NVIDIA GeForce GTX 480M SLI

is their any laptop out there that offers this feature. if not will there be in the future. obviously their is the dilemma of having a power supply that can handle it. also your laptop would probably be noisy and get very hot quickly. lol and talk about battery life. anyways i just want to hear some thoughts. to be honest is sli or crossfire even worth the hassle. i hear their is not good driver support so for now it be best avoided.

 

Yea, there is a clevo coming out with it. But I would get the Alienware with dual 5870, dual 480M is going to be not only power hungry but HOT.

 

For the price, its better to just buy a 5870 and upgrade in 2 years when it will only play games at medium on 1080p(lol?)

 

Dual 8800m GTXs from well over 2 years ago can play games on high settings still, I don't expect that to change for these cards either. Im thinking you were being sarcastic though.

 

okay when is clevo releasing their dual 480m.

also where can i find dual 5870 other then alienware.

if i were to buy a dual 480m or a dual 5870 in the future what is an adequate cpu and memory to go with that.

also ssd is preferred but what ever hard drive i choose does not really affect my computers performance in regards to cpu and gpu.

 

For memory and cpu, I think you should get 4GBs memory, and an i7 cpu. If you gaming that is. Also if you doing virtual machines, etc, you may want at least 8GBs memory.

 

bumpity bump

 

Alienware is the only company ATM who is selling dual 5870s. Dual 480 is not out yet. Alienware is your best bet.

 

I'd wait for the dual 480M solution from Alienware. At least then if you like the Clevo more, you know that competition between the two will keep your pricing reasonable. It may be a month or so, but not too long really now that Clevo is coming out with one.

 

dont forget, the adapter too must be upgraded in order to supply enough power.

 

what adapter???

 

The AC adapter. Considering how much power each 480m sucks up, that's gonna be one big power brick...

 

480M isn't as big a power grabber (compared to the 5870) as it might seem. TDP figures for the 5870 don't include the memory.

Anyway, lot of folks naysay stuff they haven't seen in action. Whereas I have seen the driver issues of the 5870 in action, and that's a real problem.

 

Totally agree...

lol at most the 5870 grabs 75W of power including everything.. the 480 uses 25% more power easily for less than 10% more performance...

 

According to every sales agent I've spoke with at Dell/Alienware (3 different ones thus far) they do not support dual 5870's - the 350$ upgrade is a rip. I've asked them over and over what I actually get for the extra money and their answer is CrossFireX; however I have pointed out to them that by definition there must be 2 graphics cards in order for CrossFireX to be supported. You are still only getting 1 card in the M17X and on top of that they do not support an ssd drive + addional drive and are using the 920MX cpu instead of a 980 so I would highly suggest against this machine!

I do not have one and I'm no expert but I aksed 3 separate sales people and they all say it's a single graphics card and cannot give me any validity for the 350$ upgrade at all.

 

I can validate that Sean is correct here. The 5870 uses 75W and the 480m's use 100W - it's gonna be power hungry but last I checked power is cheap and when was the last time you really used your battery? I personaly can't say in the past 5 years I've used my battery for more than 5 hours total.

 

What FXi is saying is the 75W TDP quoted for the 5870 is only for the GPU, excluding the GDDR RAM, whereas the 100W quoted for the 480M includes the GDDR RAM. In reality they're much closer than 25W difference the two numbers are showing.

 

! i just ordered one this week with what i thought was duals! If thats the case when i get it im going to tell them to shove it up there asses!

 

You're severely misinformed or simply trolling, the M17x has two graphics cards (2 x 5870) in Crossfire mode. And no SSD support? What are you smoking? The M17x supports 2 HDD's, RGB LED display, Dual graphics cards in Crossfire, Intel i7-940xm, etc etc.

 

You should certainly educate yourself a little more before talking to sales reps. They are there to sell you something, not actually help you. Hence the term "Sales rep". The fanboys in this forum are also a threat.

The Clevo x7200 will also support Crossfire 5870, I think. Both the M17x and the x7200 are solid notebooks, but one is simply more powerful and most likely less portable and expensive (the x7200).

 

There's nothing wrong with CrossFireX on Alienware M17xR2. You do get 2 MR5870 cards. I don't know what exactly the sales rep told TheCK, but SSDs are just another storage device, and you can choose to include SSDs in your customization, so they're supported. Also the M17x use mobile CPU, hence the 920XM. The 980 Core i7 is desktop CPU.

 

X7200 costs more than an M17x but that's with the 480M SLI config. Not sure how it prices out with the dual 5870s. It also lacks RGB LED. I've been considering it for the 480M SLi but I'm waiting on solid reviews. I'd advise against ATi video cards because the drivers aren't the best.

 

Im not sure but the cf 5870 is probably one card but has two GPUs on it.

 

No mobile graphic card has two GPU on it.

 

The m1730 SLI is one card but has two GPUs on it.

 

That's correct. I was wrong. But that's the only one that exist, and it was a Dell custom order.

 

I don't believe I'm either and I believe that if you read my post you would have a better understanding rather than just trolling yourself I'm simply trying to be useful and attempting to assist - I am not portraying myself as the expert - only someone who has done some research and asked questions to representatives who have checked on their side.

As I've stated I do not own 1 of these machines. I have talked with 3 separate sales representatives at Dell/AW and all have told me the same thing. If you look at the options when you configure there are 3 options:

1GB ATI Radeon™ Mobility HD 5870
Dual 1GB ATI Radeon™ Mobility HD 4870 in CrossfireX
CrossfireX™ 1GB ATI Radeon™ Mobility HD 5870

Notice that the dual 4870's have the actual term DUAL in them and that the 3rd option does not say Dual but simply CrossfireX. This is what I have pointed out and again stated that CrossfireX cannot be used without a 2nd card which is why I say that it's a rip.

2ndly if you read my post it states:
an ssd drive + addional drive
which is me saying you cannot order it with an SSD drive + an additional data drive not me saying it does not have SSD available. So to break it down in case you are still confused you can't order it with 128gb ssd+ 500gb sata for storage. It has a bay but you can't order it together like that.

Lastly I must correct you that no the system does not have a configuration with the 940xm - the top CPU you can currently configure is: Intel® Core™ i7 920XM 2.0GHz (3.2GHz Turbo Mode, 8MB Cache.

I again am just trying to provide insight to people when I've done my research to the best of my ability but will be happy to view a link to rebuddle any of my insight as incorrect. --CK

 

lol for me its a big deal.. in the last 20 months when i have had my laptop, i've used the battery half the time..

actually , the TDP without the RAM is 50W but about 75W for the whole card and RAM.. IMO , 60W will be closer to it but whatever , the cons of having a 480M outdo the pros..

 

Go to Dell, download the service manual or the Comprehensive Specifications for the M17x r2. It supports 2 MXM 3.0 cards up to 150 watts total.

And never trust a Dell sales rep. They are only moderately more reliable than Best Buy reps.

 

Interesting, do you have a link for that?

 

Yes, I'd like to see some proof of your statements as well.

 

1st- dual GPUs and crossfire GPUs is the same thing. If you only happen to have 1 5870m in your laptop it would not even be called a crossfire, the word your looking for is called a single GPU.

2nd-if you want the traditional hard drive plus a SSD, order the hard drive then put the SSD in yourself, less then a 5 min. job.

3rd-the i7 940xm is not even out yet or just came out, give it some time for the manufactures to post it on the configuration list. In other words, give it a month.

4th-never trust sales reps. from any company. They are there is sell sell and make money. Talk to the sales reps then go out and do your own homeowork.

 

ATI Mobility Radeon? HD 5870 GPU Specifications

look all the way at the bottom.

but the problem is that Ati never stats if that is the entire card or only just the core without memory. nobody knows, Ati never says anything.

Nvdia stats that the 75w TDP is for the entire card.

 

Thanks. I see that. And Nvidia states that the TDP for 480M is 100w for the entire card.

 

well my points proven but i wouldn't believe what NVDIA says about ATI's card.. after all , it has to show its 480M's 100W so called TDP isn't astronomical and only slightly more than its competitors.

 

Even with all that said, the 480M is proven to be running cool enough. I haven't seen any owner of the laptop cries about the heat. In fact, people are underestimating the heat produces by the 5870m that their laptop are running hotter than laptops with 480M. For example, see http://forum.notebookreview.com/sager-clevo/502164-clevo-w870cu-system-specs.html#post6548288

In fact, with all that said, I wouldn't believe the numbers that AMD/ATI are putting out for the 5870m.

 

But you did see the cooling approach right?
With the "copper coffin HS" 3 pipes and 2 fans - no wonder. Let's wait till the first SLI configs appear.

The M7820(5870) in my HP stays under 85C in Furmark and that's with a thin aluminum HS, 2 very thin pipes and a single fan for both 840QM and the card Not to mention that the laptop itself is only about 4cm thick (including the lid and rubber feet). BTW, I decided to grab the FX5000M when it's launched and compare the temps/performance/TDP.

 

True, the cooling is gigantic comparatively. But my point is laptops with 480M run cool just like (if not better than) current laptop. So all those cries about how laptops with 480M are going to run hot are all gone now. Gigantic, special cooling, or not. In fact, people with 5870m in their laptops are the one crying now. AMD/ATI must fix this issue.

I can't wait to see your FX5000M comparison. If you can check whether the CUDA double precision on the FX5000M is full speed or throttled, that's all I'm interested in frankly. By the way, I sold the 8540w and bought an NP9285 from RJTech, running OpenSuSE. Idle temp 49*C in a 73*F room. Max temp I've gotten so far running a CUDA job is 71*C, but that was in a warm room where it idles at 58*C.

 

Nice! More and more I crave for a Clevo system....

 

I heard of this nice Clevo system that's coming out later this year...what is it, the x7200 (sp??) if I recall correctly...

 

its still an if unlike the M17x.