SLI GTX 280M overkill?

magick · 12 Nov 2009 at 18:19

My friends buying a clevo laptop. Should he go fo sli or a single GTX 280M for running the follwing games at 1920x1080?

GTA IV
MW/MW2
Left For Dead 2
CS Source
SF4

and other FPS but he's not to botherd about crysis. He want to play >30fps with eye candy.

Will going for a single cut down on noise & heat that much? And will just having one card make the laptop redudant for serious gaming in 8-12 months?

EDIT

Which cpu would be better a 2.53 quad or a 2.80 dual core considering the quad is about £400 more?

Thanks.

AMG · 12 Nov 2009 at 18:24

I don't think thats is actually GTX280, probably more like GTX260 but ya should be fine being M once

the 2.93 would be nice but not for like 400 pound more (just overclock the thing

)

I would persome having a single ship...or card would cut down on heat, also last longer while gaming also

Rroff · 12 Nov 2009 at 18:25

Bare in mind that 2x 280m in SLI are around similiar performance to a single 275GTX.

280m are actually pretty close to a 250GTS performance wise and indeed share similiar hardware and not much in common with the real 200 series.

I have a clevo laptop with a single 260m GTX and it has some meaty copper heatpipes, etc. and a decent fan so there isn't much noise and the heat is removed from the main laptop body - so its cool to the touch but you get a lot of heat chucked out the back so 2x 280m is going to be pushing some serious heat out the rear vent.

EDIT: Further to that - even for a single 260m GTX you need as close to 3gig on the CPU as possible I'd say 2.5gig minimum - in most cases a faster dual core will do far better than a slightly slower quad... for 280m GTX SLI to really take an advantage of the performance you really need 3gig minimum - I swapped from a 2gig Q9000 to a 2.8gig T9600 because of this.

magick · 12 Nov 2009 at 18:32

Thanks for the replies. Looks like a single 280 is the best option then and upgrade cpu to 3.06 dual core.

Rroff · 12 Nov 2009 at 18:36

For a single 280m GTX baring in mind the massive markup on the 3.06 over the 2.8 - the 2.8 would probably be fairly capable - not sure the extra cost is worth it for <15% or so extra fps.

chaparral · 12 Nov 2009 at 18:38

magick said:
Thanks for the replies. Looks like a single 280 is the best option then and upgrade cpu to 3.06 dual core.

Is it possible to overclock a laptop CPU ??

Rroff · 12 Nov 2009 at 18:41

Depends on the model and make, mine have no options in the BIOS for it - but other companies who sell the same chassis but with their own branding provide software overclocking.

magick · 12 Nov 2009 at 18:41

chaparral said:
Is it possible to overclock a laptop CPU ??

You can OC the Intel Extreme QX9300 but you'll pay just under £400 for the privalige.

magick · 12 Nov 2009 at 18:43

OK the CPU runs at 1066 and theres options for 4gb DDR3 @ 1066 or for £25 more 4gb DDR3 @ 1333. Will there be a performance gain with the 1333 ram?

magick · 12 Nov 2009 at 18:45

Rroff said:
For a single 280m GTX baring in mind the massive markup on the 3.06 over the 2.8 - the 2.8 would probably be fairly capable - not sure the extra cost is worth it for <15% or so extra fps.

We were just thinking that LOL. Is it worth an extra £170 for an extra 9% of CPU speed. But if it also brings 15% extra FPS it's a bit easier to justify I suppose.

Rroff · 12 Nov 2009 at 18:45

Nothing noticeable except maybe in RAM benchmarks. You deffinatly won't see any framerate difference in games.

Rroff · 12 Nov 2009 at 18:46

magick said:
We were just thinking that LOL. Is it worth an extra £170 for an extra 9% of CPU speed. But if it also brings 15% extra FPS it's a bit easier to justify I suppose.

It will be less than 15%... at best probably not more than the clockspeed increase - I gave it a larger range incase you were comparing to a 2.8gig with less cache, etc.

magick · 12 Nov 2009 at 18:48

Rroff said:
Nothing noticeable except maybe in RAM benchmarks. You deffinatly won't see any framerate difference in games.

Thanks.

Rroff · 12 Nov 2009 at 18:49

http://aten-hosted.com/images/x70_2.jpg

Even with a single 260m GTX its by no means slow.

EDIT: For comparison here is the same settings with 8800GT SLI and Q6600 - both the GPUs and CPU are massively overclocked as well compared to the laptop which is at stock... and still managing atleast half the performance.

http://aten-hosted.com/images/dmc.jpg

kylew · 12 Nov 2009 at 18:49

GTX 280Ms are such a joke.

magick · 12 Nov 2009 at 18:51

Rroff said:
It will be less than 15%... at best probably not more than the clockspeed increase - I gave it a larger range incase you were comparing to a 2.8gig with less cache, etc.

OK stick with 2.8 then. Which is the best 2.8 CPU they have the :-

Intel T9600 2.80GHz 6MB Cache 1066FSB Core 2 Duo Mobile Processor

and for £25 more

Intel P9700 2.80GHz 6MB Cache 1066FSB Core 2 Duo Mobile Processor

Is there any difference between the two?

kylew · 12 Nov 2009 at 18:52

magick said:
OK stick with 2.8 then. Which is the best 2.8 CPU they have the :-

Intel T9600 2.80GHz 6MB Cache 1066FSB Core 2 Duo Mobile Processor

and for £25 more

Intel P9700 2.80GHz 6MB Cache 1066FSB Core 2 Duo Mobile Processor

Is there any difference between the two?

There's some sort of mistake there.

The only differences between them is their heat output and power consumption

9799 28w versus 9600 35w.

Everything else is the same so surely doesn't warrant a different name and higher price.

magick · 12 Nov 2009 at 18:53

kylew said:
There's some sort of mistake there.

Why?

Rroff · 12 Nov 2009 at 18:54

No thats right... the P9700 uses 10watt less power.

Rroff · 12 Nov 2009 at 18:56

kylew said:
GTX 280Ms are such a joke.

They are still faster than any other single laptop GPU - even the 4870 mobile due to the downclocking the 4870 needs to be used without massive overheating problems.