SLI/Crossfire laptops?

Ksanti · 11 May 2013 at 10:16

As in the title, are there any other than the M18x? I'm considering selling off my desktop but don't want to be spending £1.5k on a laptop that doesn't even outperform it, and it looks like an SLI or Crossfire setup is the only way to significantly achieve anything more than a very minor boost in performance.

Marine-RX179 · 11 May 2013 at 12:03

You gonna have to look at custom laptop based on either the Clevo p370em or p570M.

Ksanti · 11 May 2013 at 12:48

And do OcUK sell those models? When I glanced at the shop I didn't see anything with Crossfire cards? OcUK laptops are effectively Clevos, right?

thepharcyde · 11 May 2013 at 15:42

Lenovo Y500 can support sli in GT650m form

Ksanti · 11 May 2013 at 17:32

That's not quite what I meant, given the SLI 650m combination, while effective, hardly challenges the single 7970m and 680m laptops, let alone the 7970 and 680 crossfire and sli laptops. Also I don't think I've ever seen the SLI GT650m version in the UK, I've only seen the single card version in the UK, indeed, outside of reviews, I've barely seen a mention of the swappable bay on the y500 in the UK.

Teknobry · 11 May 2013 at 19:25

Msi & clevo resellers will have sli/crossfire setups. I was looking at one recently, all in came to about £1800 for 680 in sli, a bit cheaper for the 7970.
Heard quite a few bad things though about those amd cards, i'd go with nvidia personally.

Ksanti · 12 May 2013 at 15:11

All I've heard that's been bad about the AMD cards has been microstuttering issues at around 30fps. I don't intend to be playing at 30fps.

Teknobry · 12 May 2013 at 18:58

I'd really have a good google search about those amd cards, when deciding which to go for myself i found a lot of threads and reviews mentioning problems with them. (Or more specifically poor drivers).

drakioned · 13 May 2013 at 15:15

Most of the gripes with AMD are about Enduro.

I don't believe any of the dual GPU set ups actually allow you to use the iGPU even if you wanted to.

alex_123_fra · 14 May 2013 at 20:16

I have an Alienware M18x R1 with twin 6990Ms. Absolutely no microstuttering here in X-fire. Works perfectly. At 1080p I can play all the games I have on ultra settings with very good performance.

If you have a look at the Dell outlet store, there are quite frequently M18x laptops in SLI/X-fire and R2s as well. Probably most of them may be just outside of the £1500 range if you want the top of the range stuff like dual GTX680Ms and 3940XMs.

The alternative is to look at ************.co.uk. They build great dual GPU laptops based on clevo systems.

Ksanti · 14 May 2013 at 23:13

Yeah with the M18x R2 there was a twin 680 system up today, idk if it's still there, but my problem with those is that there basically isn't a game other than BF3 that wouldn't be CPU limited even with an i7 3920XM with twin 680s, so you only occasionally see any sort of change in performance. I've only just seen that of course. Twin 7970s is looking more likely to be my setup, or I may just drop completely to a single 680 or 7970 setup. Depends I guess. If Oculus supports laptop systems it could seal the deal