Alienware Area-51 m9750 or Dell XPS M1730?

A

Apollo1020

Geek Trainee
I need your advice on choosing a gaming notebook. Which is more on gaming, Alienware's Area-51 m9750 or Dell's XPS M1730? m9750 has dual graphics cards on 1GB and XPS M1730 has dual graphics cards on 512MB. But, m9750 has 2.33GHz processor and XPS M1730 has Extreme 2.80GHz processor. So it means, that Alienware has more graphics and Dell has more processor power. I wonder, will the game lag if it will require more, than 512MB of graphics or everything depends on processor's power? I ask this, because I want to buy Dell's XPS M1730 and I want to know, which notebook is better for games. What is more important for gaming, processor or graphics cards? Will it lag with good processor but low graphics or it will not?

Thank you. Big B, your reply is always needed too.
 
give us more detail please, what exact processor and what graphics cards each notebook have, then we may get a little further ;)
 
Alienware's Area-51 m9750: processor 2.33GHz (Core 2 Duo), 1GB of graphics.
Dell's XPS M1730: processor 2.80GHz (Core 2 Extreme), 512MB of graphics.

I wonder which system is more on gaming and will the game lag if it will require more, than 512MB of graphics, but with good processor like on M1730.
 
Don't judge the graphics by the amount of RAM the card has. A cheap trick commonly used is pairing a low or mid-range graphics chipset with a ton of RAM. The chip itself is the major determining factor in terms of performance.

The Dell uses the GeForce 8700 while the Alienware uses the 7800GTX. Off-hand I don't know where the 8700 stands, but the 8600GTS was roughly comparable to the 7900GS, maybe a little lower in terms of performance. The 7900GS was comparable to the 7800GTX and about 1/3 the price.
My guess is, in single or SLI configurations, the graphics are about equal. Even with more video RAM, if your not running high enough settings, more doesn't mean better performance. If the chip is able to pull that kind of load at an acceptable framerate and can make use of the larger amount of RAM, the option with dual 512MB cards should have the edge. On the flipside, don't dole out too much because the difference has typically been negligible.

A CPU is important, but not the end-all, be all in terms of gaming.
 
Ah, well I have been doing reading up on the 8 Series GPu's. Now I am no expert on laptops / other mobile equipment, but in the long run, the 8700 is going to be better, because it will have direct X 10 hardware level, despite it possibly being a little less powerful than the 7800GTX - BUT only at Direct X 9 Hardware level games.

I have heard Direct X 10 is less work for the video card in some aspects, despite it looking better, so low-midrange cards will perform better in the future when Direct X 10 has gone a little more mainstream. Direct X 9 Cards will become obselete once games only support DX10, and even the less powerful DX10 cards will be able to run these newer games.

This is highly comparable to when Rainbow Six Vegas came out for PC - it required S M Shader model 3 or something, which at the time of release, the well known Radeon x800 series were very good cards, and still kick ass today, but one thing they lacked was this SM3 support, so less powerful geforce 6 series cards, could run the game, plus being cheaper hardware.

In the short run however, the 7800GTX is going to give you more of a boost for Direct X 9 Games, but once games go Direct X 10, its practically dead. But again, as B said, I myself have not read up on the 8700 GPu in particular
 
So which system is more on gaming? m9750 or XPS M1730? I will concider to place an order tomorrow, so I need your final advice.

m9750: processor 2.33GHz, 1GB of graphics.
XPS M1730: processor 2.80GHz Extreme, 512MB of graphics.

Will it lag if the game will require more than 512MB of graphics, but with 2.80GHz Extreme processor?

Thanks.
 
Games don't require 512MB of graphics yet, and probably won't for a while, 256MB is still good, plus video RAM is mostly for when you put the resolution higher on a game, which a laptop screen won't go dead high anyway.

The Dell is a better choice; its more powerful, more future proof, and has a physics processor.

Get the DELL
 
The extra RAM is only used if needed. If you're not looking to run a resolution past 1024x768 frequently or at all, 512MB per card is overkill. At that point, I'd go with whatever is cheaper.
 
Thanks rimmer, I think Dell is better too, but I need some more information on FPS before I could buy.

I'm planning to run games on 1920x1200 resolution, Big B.

Will the game lag if it will require more than 512MB of RAM on my resolution, but with 2.8GHz Extreme processor?

Thanks.
 
That would tend to go to the textures, but in general, that is a resolution where the 512MB per card option would help. Your FPS probably won't jump that much, but, in comparison to the 256MB option, you should find a smoother experience.
The more detailed the textures are, the larger they are. If the textures exceed the amount of RAM on the card, the system has to jump back to the hard drive, and that causes lag due to the mechanical nature of your hard drive.
 
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