M18x R2 HD 7970M Xfire GTX 680M SLI when ?

[joecait]

I think if Nvidia is delaying the 680m, they are pretty stupid since folks will just buy 1 machine normally and the majority of folks won't bother with a return/upgrade if what they have works. That's just loss sales.

From what I've read here, Nvidia isn't happy with the performance of the 680m and is tweaking it to meet/beat the 7970 so it's already behind at this point. All the benches have also been with hacked drivers as well.

I don't think it's as clear cut this gen that nvidia will repeat and dominate with teh 680m since they are both going to 28nm and very different tech change as the previous gen.

[Zeju]

Gonna hafta agree with joecait.

The only explanation I can come up with about the delays is that, currently the 7970 is outperforming the 680m. When you consider that it's likely nVidia will once again cost 300-400 more then AMD ~ When I buy my M18x I'll be going for the cheapest Duel-GPU option. Because I know they'll likely be similar in terms of performance, actually in truth I'm leaning towards Radeon because nVidia seem to have lots more issues then Radeon.

[harmattan]

Not really. The 600 series nvidia cards are new. NVIDIA isn't going to be coming out with the 780m shorty. If that was the case I'd agree. They have strong show to follow from at at this point. I'm sure they'll deliver but, at what cost? If they're 680m is only 10% faster than the 7970m and costs $200 more then besides those with too much money are gonna buy?

Exactly, this is the reason I keep going red despite the driver issues (swore I would never buy an ati/amd mobile card after the w90vp 4870x2 debacle.). When there is a 30-40% price difference for 5% more raw performance, the decision is basically made for you.

This round will be a bit more stable interms of models, I think. Both 7970m and 680m are as fast as possible for mobile cards on this current architecture: there won't be any new model with a few more shaders or higher clocks - a good argument for buying since 7970m and 680m will be king of the hill for a looong time.

[BlackStar2012]

Besides you gotta remember both the cards have reached the ceiling of 100W on mxm 3.1 so defo wont be a card after 680m/7970m.

[[Nikos]]

Any news about the posibility to upgrade the M18 R1 from 580M Sli to 680M SLI or 7970M X-Fire? I guess that if exist any chances, would be out of Dell hands right?

I mean if we want the upgrade we will have to do ourselves. I would love to see those machines on my laptop hehe.

[Mr. Fox]

The M18x will be available with 7970M CrossFire, but it's not at the moment. The new GPU models currently available (and the 680M if it becomes as reality) are backward compatible with the existing Sandy Bridge-based Alienware laptops. So, it's not out of Dell's hands. Dell is actually doing it.

The GTX 580M was a late release with the M18x R1 and people were flip-flopping a lot, as usual. This seems to be the status quo and I don't get too worked up about any of it.

I've got to say that AMD has a steep hill to climb to earn back my respect with the poor reliability of the 6900M series and lousy driver support we saw in 2011. I'm going to sit back and watch what happens for a bit and just enjoy the beast that I have a little longer. A lot of the predictions I am seeing are nothing but speculation and things sometimes go differently than expected.

I am not predicting, but I am eager to see how this plays out. Based on past performance, I anticipate the GTX 680M will be a late release that smokes the 7970M. NVIDIA has shown a trend of letting the competition show their cards first, then sniping them with a head shot. That's actually pretty smart, even though some folks don't like it. In a fiercely competitive market, I think I would run a company the same way. The fighter that comes out swinging and lands the first hard punch often goes down in a TKO. Plus, it would be really boring for AMD and NVIDIA to release their flagship mobile GPU models at exactly the same time. I kind of like seeing the staggered releases. It keeps things interesting for me.

Fanboys have always made up lame excuses like the cost to performance ratio not being "worth it" when something new and better displaces what they own as king of the gaming/benching hill. For the person willing and financially able to pay more for the current best, the cost is irrelevant and all of those excuses are irrelevant. There's always going to be something else that's faster and more powerful... just wait a minute and things will change. For the average enthusiast, being compelled to own the fastest is a futile endeavor that will drain your wallet and leave you unhappy or jealous at the end of the day if you let it.

If you already own an M18x with 6990M CF or 580M SLI, you own a wicked beast that whips the life out of most all of the so-called gaming laptops you can buy. For those with the cash for upgrading or those just now entering the world of ultra-high performance laptops, whether you end up with 7970M or 680M GPUs in this round, either way you're going to own an insanely powerful beast that everyone else will envy... for a few months. Enjoy it while it lasts... this too shall pass, LOL.

[bumbo2]

The M18x will be available with 7970M CrossFire, but it's not at the moment. The new GPU models currently available (and the 680M if it becomes as reality) are backward compatible with the existing Sandy Bridge-based Alienware laptops. So, it's not out of Dell's hands. Dell is actually doing it.

The GTX 580M was a late release with the M18x R1 and people were flip-flopping a lot, as usual. This seems to be the status quo and I don't get too worked up about any of it.

I've got to say that AMD has a steep hill to climb to earn back my respect with the poor reliability of the 6900M series and lousy driver support we saw in 2011. I'm going to sit back and watch what happens for a bit and just enjoy the beast that I have a little longer. A lot of the predictions I am seeing are nothing but speculation and things sometimes go differently than expected.

I am not predicting, but I am eager to see how this plays out. Based on past performance, I anticipate the GTX 680M will be a late release that smokes the 7970M. NVIDIA has shown a trend of letting the competition show their cards first, then sniping them with a head shot. That's actually pretty smart, even though some folks don't like it. In a fiercely competitive market, I think I would run a company the same way. The fighter that comes out swinging and lands the first hard punch often goes down in a TKO. Plus, it would be really boring for AMD and NVIDIA to release their flagship mobile GPU models at exactly the same time. I kind of like seeing the staggered releases. It keeps things interesting for me.

Fanboys have always made up lame excuses like the cost to performance ratio not being "worth it" when something new and better displaces what they own as king of the gaming/benching hill. For the person willing and financially able to pay more for the current best, the cost is irrelevant and all of those excuses are irrelevant. There's always going to be something else that's faster and more powerful... just wait a minute and things will change. For the average enthusiast, being compelled to own the fastest is a futile endeavor that will drain your wallet and leave you unhappy or jealous at the end of the day if you let it.

If you already own an M18x with 6990M CF or 580M SLI, you own a wicked beast that whips the life out of most all of the so-called gaming laptops you can buy. For those with the cash for upgrading or those just now entering the world of ultra-high performance laptops, whether you end up with 7970M or 680M GPUs in this round, either way you're going to own an insanely powerful beast that everyone else will envy... for a few months. Enjoy it while it lasts... this too shall pass, LOL.

I knew you was listening. Lol

[vzachari]

The M18x will be available with 7970M CrossFire, but it's not at the moment. The new GPU models currently available (and the 680M if it becomes as reality) are backward compatible with the existing Sandy Bridge-based Alienware laptops. So, it's not out of Dell's hands. Dell is actually doing it.

The GTX 580M was a late release with the M18x R1 and people were flip-flopping a lot, as usual. This seems to be the status quo and I don't get too worked up about any of it.

I've got to say that AMD has a steep hill to climb to earn back my respect with the poor reliability of the 6900M series and lousy driver support we saw in 2011. I'm going to sit back and watch what happens for a bit and just enjoy the beast that I have a little longer. A lot of the predictions I am seeing are nothing but speculation and things sometimes go differently than expected.

I am not predicting, but I am eager to see how this plays out. Based on past performance, I anticipate the GTX 680M will be a late release that smokes the 7970M. NVIDIA has shown a trend of letting the competition show their cards first, then sniping them with a head shot. That's actually pretty smart, even though some folks don't like it. In a fiercely competitive market, I think I would run a company the same way. The fighter that comes out swinging and lands the first hard punch often goes down in a TKO. Plus, it would be really boring for AMD and NVIDIA to release their flagship mobile GPU models at exactly the same time. I kind of like seeing the staggered releases. It keeps things interesting for me.

Fanboys have always made up lame excuses like the cost to performance ratio not being "worth it" when something new and better displaces what they own as king of the gaming/benching hill. For the person willing and financially able to pay more for the current best, the cost is irrelevant and all of those excuses are irrelevant. There's always going to be something else that's faster and more powerful... just wait a minute and things will change. For the average enthusiast, being compelled to own the fastest is a futile endeavor that will drain your wallet and leave you unhappy or jealous at the end of the day if you let it.

If you already own an M18x with 6990M CF or 580M SLI, you own a wicked beast that whips the life out of most all of the so-called gaming laptops you can buy. For those with the cash for upgrading or those just now entering the world of ultra-high performance laptops, whether you end up with 7970M or 680M GPUs in this round, either way you're going to own an insanely powerful beast that everyone else will envy... for a few months. Enjoy it while it lasts... this too shall pass, LOL.

By the way, when the 580m launched on the M18xR1 the 6990m was about $400 cheaper? Both 6990m and 580m had very similar performance at 580m's launch on the m18x with the 6990m having a little bit of an edge initially (actually the 580m spent some time without proper drivers at launch). Then the 580m developed some issues with throttling I think (I'm pretty sure it was the 580m that had the first issue we noticed).

Everyone at that time was buying the 6990m like hot cakes (including you) which was in my opinion a very wise choice, up until the 580m SLI became cheaper (which was a couple of months or more afterwards). At that point in time the 6990m also developed the overheating issue that required the forum to intervene with Dell and that's when the tide turned. People were then buying the 580ms like hot cakes, which was again the wise choice at the time. After that the 580m stayed on top with a small margin and AMD was more or less struggling a bit with drivers (which is the main issue, more so I think than performance).

Point is, it's very hard to predict what's going to happen in the long term. People usually try to get the best or close to the best option for them at the time of purchase (which cannot be postponed indefinitely). Sometimes the AMD solution might be the good option at the time, other times the NVIDIA one...unless one can predict the future.

EDIT: To WaR: Thank you kind sir!

[WaR]

Thanks vzachari for not sounding like a fanboy; very nice balanced summary of everything. Have some rep

[rahulkadukar]

I've got to say that AMD has a steep hill to climb to earn back my respect with the poor reliability of the 6900M series and lousy driver support we saw in 2011.

I know everyone keeps talking about this. I installed the latest AMD Drivers (which was 12.2 at that time) and I have never ever faced any problem. Every single game works perfectly fine.

I was kind of sad to see the performance of the 7970m (they are insanely powerful) but then again as long as the current 6990m Crossfire is working fine I dont think I need to upgrade for at least a couple of years.

That said and done I am waiting for a 7970m crossfire review