NP5791 - 8700m or 7950gtx

[Syed117]

I'm having somewhat of a dilemma.

I'm going to order the NP5971 in a day or two, but i'm torn between the 8700m and the 7950gtx.

I'm trying to keep the price relatively low, so If i go with the 8700m, i'll be getting the 1900x1200 screen and if I go with the 7950gtx, i'll be getting the 1680x1050 screen. Unless I get the standard one year warranty, which I wasn't planning on doing. Wouldn't want to get stuck with a dead laptop after a year...

I'm also planning on going with Vista Ultimate 32bit.

Now I know the 7950 is hands down the better card, but I also know that the 8700 is DX10. From what I can tell though, the 8700 isn't powerful enough to run games in DX 10 mode anyway.

I understand that Vista is DX10 and all that, but i'm not planning on doing too much gaming on it, but I do want to occasionally play Unreal tournament 3. Plus, would a game like Crysis run better in DX9 mode with the 7950 or the 8700? I know with the 7950, I wont have any DX10 functionality, but i'm assuming it's dx9 performance is much better than the 8700.

Another concern is the high definition video decoding with the 8 series cards from nvidia? How exactly does that work and is it worth getting the weaker 8700 just for that?

I would really appreciate it if someone could shed a little light on which video card and screen resolution I should go with?

Thanks

[xpcdude]

I would recommend the 7950GTX purely from the best performance point, or 8700GT from the economical point of view.
Video decoding, if you plan to do that, is something nvidia brought in it`s 8th series GPUs and can take the load from the CPU, leaving it free for other processes. If you do a lot of video editing, the 8700 Gt is the better choice. If not, the 7950.
It's all about what you are looking for.

[canucklehead]

I think you should wait a month and get the 8800m card for your machine. Definately. As far as screen rez goes, if you're going to being using the laptop display most often then go with the 1900x1200. If you're going to be connecting it to an external display most of the time, then you don't really need the higher resolution on the laptop display. Save the money and upgrade another aspect of your rig.

[Syed117]

Yeah, I am leaning towards going with the 1680x1050 and the 7950gtx. Seems like a better overall gaming machine. For the most part I play games on consoles, but I guess I would much rather have more gaming power than video power.

I'm also guessing that I won't have any problems with Vista Ultimate 32bit and the 7950gtx. I know XP is a better platform right now for performance, but I'll upgrade to the 8800gtx in a year or so.

Thank you

[hfeigel]

I had the same problem and I went with the 8700. I've been able to run Medieval Total War 2 Kingdoms, Bioshock, and NWN 2 MOTB with all settings maxed. It also run the Crysis demo very well, but not maxed. If you're planning on eventually upgrading to the 8800m (I am) it makes more sense to go for the 8700 now based on what I've experienced.

Running Vista 64 bit btw.

[Aryantes]

Yeah, I am leaning towards going with the 1680x1050 and the 7950gtx. Seems like a better overall gaming machine. For the most part I play games on consoles, but I guess I would much rather have more gaming power than video power.

I'm also guessing that I won't have any problems with Vista Ultimate 32bit and the 7950gtx. I know XP is a better platform right now for performance, but I'll upgrade to the 8800gtx in a year or so.

Thank you

The 8800 will blow away either of those cards. Your gaming experience would increase twofold. I highly suggest you wait for that.

One 8800 card has been shown to beat out SLI 7950's. I think that is worth the 1 month wait for not much more money than the 7950 I hope.