I'm deciding whether I want to build a gaming desktop, or go for a gaming laptop. Yes, I know the best bang-for-buck is always with desktops, but portability is nice. Anyway, I was looking at the Alienware m11x. It's top performance options are: -1.3 GHz Cor 2 Duo -8GB DDR3 (1330 Mhz) -Geforce G335M Currently, my desktop is: -Intel Q6600 Quad Core (2.4 GHz) -6GB DDR2 (800 Mhz) -9800 GT Everyone is talking about how "stunning" this m11x is. How would this compare to my desktop? I assume my desktop would blow it out of the water... What do I have to get in a laptop to be the same or better? I assume a mobile i7, but I have no idea what compares in mobile graphics cards, as well as overall system effectiveness because of limited power usage and heat buildup.
You are right...a 1.3GHZ core2Duo is downright sad; even by laptop standards. There was a time when alienware made great laptops...that all ended when Dell bought them...now the top-end Dell laptops are just as good if not better. Now they are releasing a new laptop with a CPU that is slower than what I have in my 3-year-old econo-book. The GT 335M is an entry-level chip; not very powerfull, and it needs a good, fast CPU just to be able to play most games with turned-down settings. Since this laptop does not have a fast CPU, it cannot play most new games unless you turn all the settings to minimum. That is OK, because it was never intended for gaming...even the nVidia website only briefly mentions gaming, they focus more on the Cuda/windows desktop features that you would probably never use anyway. Dell knows all this, but they are not above selling you a POS with the false promises of performance.
I agree about what the m11x is on paper, but independent reviews say it can run mass effect two with max detail in every category at 30-40 fps. I don't believe it, but multiple sites say it... I'm more concerned with finding a different laptop with consistently the same or better performance as my desktop.... I do like the lighting effects on the Alienware stuff, though I agree 100% that they cost way too much. What is equal to a q6600 quad, 6gb ddr2 ram, and a 9800 gt in the mobile world?
The problem with that is that you cannot run Mass Effect 2 anywhere near maximum resolution with that tiny 11" screen. If you were to drop the resolution on your desktop down to the resolution of the 11" screen, you would probably be at about 120FPS. Also, it is not a DX11 video chipset; so some of the features are just disabled, and can never be enabled at all. The Dell Studio XPS 16 is only $1600...it has a much better video chip, and a processor that is more than twice as fast (for some things, it is even faster than your desktop CPU). It also has a 16" screen...so you can actually see the image.
The Alienware M15x with the i7 820QM CPU, GTX260M GPU, the 1920x1080 screen, 4GB of dual channel PC10666 and a 500GB drive wil be a fairly good approximation of your gaming desktop. It costs $2349 at that spec (with a long-lige battery included, high performance laptops basically can't be run unplugged from the mains unless they have extra-capacity batteries, even with the bigger battery, gaming battery life will likely be 20-25 minutes max) Long story short, "gaming laptops" aren't gaming PCs. The technology just isn't there to get a high-end gaming PC in the space of a laptop, and certainly not for a reasonable price.
How is the i7 720QM, 6gb 1333mhz ddr3 ram, and a raedon hd4670 in comparison (the XPS 16) to my desktop? Are the xps 16s the best deal in gaming laptops?
The 720QM is probably a slightly slower CPU, and the HD4670 Mobile is a substantially slower graphics card than your 9800GT, it's probably half as powerful at most. Dell XPS laptops have always been good, but since the Alienware/Dell merger, the high-end XPS brand is slowly being killed off, the best XPS laptop you can get now is the studio 16 which is only a midrange laptop.
Still, if you want to get a "gaming" laptop for less than the price of a used car, the XPS is a good choice...think of it as a very fast honda; and the alienware is a very slow porsche.
A strange analogy, but it's a rough approximation - the Alienware is the overpriced premium product, where you pay a lot more for the same performance but no low-performance products are offered. The XPS range spans from weaker specs, but works out a lot cheaper for the performance.
Very true. I guess ill have to stick with desktops... maybe this should be a new topic, but what do I need to run games like crysis, crysis warhead, and the upcoming crysis 2 FULL DETAIL? Mine runs crysis with everything on high at 1380x768 (or whatever it is) with no AA fairly well, but I'm tired of it. I'm thinking i7 (not sure which one) 8gb+ of ddr3 ram @ 1333mhz (isn't there a 1600mhz, worth it?) Geforce gtx 295 Would like a 10000 rpm drive, but is the wait for solid state to be cheap worth it? I am running a 40" 1080p tv as my monitor, how would this do?
Don't buy a GTX295, it's an outdated, overpriced card, which relies on SLI to function (a technology that doesn't work with all games) and uses a vast amount of power. You'd be better off with a Core i5 750 (cheaper than i7s and better for gaming), and something like a Radeon HD5970 - still a dual card, but much more powerful than the GTX295. Or alternatively you could buy two HD5870s and run them in crossfire the traditional way. If you want to play games like Crysis smoothly at maximum detail, then you will need some serious graphics power. Using HDTVs as monitors works, as long as you sit a reasonable distance away. The pixel definition of HDTVs is very low compared to monitors, so you won't be able to sit at desk distance and see a nice picture.
