, even beyond that what am I sacrificing? To my eye the game looks the same as it does on the high end cards. Sure they can run at higher framerates sometimes, but i have a nice 60hz monitor and use vsync anyway. Therefore I don't need over 60fps. If my eye can't see a difference between this and a high end desktop card, at the same settings, what am I sacrificing? Only some people can even tell a difference between 30 and 60 fps.
Edited for spelling and jazz, cause i screwed up and stuff, yo.
They've got a selection to rival New Egg. I think what they do is to take an order, then buy parts to fill your order.
"You killed me with this one. That card is WAY slower than a 6990m. I have a slight overclock on mine and it performs as well as a Nvidia 560TI in games. On the AMD side it would be equal to a 6870."
Nope. You're wildly wrong. The Radeon HD 6850, Radeon HD 6870, and Radeon HD 6990M all use the same "Barts" GPU chip. They're clocked differently, however, with the laptop part optimized for lower power consumption.
Let's compare the specs:
GPU clock speed:
Radeon HD 6850: 775 MHz
Radeon HD 6870: 900 MHz
Radeon HD 6990M: 715 MHz
Number of SIMD engines enabled:
Radeon HD 6850: 12
Radeon HD 6870: 14
Radeon HD 6990M: 14
Memory clock speed:
Radeon HD 6850: 1000 MHz
Radeon HD 6870: 1050 MHz
Radeon HD 6990M: 900 MHz
SIMD engines are the only part of the GPU chip disabled in any of the cards.
On net, the Radeon HD 6850 has more memory bandwidth than the Radeon HD 6990M. It also has better ROP performance, with the same number of ROPs clocked higher. The 6870 beats both of the other cards on both of those counts, with the same hardware clocked higher yet.
The higher clock speed of the 6850 partially compensates for having two SIMD engines disabled, but not entirely, so the 6990M does have about 7% higher shader and TMU performance. The 6870 has all of the hardware enabled, and clocked much higher than either of the other cards, so it wins handily here.
The net result is that a Radeon HD 6850 and Radeon HD 6990M are roughly equivalent, and which will perform better in particular games depends on what the limiting factor is. Both trail well behind the Radeon HD 6870 in gaming performance. And the 6870 itself trails well behind a GeForce GTX 560 Ti. The Nvidia equivalent of a Radeon HD 6870 is a GeForce GTX 560 without the Ti.
So there you go, Catamount. Did I satisfy your requirements?
Well since not one of those posts in any way addresses the claim that people might find use for gaming laptops, a considerable portion of your initial post, I guess the correct answer is no.
"You killed me with this one. That card is WAY slower than a 6990m. I have a slight overclock on mine and it performs as well as a Nvidia 560TI in games. On the AMD side it would be equal to a 6870."
Nope. You're wildly wrong. The Radeon HD 6850, Radeon HD 6870, and Radeon HD 6990M all use the same "Barts" GPU chip. They're clocked differently, however, with the laptop part optimized for lower power consumption.
Let's compare the specs:
GPU clock speed:
Radeon HD 6850: 775 MHz
Radeon HD 6870: 900 MHz
Radeon HD 6990M: 715 MHz
Number of SIMD engines enabled:
Radeon HD 6850: 12
Radeon HD 6870: 14
Radeon HD 6990M: 14
Memory clock speed:
Radeon HD 6850: 1000 MHz
Radeon HD 6870: 1050 MHz
Radeon HD 6990M: 900 MHz
SIMD engines are the only part of the GPU chip disabled in any of the cards.
On net, the Radeon HD 6850 has more memory bandwidth than the Radeon HD 6990M. It also has better ROP performance, with the same number of ROPs clocked higher. The 6870 beats both of the other cards on both of those counts, with the same hardware clocked higher yet.
The higher clock speed of the 6850 partially compensates for having two SIMD engines disabled, but not entirely, so the 6990M does have about 7% higher shader and TMU performance. The 6870 has all of the hardware enabled, and clocked much higher than either of the other cards, so it wins handily here.
The net result is that a Radeon HD 6850 and Radeon HD 6990M are roughly equivalent, and which will perform better in particular games depends on what the limiting factor is. Both trail well behind the Radeon HD 6870 in gaming performance. And the 6870 itself trails well behind a GeForce GTX 560 Ti. The Nvidia equivalent of a Radeon HD 6870 is a GeForce GTX 560 without the Ti.
Look at the stream processors, texture units, ect. They are the same as the 6870. It *IS* basically a downclocked 6870.
That's what I just said. They both use the Barts GPU chip. The disagreement here is that I'm claiming that clocking it lower makes it perform worse, while you're claiming that clocking it lower makes it perform better.
So there you go, Catamount. Did I satisfy your requirements?
Well since not one of those posts in any way addresses the claim that people might find use for gaming laptops, a considerable portion of your initial post, I guess the correct answer is no.
What do I win?
Sure, cause you will never let it be otherwise. It's not that important to me. I pointed out a bunch of posts in this thread that contradicted what I said, and you still come back with that. Not worth my time, really.
Look at the stream processors, texture units, ect. They are the same as the 6870. It *IS* basically a downclocked 6870.
That's what I just said. They both use the Barts GPU chip. The disagreement here is that I'm claiming that clocking it lower makes it perform worse, while you're claiming that clocking it lower makes it perform better.
Bleh, I would never say that. What I said was that the performance is basically a 6870. With my sligh OC it matches the 6870.
You were saying it only matched a 6850, which it does not, even at stock clocks it is faster than a 6850.
Well since not one of those posts in any way addresses the claim that people might find use for gaming laptops, a considerable portion of your initial post, I guess the correct answer is no.
What do I win?
Sure, cause you will never let it be otherwise. It's not that important to me. I pointed out a bunch of posts in this thread that contradicted what I said, and you still come back with that. Not worth my time, really.
I can see how it wouldn't be worth your time to present examples that don't exist, since none of the ones you did present in any way addressed the above topic.
Look at the stream processors, texture units, ect. They are the same as the 6870. It *IS* basically a downclocked 6870.
That's what I just said. They both use the Barts GPU chip. The disagreement here is that I'm claiming that clocking it lower makes it perform worse, while you're claiming that clocking it lower makes it perform better.
Bleh, I would never say that. What I said was that the performance is basically a 6870. With my sligh OC it matches the 6870.
You were saying it only matched a 6850, which it does not, even at stock clocks it is faster than a 6850.
Why then do you keep saying it's as fast as a GeForce GTX 560 Ti?
Overclocking the GPU by 26% to reach 6870 stock speeds is rather more than a "slight" overclock.
I'm saying that having a little better shader (7%) and TMU (7%) performance and a little worse ROP (8%) and memory (10%) performance means that the cards are on net about even. You do realize that there are several different types of components in a GPU that contribute to gaming performance, don't you?
Comments
I'd have to disagree with eycel's last paragraph. The reasons people bash AW for are legitimate. In general, you can get the same performance elsewhere for less, as a lot of your money goes into the brand name and the lighting. However, they offer certain parts that other vendors don't, so that's one of the few reasons to get them. Another main point is that their customer support is actually horrendous. People who buy AW are more prone to get angrier at poor customer service than people who buy Dell, because AW tends to cost more. If you're paying thousands of dollars for a laptop, and then several hundred more for warranty coverage, you damn well better be getting amazing tech support and customer service.
Another thing is that eycel exaggerates his statements. A lot. Well, not so much exaggerates, it's more that he falsifies them. Example: "this particular one is a 14 inch but you can get them in 15.6 inch also and has a dedicated geforce gt 550m graphics card that will play all the newest games for a good 2 years to come at maximum detail."
Anyone who knows anything about laptops will know that this is false. A 550m isn't a particularly high-end card, and if it really could do this, there would be no reason to have anything more powerful than it. Quite frankly, I'm not sure whether or not he's just trolling, or if he legitimately believes what he says; if it's the latter, he obviously hasn't played /any/ graphically intensive games in a /very/ long time.
Sure it can play all games at max settings. Just not necessarily at double-digit frame rates. It's a respin of Nvidia's lowest end GPU from the generation before the current one. If that were all you needed for max settings, then why would anything other than low end GPU chips exist?
Oh I wasn't defending alienware, I was applauding the part where he said "If you have to point out that your kind of a big deal - you probably aren't".
Alienware is .... kinda like Bose. It's not bad if you don't know much about computers and have some money to throw around on something that spends more on advertising than research, but anyone that knows anything about them knows there are much better alternatives.
A 550m is a very powerfull graphics card indeed, and at resolutions of 1366x768 that card will score over 10k in 3dmark06 as well as do very well in vantage and 3dmark11. When you start to get over 10k in 3dmark06 even though its an old benchmark that means your getting into enthusiast territory in my mind.
I have a gaming channel dedicated to laptop gaming, do you have something similar that you can validate your laptop gaming expierence? I posted it in the last reply of myn, but in case you missed it its http://www.youtube.com/notebookplayer. Sure the 550 isnt going to run 1080p on the most demanding games at full detail, but it will at the native resloution of the laptop I suggested the ideapad Y470. I dont see anyway how a brand new laptop like that with sandybridge processor wont run new games for a good 2 years, thats a very reasonable statement from where I stand. Hell my laptop with a much less powerfull ATI radeon mobility 5650 card in it runs all the games I can think of playing that are brand new more then enough for me and Im a hardcore gamer.
My G80 Geforce 8800GTS could do that too, but that doesn't mean it's a fast card by today's standards, and it certainly doesn't mean it'll play all games at "maximum detail".
I have a gaming laptop too, not because it's anywhere near a substitute for a gaming desktop, but because I already own a desktop, and used to spend long hours away from home every day with nothing to do between classes. The Mobility Radeon HD 5730 in my gaming laptop is about 90% the speed of a Geforce GT550M, and it most certainly does not play "every game at maximum detail". Even at the absurdly low resolution of 1366x768, with maybe 2x AA tossed on, Crysis runs at about 30-35fps on medium-high settings, and about 25fps at high settings (not maximum, just more or less high). At "maximum" settings, with full anti-aliasing, it'd be lucky to push 10-15fps. Even at those settings, 30-35fps isn't exactly ideal, which means that really, that game belong at about dead medium.
The MWLL mod is even more intensive, so I opt to run it on low-medium.
Sure, it can run the Call of Duty games at their highest settings, but so can nearly any gaming machine; Those arent' intensive games.
Just look at the GT550 page on Notebookcheck:
http://www.notebookcheck.net/NVIDIA-GeForce-GT-550M.42264.0.html
Does it look like it's giving 60fps at the highest settings on every game, or even coming close? Most games that are even remotely intensive look like they squeeze out the necessary 45+ fps at about medium settings, and again that's at an absurdly low gaming resolution of 1366x768, usually with little or not AA tacked on (and at those piddling resolutions, a least a bit of AA is about the only source of mercy on your eyes).
I'm not trying to be mean here, but what you're claiming about this card is flat out wrong, and giving people wrong information about their potential $800+ purchases is simply not a good thing to do.
It's not a bad GPU, but don't grossly exaggerate.
And it will still sometimes (but not always) lose to Radeon HD 6550D integrated graphics if paired with 1866 MHz system memory. Does that mean that integrated graphics is now enthusiast territory in your mind?
Now, if all you want is for games to run pretty well at moderate graphical settings, then a GeForce GT 550M is a capable enough card, as is your Mobility Radeon HD 5650. But so is Llano integrated graphics, which also lets you avoid all of the drawbacks of a discrete card.
Having a "gaming channel dedicated to laptop gaming" doesn't validate your statements. All it means is that you record videos of you playing games on your laptop. That's it. If you really are such a respected member of the laptop gaming community, other people would be here saying how right you are, and you wouldn't be tooting your own horn. Guess that says something about you.
And like Catamount and Quizzical have said, all you're doing is falsifying information. I'm really not sure why you insist on doing this every time someone asks about laptops.
Good God, people talk out of there asses here more than anywhere I've ever seen.
I used to be a Desktop only gamer.
I'm now a staunch Laptop only gamer.
What changed? *MY NEEDS and MY PRIORITIES* Also the fact that gaming laptops are VERY viable now. When I'm home my laptop is closed and acts just like a desktop box, plugged into a monitor and keyboard, etc.
What laptop do I own? An m17X-R3, just upgraded from an R2.
People bitch about dell and AW, and some of them actually had bad experiences. I had a bad speaker on my machine. It got replaced in two days by a tech that came to my house. That's good service. I blew the speaker, btw, and they still covered it.
Now to handle the alienware is overpriced mantra you get fed full of. It may be 1-200 more than someplace else, but usually I have found that they are VERY close in price, and the warranty is HEADS and TAILS above the other companies.
Want to overclock your Alienware? Go right ahead.
Want to pull out that DVD and put in a Blu-ray Drive? Go right ahead.
Want to put in an SSD and 32MB of Ram? Go right ahead.
None of that voids the warranty.
Can I buy a more powerful desktop for 500 less? For sure.
Can I pick up my desktop, throw it in a backpack and run to my friends house to play games, or on a business trip, or home for the holidays? Nope
On my R3 with a 6990m(real close to a desktop 560TI in fps) I can play any games at high-ultra settings with 25-110FPS depending on the game you are talking about. My laptop is more powerful that 90% of my friends desktops. Yes I paid a premuim for it, but it is worth it to me for my needs.
So what do you need?
Edited to add: You want the real take on AW? Check out notebookreview. Some of the smartest and coolest people I've seen on forums. You can get a good handle of things there.
The only good thing about AW warranty is that it's easily exploitable. If you don't know how to do this, and you're not good at talking to outsourced CSRs, then you're out of luck.
That's not my experience. Sorry that it was yours. I can only speak for what I have gone through. Other people should only speak from what they have gone through. Too often that is not the case.
Really?
That's funny, because I can't find a single post in here that actually disagrees with anything you've said. Perhaps you could point them out to me?
No one has ever claimed that it's impossible for someone to have use for a gaming laptop; that would be foolish, given that many of the people in this thread, including those recommending against the purchase of one, own a gaming laptop, including yours truly. Gaming laptops are inferior gamings machines, offering considerably inferior performance at all price points. It's also fully recognized that some people have as much use for the laptop part of a computer as the gaming part.
Can you show me a single post that disagrees, explicitly, or implicitly?
I think im in love, someone else that likes gaming on laptops!
I don't disagree with you - in fact, I use many of the exact same arguments, only I replace Dell/AW with Apple - although I don't push them for gaming, I push them work work/school use.
Let's see:
1. Let's start with post #5: "to answer your question if alienware is worth it the answer is no its over priced for out dated technology".
Out dated technology compared to what? Yeah...that's what I thought. Alienware laptops usually have the most cutting edge laptop tech.
2. Then move to post #12: "Heed my call..stay away from gaming laptop. Edit: Alienware is expensive only bacause of its name. It is nothing spectacular.
Again, opinionated crap. And again, AW are at the top of the game.
3. Then to post #14: "do not look for laptops for gaming. they really are not designed for playing crystc... the sooner people realize you sacrifice high end graphics and system hareware for the ability to lug the computer around the world the quicker they can figure out what they really need a laptop for. "
My gaming laptop sacrifices NO high end graphics. I might not play at 100 FPS like a desktop, but i can turn everything to max and still get smooth framerates.
4. One of my favorites #33: 'Alienware is .... kinda like Bose. It's not bad if you don't know much about computers and have some money to throw around on something that spends more on advertising than research, but anyone that knows anything about them knows there are much better alternatives."
Bwhahahahah. Compare AW and Bose. That was a good one
. And BTW, I bought an AW *BECAUSE* I know a lot about computers, and they were the most lax with letting you tinker with your machine, while still having all the high end toys. There were no better alternatives for me. I've repasted all my dies and replaced heat pads, switched out my drives, had it completely apart just for fun and it's all still under warranty. Many of the avid benchmarkers and smart people who are into laptops choose AW for these reasons.
So there you go, Catamount. Did I satisfy your requirements?
"Alienware laptops usually have the most cutting edge laptop tech."
While Alienware is pretty fast at adopting new processors and video cards, they don't necessarily phase out old technology as soon as the newest stuff is out. They were still selling Core 2 Duo processors earlier this year, though those seem to be gone now.
Their storage options, on the other hand, are rather lacking. I guess "can be modified to get what you want" beats "can't be modified to get what you want", but it's not as good as "is what you want right up front", as is available elsewhere.
"And again, AW are at the top of the game."
Again, it depends on what you get. The M17x and M18x can have some high end laptop gaming hardware inside, depending on how you configure them. The M11x and the M14x, not so much. That's more a problem with the form factor, but if you want a high end gaming laptop smaller than the M17x, Clevo has a 15" one with hardware basically equivalent to the M17x.
"My gaming laptop sacrifices NO high end graphics."
A Radeon HD 6990M is arguably the highest end laptop card today. But high end for a laptop isn't the same as high end period. Here's the nearest equivalent to your card in a desktop:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814161384
Now, that is a capable gaming card. But it's not high end.
1. Just because they don't phase out the old stuff, doesn't mean they don't have the new stuff. That would just be dumb of them and my point stands :P.
2. I have yet to see a manufacturer that I would by the HDD upgrade from rather than putting it in myself for 100 dollars less or more. Even someone with the most basic knowledge of laptops can put in an HDD. But yes, maybe they don't always have the most up to date storage options. I'll give you that. This is opinion on my part.
3. Of course it depends on what you get. You aren't going to cram a 6990m or a 580m into a 14 inch laptop because you'd never be able to manage the heat. We are talking about highest end stuff. Thus the bigger laptops. Clevo does make some pretty nice laptops. I don't doubt they have what you say.
4. You killed me with this one. That card is WAY slower than a 6990m. I have a slight overclock on mine and it performs as well as a Nvidia 560TI in games. On the AMD side it would be equal to a 6870 not a 6850. However, even beyond that what am I sacrificing? To my eye the game looks the same as it does on the high end cards. Sure they can run at higher framerates sometimes, but i have a nice 60hz monitor and use vsync anyway. Therefore I don't need over 60fps. If my eye can't see a difference between this and a high end desktop card, at the same settings, what am I sacrificing? Only some people can even tell a difference between 30 and 60 fps.
Edited for spelling and jazz, cause i screwed up and stuff, yo.
On #2, check here:
http://www.avadirect.com/gaming-laptop-configurator.asp?PRID=19610
They've got a selection to rival New Egg. I think what they do is to take an order, then buy parts to fill your order.
"You killed me with this one. That card is WAY slower than a 6990m. I have a slight overclock on mine and it performs as well as a Nvidia 560TI in games. On the AMD side it would be equal to a 6870."
Nope. You're wildly wrong. The Radeon HD 6850, Radeon HD 6870, and Radeon HD 6990M all use the same "Barts" GPU chip. They're clocked differently, however, with the laptop part optimized for lower power consumption.
Let's compare the specs:
GPU clock speed:
Radeon HD 6850: 775 MHz
Radeon HD 6870: 900 MHz
Radeon HD 6990M: 715 MHz
Number of SIMD engines enabled:
Radeon HD 6850: 12
Radeon HD 6870: 14
Radeon HD 6990M: 14
Memory clock speed:
Radeon HD 6850: 1000 MHz
Radeon HD 6870: 1050 MHz
Radeon HD 6990M: 900 MHz
SIMD engines are the only part of the GPU chip disabled in any of the cards.
On net, the Radeon HD 6850 has more memory bandwidth than the Radeon HD 6990M. It also has better ROP performance, with the same number of ROPs clocked higher. The 6870 beats both of the other cards on both of those counts, with the same hardware clocked higher yet.
The higher clock speed of the 6850 partially compensates for having two SIMD engines disabled, but not entirely, so the 6990M does have about 7% higher shader and TMU performance. The 6870 has all of the hardware enabled, and clocked much higher than either of the other cards, so it wins handily here.
The net result is that a Radeon HD 6850 and Radeon HD 6990M are roughly equivalent, and which will perform better in particular games depends on what the limiting factor is. Both trail well behind the Radeon HD 6870 in gaming performance. And the 6870 itself trails well behind a GeForce GTX 560 Ti. The Nvidia equivalent of a Radeon HD 6870 is a GeForce GTX 560 without the Ti.
dont waste your breath on them nite, i found that out long time ago.
Well since not one of those posts in any way addresses the claim that people might find use for gaming laptops, a considerable portion of your initial post, I guess the correct answer is no.
What do I win?
Sigh... The 6990 is based off of the 6870. Link
Look at the stream processors, texture units, ect. They are the same as the 6870. It *IS* basically a downclocked 6870.
Really hard to compare Benchmarks, due to differing machines and such, but you can get a good idea that they are close with this 6870 and this 6990m.
Ok, I think i'm done with this arguement.
That's what I just said. They both use the Barts GPU chip. The disagreement here is that I'm claiming that clocking it lower makes it perform worse, while you're claiming that clocking it lower makes it perform better.
Sure, cause you will never let it be otherwise. It's not that important to me. I pointed out a bunch of posts in this thread that contradicted what I said, and you still come back with that. Not worth my time, really.
Bleh, I would never say that. What I said was that the performance is basically a 6870. With my sligh OC it matches the 6870.
You were saying it only matched a 6850, which it does not, even at stock clocks it is faster than a 6850.
I can see how it wouldn't be worth your time to present examples that don't exist, since none of the ones you did present in any way addressed the above topic.
So... what do I win?
Why then do you keep saying it's as fast as a GeForce GTX 560 Ti?
Overclocking the GPU by 26% to reach 6870 stock speeds is rather more than a "slight" overclock.
I'm saying that having a little better shader (7%) and TMU (7%) performance and a little worse ROP (8%) and memory (10%) performance means that the cards are on net about even. You do realize that there are several different types of components in a GPU that contribute to gaming performance, don't you?