Alienware or g73

[vibrantxxninjas]

im looking to buy a laptop off of one of my friends and i dont know which one to get,

Option One: Alienware m17x-R1 ---- $600 (1 year and 8 months old)

CPU: core 2 duo p8600 @ 2.4 ghz
GPU: Nvidia 260M SLI (2 x 1gb)
RAM: 4GB
HDD: 500gb
resolution: 1920x1200
battery life max: ~2.5 hours

(There is an issue where the alienFX lights do not work since he did a fresh reinstall of windows 7 and there are lots of alienwares with this problem but apparently can be fixed by reprogramming the chip and i am willing to try that as long as there is a link someone can provide to tell me how to do that)

Option two: Asus g73jh-a2 ---- $650

CPU: i7-720 @ 1.6ghz (turbo 2.2ghz)
GPU: ATI 5870m
RAM: 8GB
HDD: 2 x 500gb hdd
resolution: 1920 x 1080
battery life max: ~2 hours

everything is working fine including the back lighting


i know that the g73 has a lot of features that the alienware lacks (DX11 being one of them). However, what is the performance difference between the 260m sli vs the hd 5870? the only benchmark for the 260 sli on notebookcheck.net is the crysis bench but nothing else so i really dont know how else to compare them. also both laptops have already been wiped and freshly reinstalled windows so there is no games on them to test out at the moment

thanks in advance

 

[Razec69]

Get the Asus.

Remember that Mobile chips are not equivalent to the desktop models.

I had a GTX295 and my friend had a AMD 5850 and his card ran a lot better than mine.

So in essence the 5870 will be better. Know this I am not a fan of AMD but I do have to give it up to them because their cards are usually more powerful than nVidia cards.

For the most part they are always more powerful but the driver support and issues that still plague AMD cards is really horrible. One day you will have great performance in a game and then crappy in a game you get in a week.

So again get the Asus.

Better tech and more updated tech than the Alienware and it's only $50 more.

 

[vibrantxxninjas]

Thanks guys, i really wanted the asus but didnt know if the sli 260m was worth it but looking at reviews and videos they look pretty similar,

And @razec69 I have a hd 6870 in my desktop and not once have i ever had a driver issue, i think some people are just unlucky or dont know how to properly uninstall their old drivers because its not as easy to get rid of the previous amd drivers like it is with nvidias clean install option

 

[Razec69]

Vibrant. Believe me I know what I am doing. I guess you just don't play as many games as I do.

While I don't go to the extremes like some people do to first uninstall, run a driver sweeping program, go to safe mode do this and that. I shouldn't have to.

And I am not complaining in aspects that I get errors, but it is fundamentally known that some drivers have issues with certain games. Especially when running crossfire.

Remember the ATI and Rage issues. When the game first came out they had drivers specific to that game, but then it would have issues with other games as well.

This is how it has always been. It is understandable because they want to improve on newer mechanics but they usually screw something else. And while it is not the biggest issue in the world, it is still an issue that they have never been able to resolve.

And even if the "clean install" option was the issue, then why on earth haven't they implemented it themselves.

 

[vibrantxxninjas]

Vibrant. Believe me I know what I am doing. I guess you just don't play as many games as I do.

While I don't go to the extremes like some people do to first uninstall, run a driver sweeping program, go to safe mode do this and that. I shouldn't have to.

And I am not complaining in aspects that I get errors, but it is fundamentally known that some drivers have issues with certain games. Especially when running crossfire.

Remember the ATI and Rage issues. When the game first came out they had drivers specific to that game, but then it would have issues with other games as well.

This is how it has always been. It is understandable because they want to improve on newer mechanics but they usually screw something else. And while it is not the biggest issue in the world, it is still an issue that they have never been able to resolve.

And even if the "clean install" option was the issue, then why on earth haven't they implemented it themselves.

Well ive done lots of gaming trust me (i believe i have about 25 games installed on my computer at the moment and im always beating the game, taking them off, and adding new ones.) so ive had quite a good while of experience with a vast variety of games and i havent had a single driver issue, like i said though, maybe some people are just unlucky with their drivers.

Also i have never had a crossfire setup so i cannot speak for the crossfire driver reliability but imo ive had a good experience with amd

 

[vibrantxxninjas]

Vibrant. Believe me I know what I am doing. I guess you just don't play as many games as I do.

While I don't go to the extremes like some people do to first uninstall, run a driver sweeping program, go to safe mode do this and that. I shouldn't have to.

And I am not complaining in aspects that I get errors, but it is fundamentally known that some drivers have issues with certain games. Especially when running crossfire.

Remember the ATI and Rage issues. When the game first came out they had drivers specific to that game, but then it would have issues with other games as well.

This is how it has always been. It is understandable because they want to improve on newer mechanics but they usually screw something else. And while it is not the biggest issue in the world, it is still an issue that they have never been able to resolve.

And even if the "clean install" option was the issue, then why on earth haven't they implemented it themselves.

Also my computer before that had a
5850 and ive hooked my dads computer up with a 6770 and its also never had driver issues but thats my experience

 

[Razec69]

You've had a great experience.

But I don't see how you have enough time to install and play 25 different games at a time. And then beat them on top of that.

But anyways you've had a great experience, but everyone I've spoken to and even die hard AMD fans have had the issues, anywhere you go on forums there is typically some type of issue.

But again it could be crossfire configurations that are the problem.

With Deus Ex I had yellow flickering in the pause and in game menus. After a driver update gone.

Then when Skyrim came out same problem. Again it was all fixed after updated drivers.

Again that major problem with Rage when it came out. Anyone with a AMD card had problems. Also the game wasn't in the best state but the AMD drivers weren't of any help.

 

[vibrantxxninjas]

I'm only 18 so i have LOADS of free time being only in high school (and all that time is soon going to be gone next year in university) and yeah i think that the crossfire drivers are very buggy from what ive heard and imo its just bad luck if you get stuck with a faulty driver for a single gpu with amd

maybe AMD's actually downloading website is the issue meaning that when you download drivers data gets lost through the process? idk, it could be many things