Dell XPS 1730 vs Toshiba Qosmio X300

[Nightbreed]

Im about to buy a new desktop replacement. I will be using this machine for 2 things. Blu-Ray authoring, Encoding and mastering and Games! Firstly, i know the Toshy does not have a BD drive, i have an external BD burner with eSata. I need to know weather the GPU plays any part in video/Blu-Ray encoding or just the CPU.

If the GPU plays a roll in encoding how much better are the 8800GTX Sli over the single 9800GTX? As far as games go, i might play the odd shooter but i NEED the lappy to handle RA3, Starcraft 2, Diablo 3, Supreme Commander on VERY high settings. Will both models handle it?

Any other reasons you think i should choose one over the other?


*TOSHIBA*

Intel® Core™2 Duo processor T9400
CPU speed Dual Core 2.53GHz L2 Cache capacity
6MB Front side bus1066MHz
520GB (200GB (7200rpm) + 320GB (5400rpm)) SATA
4GB DDR3 (2GB+2GB) (1066MHz)
17.0" Widescreen WSXGA+ TruBrite® Display 1680 x 1050
NVIDIA® GeForce® 9800M GTX
(1GB GDDR3 800Mhz) (1GB discrete video memory and up to 1791MB video memory with 4GB system RAM)


*DELL*

Intel® CoreTM 2 Duo Processor T9500 (2.6GHz, 6MB Cache, 800Mhz FSB)
4GB Dual Channel 667MHz DDR2
NVIDIA® SLITM Dual GeForce® 8800M GTX with 1GB GDDR3 Memory
17" UltraSharpTM Wide Screen WUXGA (1920x1200) display with TrueLifeTM
640GB configured with (2 x 320GB) 7200 RPM SATAII hard drives.
Blu-rayTM Optical Drive Writer

[garfield2k]

check here for ratings on the gpus....
http://www.notebookcheck.net/Mobile-...ist.844.0.html

[maev]

I'm not sure how inferior lap gfx cards are to desktop cards, but going off the fact that a single 3870 of mine (when i used them) ran RA3 flawlessly, i have no doubt you will encounter no issues with that. Diablo 3 and SC2 should be fine since blizzard usually opts for polish and optimization with release of their games, and supcom is the only possible problem, but even then, it would only be cpu strain and thats with 6+ players with a few fair units.

thats my guestimate, but id say your all good, because the cpu's are decently fine aswell. i just dont know how lappy hardware equates against desktop hardware

[bennyg]

The Toshy is newer tech, with DDR3 and the faster 1066MHz FSB. It has a smaller screen res so the one GFX card would not be working as hard as the pair on the Dell, but as to which gives better FPS I'd only be guessing. One card on a lower process will put out less heat, thats for sure. (same goes for CPU)

If money is no object look at a SSD as your primary drive (rather than a 7200rpm).

As correctly said above, CPU will be the limiter of FPS in supcom. If you want more speed (lets face it 2x2.5GHz is a low-midrange CPU on desktops these days, ffs the original Conroe E6600 goddamn years ago was 2x2.4GHz with a 1066FSB, laptops are really behind in the speed stakes these days) look at various "boutique" models with desktop CPUs in them (Clevo D901C and others). However there are various drawbacks of fitting a full desktop in a 2-inch-thick package, such as extreme heat, battery life, and weight, I would very carefully look at people's comments on forums because it would need to be a very well designed unit to survive the heat in the long-term.

Bluray encoding - have no idea but couldn't imagine GPUs couldn't do it, but the authoring and mastering would be done by CPU anyway wouldn't it? And that's where you'll be sitting in front of the thing counting how many times the hourglass spins... while encoding you can go do something else like surf, eat, go outside etc.

I use the lappy below in my sig, and I can tell you gaming on this is totally CPU-dependant. Even in old games like Rome TW and TA:Spring, there is the odd slowdown moment even on lowest-of-low quality settings. RPGs like Titanquest and X3 run pretty good, but still a tad choppy when action is full-on. Oddly, FPSers I have had very little problem with - COD4 flawless (mix of Med/high settings), GTASA flawless on maxed, Oblivion pretty good @ high (with high-res texture packs installed), FarCry flawless @ maxed, FEAR pretty good @ med/high. Its the RTSes that really chug on CPU. Dunno if thats because of DirectX9 CPU overheads when lots of things are on the screen, but I also dont know if Dx10 will ever become slick enough to provide any real benefit on that front despite the huge theoretical benefit.

With a proper graphics card but only a moderately faster CPU I think there's a chance you could end up quite underwhelmed with either of those choices. Dell moreso coz of less bandwidth on the memory/cpu buses.

I was beginning to look for a similarly specced beast a few months ago, now with the A$ languishing in the 60s thats right out

[Beaistheman]

pfff screw em both i say, im in the same position as you mate, im heading overseas for work and i wanna get a replacement that i can take with me with some power. So im in japan atm and im gonna buy a clevo (same as sager, eurocom etc) M570TU with T9600, 9800M GTX 1gb, 4gig DDR3 1066, 320gig seagate momentus drive and all the standard shit with 1200i screen. That is gonna cost me........240,000yen, so if the aus currency wasnt dying it would be roughly 2400 bucks, but jsut over 3k for aud i think atm. And if anyone has seen em before, nice aluminium casing, no bullshit design. worth the money...The dell weighs more, and the toshiba has nice onboard speakers, but i would get the dell over the toshiba, but i havent had a good play with either, i just looked and picked em up etc, the dell felt like better build, more solid plastic. Also you might wanna consider a lappy cooler if you got the cash, zalman NC2000 comes to mind...

[ak-efekt]

you should have a look at the new asus, the n50VC-fp024G pretty sure thats the model number of the top of my head).

9650 1gb gpu
2.53 ghz cpu
4gb ram
god knows on harddrive (il check at work today)

wont smash the bank as much as the dell or toshi (iv used both btw, perks of working at harveys)

you would be looking around 2300-2500.

[skinz]

the m1730 is a beast, however sli isn't always that well supported in games, or by mobile drivers. The 9800 also has more shaders. I'd be wondering if the toshiba can take a x9000 (or x9100) cpu, as the dell can handle the x9000 if you want more speed later (and it can be clocked to 3.4ghz in the m1730)