Dell XPS - GeForce Video Cards

I am looking at a new laptop - the different video cards are confusing me. How do these compare? Specifically with SL?

NVIDIA SLI Dual GeForce 8800M GTX with 1GB GDDR3 Memory (1000 USD extra)
NVIDIA SLI Dual GeForce 8700MGT with 512MB GDDR3 Memory (300 USD extra)
NVIDIA GeForce 8700M GT with 512 GDDR3 Memory ("free"/default)

Bigger is better.......

The 2nd video card listed is the same as the 3rd. It's just that with the 2nd option there's actually two 8700M's running side by side in one machine. That's basically what the "SLI" means.

But why is there no option to have a single 8800M GTX?. Huh?

The price will help you not be confused. The higher the better.



Spend as much as possible....and dont skimp on 4yr warranty--even accidental damage you will use this a long time (4 years at least)

Pfft.. women.

Well, the first way they compare is obvious. Two of the three options on your list give you two video cards, while the third option only gives you one. Theoretically, bridging two graphics cards together (called SLI) gives you better video performance, since you've got double the processing power. In practice, it's not always that simple (Vista and SLI, for example, don't have the happiest history together, while XP loves SLI).

As for the cards themselves, to compare them, you can read all the specs for yourself at http://www.nvidia.com/object/geforce_8m.html

The spec differences are as follows:

The 8800M GTX has the triple the stream processors of the 8700M GT (96 vs. 32)
The 8700M GT (surprisingly) has a faster core clock speed (625 MHz vs. 500)
The shader clock speeds between the two are identical
They both have the same maximum memory (but based on your description, Dell is giving you only half the memory with the 8700's as with 8800's.)
The memory interface in the 8800 has double the bit depth of that of the 8700 (256-bit vs 12

What does all that mean? You're gonna get significantly better performance out of the 8800 than the 8700. Will that difference be enough to justify the extra $700? Only you can answer that. If you have the money, I say go for it. The more power you invest in today, the longer it will be before you have to replace the machine later. If money is tight right now, then the 8700's will probably do you fine.

Even the single 8700 is probably still OK. My last laptop had just a 256MB 8600 in it, and it ran SL great.



The jury is still out on whether SLI is worthwhile for SL. On my desktop, I get about a 30% boost in FPS in SL when I enable SLI (under XP). Other people report it makes no difference, or in some cases, that it actually slows it down. It varies from machine to machine.

If it were me, as I said, I'd go for the 8800's if I had the extra money. If not, then the 8700 is a fine card too.





I might question the wisdom in getting a Dell at all these days but that's another discussion.

Oddly enough...I have a dell xps410 desktop with nvidia geforce7600 that I update drivers when applicable and SL runs absolutely great with it.
Eventually I'm sure we'll get a new vid card....but honestly, this little gem is fabulous for SL.

Fashionable to bash Vista, Fashionable to Bash Dell.


Aesop anyone?

XP is to Vista as 2000 professional was to XP.

Relative to all other computer builders, Dell, who also owns Alienware, is top of the game, with any kind of latest customization and detail one could ever want. If you have the better warranties, for XPS or ALX, (Dell, Alienware,) you are covered and Dell is even more prompt then Alienware and prompt action as hassle free as possible is the most important thing.

Thanks everyone - especially Chosen - I had been looking for information to compare, but got a tad frustrated before I found the information you did.

Why dell? They have excellent machines - I have past experience with them - plus through my RL work, I get a good discount. And Dell "accident" protection is a great plus - 149 USD for oopsies and lojack for if it gets lost.

I still welcome more opinions! Keep them coming!

Dell owns Alienware?! I've learned something today.

Rebecca, relax. Instead of assuming I just fell of of some band wagon, how about looking at the actual facts of what I said? I wasn't "bashing" anyone, and "fashion" has nothing to do with it.

It is a fact that Vista and SLI have not had a good relationship. It's only pretty recently that SLI even works with Vista at all, and it still doesn't do it all that well. Vista does have some good qualities, but SLI support is not one of them.

I would invite you to consider the possibility that the reason so many people don't like Vista is because it actually is flawed in some important ways. It's rather insulting of you, when someone points a very real issue, to dismiss it out of hand as some kind of attempt to look trendy. I can assure you I'd be the first to recommend Vista, just like I recommend all kinds of other things, if it were to work well for the topic at hand. But the sad truth is that it just doesn't. I can assure you I'm not sticking with XP just because I'm silly enough to imagine that it makes me look cool somehow. What works works. What doesn't doesn't. I comment accordingly. It's that simple.

As for my remark about Dell, Keep in mind what I actually said. I didn't say Dell makes bad computers. I said I'm not sure it's wise to buy one right now. That's not bashing; that's just keeping up with current events.

But before I get to that, since you seem to want to discuss quality, let's do that. We're talking about gaming grade notebooks, right? Well, it is a fact that there are some much more powerful machines out there in that category for a lot less money than what Dell has to offer. Dell has never been exactly a leader in gaming notebooks, and they likely never will be. They do have them, of course, but it's not their specialty.

What Dell has historically been "top of the game" at, as you put it, is consumer grade and business grade desktops. I've got one, myself, and it kicks ass, even five years later. For most of recent history, Dell simply couldn't be beaten in the consumer and business classes.

However, even that isn't quite true anymore. They've been losing considerable ground to HP and others for a while now.

Anyway, to get back to current events, it's no secret that Dell has been having a lot of problems lately, both financially and managerially. They've been losing money and laying people off, left and right. As CNET news recently put it, Dell in the last two years has become "a shadow of its former self". They're still profitable, but they're not really growing, and their market share is rapidly declining.



As for Alienware, that's not really relevant. An Alienware machine is not what we're talking about here. They do happen to be owned by Dell, but they're still a very separate entity.

Look, the fact that Taco Bell and Pizza Hutt are both owned by the same parent company doesn't make the pizza taste Mexican or the tacos taste Italian. By the same token, while I don't doubt that the acquisition of Alienware likely did help Dell grow their gaming machine departmen, an Alienware computer is not a Dell computer, and a Dell computer is not an Alienware computer. They're two different things.

But since you did mention it, let's be fair about assessing Alienware in our context here. They did help to pioneer some of the technologies that are now more or less standard in gaming notebooks. No one can take that place in history away from them. They deserve all due praise for that.

But it's been quite a while since Alienware was so innovative, and in the mean time, other companies have surpassed them. They've always been pricey, but in the past, that was OK since they were offering things no one else could. But nowadays, they have lots of competition, and they're still relatively high in price. While I do think they're a good company, I can't justify spending more money with them to get the same features I can get elsewhere for less.

Chosen,

What are the other great gaming notebooks that are less in price? I am definately not stuck on Dell - I want quality, reliabilty and function - gaming - for a price that is favorable to my wallet.

what laptop gives you the best bang for your buck right now (for sl) anyways? (in your opinions)

The best Dell XPS's are mostly the same as the Alienwares and their higher end Precision workstations are superb.

It's not Taco Bell Chosen. The Dell line includes every level from the most inexpensive to the most expensive configuarations, and because of the most efficient and reliable warranties, and the most up-to-date components already pretested configurations, it's really a good choice to buy from Dell.

There are other custom system builders, but the parts are the same. With Dell because they have such a high volume, have lower relative prices, so you get more for your money.

What I like most is how they will replace something so quickly or do full exchange or also compensate for any problems by throwing in upgraded RAM chips, etc. for your troubles.

In regards to Dell being separate from Alienware.............

here's their customize gaming laptop page

Because it would cost more than the dual 8700s and give you less performance, I think.

Just adding my opinion here...

About the videocards: if it's only for running SL, I don't think the super high fps is very important there.... IMO for SL, "just fast" is as good as "really superduperfast", because it's not the kind of platform that gives you very much advantage with very high framerates... as long as it can run fluently, your experience will probably not be very different whether you choose the standard vidcard or the 1000$ sli option...... If you also play a lot of other games etc, that might be different though.

About vista/xp: I still use xp, since I use my windows system only for games (and that doesn't include SL- whether sl is a game or not is outside the scope of the discussion, but I don't boot windows for it), and at the time I made that decision vista definitely wasn't the good platform for videogames (yet? don't know what the situation is now, since i'm not considering to upgrade any time soon), and all other stuff I do on linux (thus including SL), so can't give much advise there....

About dell/other manufacturers: In my experience, Dell has most of the time very decent hardware for a reasonable (not necessarily the cheapest) price, as long as you buy in the correct "class" of hardware (eg don't buy a 400$ toned down system for gaming ). As long as you are in warranty, their support is quite good when your hardware breaks down (but imo has no clue most of the time when software/configuration is involved). Where Dell according to me does lack heavily, is in the whole "customer relations" kind of thing.... Whenever I have called them for some information, with general questions, when there was goping something awry I would want corrected, they have NOT been very helpfull, and seem to try to dodge you most of the time... Also, I kinda dislike the fact that when you put a configuration together on their website, you need to do this 3-4 times using different starter configuarations (which may have different options available) in order to put the system together you want for a price you can pay. This isn't very transparent to the consumer, if you ask me.
Appart from that, I know run all on a xps M1710 (the previous generation of xps laptops), and i'm quite happy with it (it just took me some time to get dell to correct an error that got into the oprdering process regarding the way of payment, which is what I mean with the lack of "consumer realtions" stuff above, it shouldn't have been that difficult to correct it...)

well, I hope this helps, if not, plz ignore

Opnions and experiences are always welcome. Thanks for sharing Triss!

Vista's service pack one, which I''ve had for a few weeks has a number of improvements. My Vista has been very stable, for quite a few months now, since the irking problems of Nvidia and ATI drivers, was solved. The were also numerous issues with the newer hardware, especially the high speed ram, which was plaguing the custom high end computers.



Virtually all "tier one" support from all the companies that was farmed overseas, created situations where the right hand does not know what the left hand is doing. This has been true with Dell as well. However, with the XPS Gold Support (or whatever they call it now) or the Precision Work Stations support, the level of communication during US extended business hours at least. is far better. If you call at off hours, it can get dicey.

All things considered however, with Dell you can assume that if you have a major issue, and once you cut through to higher level support, they will respond quickly and rather then play too many games, they are quick to replace the whole system.

Relative to all the other companies I have to deal with, I find I want to nuke Dell far less, then for instance HP, SONY, IBM, ACER, NVIDIA, ATI, LINKSYS etc. and not wanting to nuke computer companies, is important to me.




It could be better, but they have lots of options and it's best to try many configurations. One thing they need to do for sure, is make sure people are signed in to a Dell Account, before proceeding, because alot of people get confused as "guests" in the shopping cart and then get asked to sign in. So they end up accidentlaly buying teo systems, or think they have purchased, when the order hasn;t really completed.

But relative to other compnies they have pioneered this kind of web based system purchasing. Other companies either copy the Dell approach or offer much more limited options. people should go through a series of mock purchases, to see how the site works, before doing their final buy.



There is an art to speaking to these people. If after a few minutes and I find myself, wanting to nuke them, I hang up and redial, hoping for better luck with a new tier one person or I ask for a supervisor. This problem is pervasive and not just a Dell problem. Telephone Support is an unwieldy thing for just about everything, since around 2003, when it all started with the outsourcing.

Those push button phone menus, that end up routing calls to the wrong places, should be universally banned.

Aside from the video card question, I have two comments:

1. Don't buy a Dell.
2. Vista rocks.

Hi Talon.

I've been considering getting a Dell XPS too. The M1530 in my case. They finally come with the Penryn chips which I've been holding out for.

The spec (UK) would be

Dell XPS M1530
T8300 2.4Ghz (+£30)
4gb memory (+£30)
320gb 5400rpm
8600M GT 256mb

I'm not sure about the 8600M GT because that's been around for what seems like forever, but there's still not many laptops with the 8800M GTS/GTX yet. And the 8700M is just a slightly overclocked version of the 8600M. And there's also no official support for XP either and not even a page on Dell's site with all the XP drivers which means I'd have to hunt around hoping I can find XP drivers for everything. Oh, and a 7200rpm HDD option would have been nice.

Then there's the Alienware m15x which even manages to have more configurable options that Dell, has XP support and a 7200rpm harddisk.

The spec for this one (again, UK) would be

Alienware m15x
T8300 2.4Ghz (+£90)
4gb memory (+£146!)
200gb 7200rpm (+42)
8800M GTX 512mb (+£300)

The Alienware would be twice the price, twice as big and has an unsophisticated design (putting it nicely) but it would be a screamer of a laptop.

Other contenders would have been Sony because i really like their designs (especially their keyboards) but they have no 15" laptops currently available with respectable components. Not even an 8600M GT from what I can see.

Personally I'd be happy with an 8800M GTS because that'll be roughly twice as fast as the 8600M GT. But these laptops are so thin on the ground right now. Alot of the 17 inch laptops seem to come with dual 8800M GTX which seems weird to me - I'd be more than happy with a single 8800M GTX. It seems daft to me to pay substantially more for the second 8800M GTX which would also kick out more heat and draw more power, just for an extra 30% ish performance.

I'd much prefer the 15 inch too - but currently the video cards are just not up to snuff for what I want for the next x years.

Still thinking, so maybe there is time!

I looked at the Alienware too - and I guess I just can't imagine something specked so similarly would just run that much faster then a Dell with similar specs. Reasonings?

They are virtually the same in their nice configurations.

I'm a huge ASUS fan. They're best known for manufacturing ultra high end hardware for gaming grade desktops, but they also make really good laptops. They're actually the only laptop manufacturer in the world who makes their own motherboards and video cards. Since they make what other companies (including Dell) only buy (from ASUS, as well as from others), they're able to offer a lot more bang for the buck.

The G2S line is fantastic. It features the nicest screens I've ever seen on laptops (MUCH better looking than the panels Dell uses), more connectivity than you could shake a stick at, and all around great specs.

ASUS does not offer the customization that Dell does, of course, but when you try to configure a Dell to the closest possible match to an existing ASUS model, the Dell comes out to be way more money. Consider the ASUS G2Sg-A1, for example. 1920x1200 screen, 2.5 GHz T9300 Core2 Duo, 512MB GeForce 8700M GT, 4GB RAM, 320GB hard drive, Vista Ultimate 64, and whole lot more, for just $2309. With Dell, you're looking at $2974 for the closest possible match.

Now, before anyone gets bent out of shape about it not being an exact match, I did say CLOSEST POSSIBLE, not exact. The two companies do not offer the exact same options as each other. The Dell does give you a PhysX card, which is nice, but considering that a machine specifically for SL is what we're talking about here, it's a waste, certainly not worth an extra $600. The ASUS, on the other hand, gives you a lot of things the Dell doesn't. For starters, you get a built-in card reader, something Dell doesn't seem to offer at all (unless I missed it). You also get eSATA connectivity. If you're a content creator, both those things are important. Also, I know it's not a huge deal, but ASUS does give you a built-in web cam, while Dell wants to charge you extra for an external one, and they give you a free Logitech gaming mouse, and a really nice free backpack. Dell charges extra for a carrying case and a mouse. Plus, the ASUS has a much nicer looking chassis, if that matters to anyone.

Bottom line, for $600 less, I'll take the much better screen (you really have to see the ASUS screens to believe how good they look), the broader connectivity, and the card reader, over the PhysX card any day.

OK, so what if you want to go SLI? ASUS doesn't currently offer that in a laptop. Great, let's talk about that.

There are lots of manufacturers to choose from, but as I don't have time to do a ton of research right now, I'll pick one I'm familiar with, CyberPower. They built my desktop. To be fair, I have had some customer service issues with them, but I've also had a ton of customer service issues with Dell as well. In my mind, the two are about equal in that department. That is to say, both have had similar opportunity to either please me or displease me on multiple occasions, and on the whole, both have pissed me off equally.

From CyberPower, for $3938, you get a 1920x1200 screen, 2.66 GHz Q6700 Core 2 Quad, 4 GB RAM, dual GeForce Go 8800 GTX (512MB each), 200GB 7200 RPM Hard Drive. And, for a negligible price difference, you also get the option of any flavor of either XP or Vista you want, or even no OS at all, if you choose.

To put the closest possible configuration together from Dell, you're looking at $4549. Again, you end up with the PhysX card with Dell and not with CyberPower, but again, is that really worth $600? Also, Dell doesn't give you the OS options.

Those were just two examples off the top of my head. If you want to research it thoroughly, there are a ton of others. If you want the world's best customer service, go with Falcon Northwest. If you want "the world's fastest laptop", go with Rock Xtreme. The point is there are lots and lots of options. Some offer more features for less money than Dell; others charge a bit more for similar features with much better customer service. Some are about equal. Some are better. Some are worse. It's not that Dell makes a bad product; it's just that, as I said, they're not a leader in this particular genre.

I'll reiterate that I am concerned about the company's future, with their dwindling market share, plummeting stock prices, mass layoffs, and managerial snafus over the past couple of years. I've seen many a good company go bad over far less. I realize, of course, that I'm contributing to the problem by suggesting people buy elsewhere, but I have to be honest, and it's certainly not my job to try to save Dell from its own mistakes. If I believe there are better deals to be found, it would be unethical of me not to point them out.