Help Meeeee find the laptop i want to buy

[gingerbee]

OK well this is the facts i now have the coin for the laptop i really want i am just not sure which one to buy

I am looking at asus or acer prefer asus and i want one with dual hdd's or an ssd and 1 hdd with a 560 or 570 blue ray is not needed please throw out some options cause i am stuck i am just over shopping it now thanks for any and all help

[gray mole]

Well the usual question is...

Do you want easy multimonitor support or not?

ATI is just better for that.

Otherwise...

Mobile Graphics Cards - Benchmark List - Notebookcheck.net Tech

NVIDIA GeForce GT 540M - Notebookcheck.net Tech

AMD Radeon HD 7670M - Notebookcheck.net Tech

You can't exactly go by their standings in that list since the cpu in the test systems isn't identical. Vantage scores higher in the 7670 average. 3D06 scores higher for the 540.

But they're so close in performance I wouldn't say either way. I mean, if you believe the list, the AMD edges out Nvidia. But if you like being able to 'dock up' and watch/play on 3 monitors, (and the lappy allows for that) but the ATI cards often give eyefinity support (didn't confirm it's on the 7670 but I think it should be, should check if that's a benefit to you) and it's something I like myself, so would go with a laptop that supports eyefinity output. 3 monitor support is nice.

As always when they're so close, it's the little things that make more difference than the raw gaming power, since neither is far and away a clear 'winner'.


Gray

[gingerbee]

yup i hear ya hence why i have so much of a problem deciding which one if any to buy lol

[b1lk1]

I wouldn't bother wondering about eyefiity support with almost any mobile GPU since they will nearly all lack the power to do it properly.

Either of those GPU's will do well at 1366X768 but once you go over that get ready to start turning down settings.

[chrisk]

I have the 540m but I don't game on my laptop so I won't comment on that.

What I can say is that Optimus tech works well. The gpu switches on flawlessly from the integrated Intel one with no crashes, etc. Absolutely no driver issues for me in the 4+ months I have had this setup.

Cuda is what gets used most often for my gpu. Lots of apps have support for it. ATI/Radeon were pioneers in that area, but have fallen back a bit over the years. Seems there might be a push from them on that front now, but I am unsure of the current state of gpgpu on ATI/AMD.

So if gaming is a toss-up, try looking at gpgpu options. If you find that you ight do some transcoding/ripping, take a look at it from that angle. When I bought, it was nVidia hands-down. AMD's 7xxx series might be better than their 6xxx series, or will be better once support improves. But when I bought, Cuda was the tipping point for me.