NVIDIA Geforce GT 555m (m14x) vs. NVIDIA Geforce GTX 560 (m17x)

Should I be regretting not getting the m17x for its GTX 560 graphics card? How much better is the performance? I like the m14x because of the size issue (I fly internationally with it) but wonder if I am missing out on games with ultra-high settings?

Can someone tell me if the m14x handles most games better than consoles in terms of the graphics quality and FPS's?

 

The GT 555m GPU is more powerful than the GPU in both PS3 and 360, and the M14x has a lot more memory available both for the system and the GPU.

Don't forget that the Xbox 360 and PS3 are 5+ year old hardware. Most games on consoles run in 720p (and some even lower), which is a lower resolution than both native resolution of the displays available for the M14x.

To answer your question a bit differently:
If you hook up a M14x to a TV, connect a Xbox 360 controller for Windows and fire up a game in 720p you can crank the settings a lot higher than the Xbox 360 or PS3 version of the game.

The M17x is of course a lot more powerful (and bigger in size) system than M14x.

 

So let's say I run any game like Crysis 2, Fallout: New Vegas or Dragon Age on the m14x. If I run those games on medium settings, is that still visually better than consoles?

I know the m17x is more powerful but it is quite large (all 17 inch laptops look awkward to me). So if I can get as good or better graphics quality as the xbox 360 for these new games like Skyrim and Battlefield 3 on my m14x, then I will be pretty pleased with that. Do you think that is possible?

 

Yes, it's much much better than consoles. The M14x runs all three of those games, 2 I know for a fact you can max out completely.

 

Yeah, I have BFBC2 on both xbox 360 and my m14x. On xbox, at 1080p, it looks like the first version of pong compared to my m14x. There's so much more detail on my m14x, and it plays smoother.

 

You also have to take into consideration you can tweak graphics settings on PC games depending on how powerful or not powerful your PC is. PC games will always look better than the console equivalent because you can adjust those parameters. And as DarkFrame said, these consoles are using older technology. As for regretting not getting a M17x instead, that is really all user preference. If you need portability with power stay with the M14x if you want a less portable but more powerful laptop go with the M17x. It all depends on your needs.

 

Plus most game are lock at 30 framerate, take BFBC2 for eg, and BF3 as well, and M14x can actually run at 60 so it will made the PC seem much faster and smoother.

But you may see it on Console it seem to run smoothly not because of it is better, but because of the Dev are usually optimize the game to run smoothly with console. And of course you cant really compare console with PC since today's Gaming PC are having at least 4GB of DDR3 RAM.

Anyway back to topic, for GT555M it is the best of the med-range card, while the GTX 560M is the lowest end of the high-end card See GT555M vs GTX560M 3DMark Vantage, and as for M17x it is larger mean it is less portable while in exchange of higher performance.

 

True, I forgot the mention that. VERY few games on consoles run at 60 fps, almost all games run at 30 fps. 60 fps feels alot smoother for the human eye. You can also turn on and off vsync in game or in the graphics driver if you don't like tearing. On consoles, you are stuck with either vsync on or off.

 

im in same boat. i was really tempyed to sell m14x and get m17x.
but the laptop is still a beast i was feeling down when trying to run crysis at a good rate. crysis is a pain in the to run. good game though

 

I haven't tried Crysis2 myself, but I've seen several YouTube videos of Crysis2 running well on the M14x.

I think you will be surprised of how much bigger a 17" laptop is compared to a 14".

 

I can vouch for Crysis 2 running well on an M14x, check my YouTube for videos of it maxxed out at 1600x900

 

Did you install new drivers other than the factory defaults? If so, which one and is there any danger in installing a new driver? Will it void the warranty?

 

lol no it wont void anything. 280.26 is the official one from Nvidia drivers.

 

Ok so I know I asked this before but can someone explain exactly how to download and correctly install 280.26? Someone gave me a link to a site but I have no idea where to put the modded .inf file. Also that site has a lot of disclaimers about modded .inf's so makes me worry about the warranty a bit.

 

At the time of filming no. But I did just install the 285.xx beta yesterday