Stuck in between.

the MSIGX640 and the MSIGX740



Can anyone help me decide? Gee... its only $200 difference... I might be able to save a bit more and get it...

 

Gaming on a 17incher is better ... and the 5870 is like 20% more powerful (something like that) .. Get it !

 

What about temperatures and such, are they fine? cool? hot?
It all depends on whether I have money or not...

But honestly, would I go wrong with the GX640?

 

No , the gx640 is a very good machine in itself .. But I would personally go for the 740 , gaming on a 15inch is just weird

IMO 200$ for a 5870 and 17screen is well worth it

Temps can be dealt with

 

My 2 cents - have the GX640. My 1st gaming laptop and desktop replacement. No real complaints except screen size. I'm used to a 20" monitor. The 15.4 screen looks good, just seems too small for me. Will probably be trading up next week.

From what I've read the 740 isn't that much bigger overall so less of an issue if you need portability than say moving to an ASUS G73. Those are monsters.

 

> . <!!!!!! UGH
Insert curse words here: _______________________



Ok, I expect more feedback...
Its a real real biggie...

Czechflyer, gamed any yet?


Btw, I configured a GX740 @ gentechPC and REMOVED the bluray for a 8x DVD/CD, came out in $1303 O_O! NOT BAD!!!
I might go for it...

 

It's a nobrainer man .. 740 is better overall. Good luck

 

Gamed some but haven't had a chance to do much. I'm not a FPS player so what I have tried hasn't pushed the rig at all. Will play more this weekend.

I also was looking at Gentech w/o the bluray. Very good price.

 

You can never go wrong with larger screens and larger laptops...

Unless you are going for sth portable,

but then the reason I use the gx740 chassis is because I love the slim and thinness of a MSI 17".

 

I also spoke to Ken @ Gentech today. He said the 740 is due in next Friday. Hold-up has been a shortage of 5870's in the manufacturing pipeline.

 

Wow, thank you...

 

I got GX640, because I saw my roommates pain in the past when he wants to carry his 17 incher Gateway to an university class or something like that. And I travel quite often (still love gaming too much) - so keeping ballance between mobility and power - GX640 is ideal for me.
However, if you're planning to leave your notebook on a table 95% of the time, 17" GX740 is a great choice.

 

The difference is 12% in core clock speed, so that's the maximum difference you would expect.
Still, an extra $300 for the CPU and GPU difference doesn't seem worth it to me - the main reason to get the GX740 is the 17" screen and not the hardware - as long as you're happy with the extra weight of the 17".

 

lackofcheese
how is that 12% translated into games?
ie,
Crysis running @ 33.9 FPS all high with the 5870 vs Crysis running @ ____ FPS all high with the 5850?

 

Overclocking potentials are way different.

12%+@, easily reaching more than 20%, is the difference.

 

I would guess around 30 FPS.

I don't think so, actually. Considering the 5850 is basically the same card as the 5870 but with lower clocks, I'd imagine that the 5850 would have more overclocking headroom. Cooling would make a difference, but from what I gather the GX740's cooling is very similar, so I imagine the GX640 would actually have more overclocking potential than the GX740.

 

Why would the 640 have more room and not the 740 ? Makes no sense

 

Depends which architecture there based off, i think they're the mobile equivalents of 5750/70.

 

Check AMD's site.
Mobility HD 5850
Mobility HD 5870

The specs are pretty much the same apart from clock speeds, and Wikipedia says both cores have the Broadway architecture, which makes sense. As a general rule, lower cards in the same series tend to be more overclockable (as a percentage) than higher ones.

Of course, I can't guarantee this, because who knows what else AMD does with these cards in their fabs.

 

Its hard to say, AMD seem to be quite good with card releases, they dont tend to base everything of the g92 core (Nvidia jokes haha) anyway,

The same with CPU's really, the higher clocked ones are actually the lower clocked ones overclocked with some modification and revision (Steps etc etc.) lol.

 

Hm...
So
I know that i'll be all powerfull running the 5870...
But, 5~8 fps difference isnt much...
between 5870 & 5850

unless you say a game runs 31fps +/- 1 frame... vs a 5850's 24/25 fps difference... its a bit noticeable?

 

If the 5850 runs something at 25 fps, you could expect ~28 fps from the 5870.

 

dang.
wat do?

gx640 or gx740

 

Just make a post in the "What Notebook Should I Buy?" subforum. Filling out the FAQ should help you sort out your priorities.

Personally, I bought the GX640 for its light weight and low price, and the GX740 doesn't compete in those areas. At the higher price of the GX740, competition from Sager and ASUS really kicks in.

 

Already did fill the form, some time ago...
Decided that I wanted warranty as a priority,
Downs it to MSI or Acer.

Portability? Meh, I'm a 6'4'' guy, Big things seem small next to me... So it doesnt matter... I'm out of college, studying a master's degree and there's plenty of room there...
@ home The laptop is stationary plugged to AC.

It really came down to price between the 640 and the 740...
but seeing that gentech pc lets me remove bluray, and get $100 off...
I can get 740 for $1300....
not bad..
I'm gonna go for the 740... but if anything happens in between, i get mugged, or i have no choice, then it'll be the 640

 

Hmm, $1300 is pretty good for the GX740. With the bigger screen (same resolution, though, mind you) it's a good option.

 

i ADDED a blu-ray from xotic on the 640. came, with shipping, to $1302

 

Sweet...
I really dont need bluray (have bluray player)...
So -$100 on the GX740 is welcome...

 

Good choice

 

Maybe it's just me, but I think you owe something for spouting off totally incorrect information throughout most of this thread...

The difference between the two cards is fairly minor; they're both underclocked HD 5770s.

 

So going with the GX740 is bad?

I'm just saying I can get both, the GX640 and the GX740 for almost the same price, maybe a $50 or $100 difference...

I fell in love with the GX640 because of my tight budget...
Its a great machine with only the 5850 clocks being lower than the 5870, their performance is almost the same (minimal difference)...
I'd be glad to have a GX640...

But given that I can get the GX740 for a $50~$100 difference, I get i7, and 5870... which is not bad at all...

Even so, if I can't, I'm going 100% with the GX640...

Death isn't giving incorrect information, he's just pointing out things... I guess..

Mr Jaerb4, what do you suggest I do?

 

Where do you get the $50~$100 difference from? It should be $150-$200 even when you downgrade from the Blu-Ray on the GX740.

 

From the cash flow in my wallet, dear sir

Oh, and its not a difference from the final price,

its that, originally the difference was $200,
with the bluray from the gx740 removed, makes a $96 difference... from its original price

 

Actually the difference is quite significant, it may just be clocks but its safe to say the 5870 will pretty much win every challange when facing the little brother head to head, the clock change may be a massive difference assuming games will catch up to the power of the GPU, thats why i want people to run this lovely dx11 bench.

 

What? There is simply no way 625MHz to 700MHz could be a massive difference. A 12% difference in clock speed will be a 12% difference in performance at most, never more. Overclockability is a different question, but we can't know about that one for sure until we've seen it tested.

Granted, the CPU will make a big difference in some benchmarks, especially ones that are very heavily CPU-influenced like 3DMark06, but I doubt this dx11 bench of yours is CPU-bound.

 

If you attempt to work performances off the clocks alone it wont work, we tried this with the 4850 v 4870 and the results just weren't in scale at all,

The 5850 and 5870 are different cards too, with different core revisions from what i've read, this could also mean the difference in other feature hardware if there are any... (Tesselation processors blah blah) could easily effect frame performance,



Does that dx11 program have a benchmark mode? That'l be able to tell us nicely.

 

I agree..
I need to see some real 5850 vs 5870 tests

 

Dont worry ben, i'm going to make people run it , from what i say the 5870 runs it magnificantly and looks beaut, with the tesselation processors working immediately with no delay or chugging or rendering issues, heck ATI have really done a good job of this new hardware.

 

In my perpetual battles to decide between a gx640, gx740, sager 8690, and a barebnes 1727 (from btotech, really good deal) . . . I'm back to thinking the gx740 is the one for me.

With dropping the blue-ray player, adding IC-dimond thermal paste, an the 3% cash discount from gentech, I'll be able to get the thing for $1297 . . . which is an AMAZING price for essentially the best laptop hardware you get get.

While the screen quality isn't supposed to be steller, it does have my preferred resolution in a 17" size, which will make it good for non-gaming work as it's easier to read text and the like. Does anyone know if the gx740 as the semi-gloss finish as the gx640 does? Doesn't matter either way.

In comparison to the sager 8690 (essentially the same hardware), the gx740 has a little bigger sized footprint, but it's thinner and weights the same. so no huge difference in portability. Plus it will get better battery life. Will the gx740 get 2-hours?

Anyway, good to hear that the resellers are expecting these to arrive next week. Exciting!

 

Hop aboard, matey!
...
and curse you because you get the %3 discount...
I can't, since paying with credit card is my only option...

 

Dang! BTOtech's barebones really is a deal............

Almost $100 less than what I paid for to get it from RK....

 

Btw, guys check this out

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nyVomeaGSBk (running on G73)
vs
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-EwsZBGl0BI (running on MS-1727 (GX740))

with the following differnces:
~ GX740 running @ 1050 instead of 1080
~ G73 using 8GB Ram

Thoughts?

 

Thoughts : The 740 should be ripping the 73 a new one.

 

Should? 10char.

 

Sorry: Will...

 

What miss information ? I said there's a 20% difference between the 2 and lackofcheese "corrected" it by saying 13.. Where's the misinformation ?

An Oc'd 5870 will perform better than a 5850 overclocked. Why going going for the 640 when the price for the 740 is only 200 (from what he said , i haven't checked)

And read this:

 

It's possible there will be other differences, but the only thing we know for sure at the moment is that there's a 12% difference in stock clocks. Any other claim on the matter needs testing.

Personally, I think the $200 cheaper price is a plenty good enough reason to go with the GX640, though.

The lower native resolution is a definite advantage for framerates on the GX740, but I think the G73JH will probably get higher safe overclock levels due to better cooling.

 

Its not just the clocks, its the cores too,

Ones broadway pro (5850) and ones broadway XT (5870) i think, just like the 4850 and 4870, Well i dont think the 4850 had any extention but the 4870 had the xt core,

 

Yeah, but without knowing what the actual differences in the cores are, we can't judge the performance apart from with benchmarks.

 

Benchmarks, the AA facilities being tested and ofc DX11 features like tesselation, but vantage, didn't the 5870 have like an extra 1k ontop of gpu?