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ALienWare GFX Card - Did I make the right choice?

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Old Jan 21, 2011, 06:50 AM   #1
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ALienWare GFX Card - Did I make the right choice?
I still have a few days to change it if I want. I'm pretty sure I made the right choice choosing the ATI Mobility Radeon HD 5850 over the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 260M. Especially when looking at the benchmarks it looks like the 5850 beats the 260M in most of them plus it's $100 cheaper option. I don't keep up to date on mobile graphics (just desktops and then mostly just nVidia and ATi flagships) so I was wondering if I made the right choice.

P.S. I got the screen upgrade to 1920x1080 and I fully don't expect to be able to play any games at that resolution.
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Old Jan 21, 2011, 10:31 AM   #2
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Re: ALienWare GFX Card - Did I make the right choice?
As long as you are not going after hardware accelerated Nvidia's PhysX, you will be fine.
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Old Jan 21, 2011, 11:20 AM   #3
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Re: ALienWare GFX Card - Did I make the right choice?
I'm surprised that the GTX260m is still offered.

I seem to remember that it's a G92 variant, in which case the 5850M would be a much better choice.
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Old Jan 21, 2011, 04:03 PM Threadstarter Thread Starter   #4
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Re: ALienWare GFX Card - Did I make the right choice?
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As long as you are not going after hardware accelerated Nvidia's PhysX, you will be fine.
You know, I completely forgot that PhysX was a draw of nVidia cards. However being a laptop I don't think it's all that important since the ATi card would give me better overall graphics.
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Old Jan 21, 2011, 04:30 PM   #5
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Re: ALienWare GFX Card - Did I make the right choice?
I have an Nvidia card, which I think I'm right in thinking is similarly powerful to the GTX260m. So far I've only used physx in one title, that being UT3. Other than that it's just cool demos, benchmarks etc., for me.

Many newer games contain the technology, but so far I've been tempted to play none.
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Old Jan 21, 2011, 04:37 PM   #6
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Re: ALienWare GFX Card - Did I make the right choice?
the 5850m.... will indeed power almost all games at 1920x1200/1080.... very well...

and i'll take the ATI mobility chips over any built in Nvidia solution.... why?

because nvidia has a crazy failrate on their chips..... there hardware is inferior..... the countless dead laptops all due to their video chips flying appart.. almost literally.
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Old Jan 21, 2011, 05:35 PM Threadstarter Thread Starter   #7
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Re: ALienWare GFX Card - Did I make the right choice?
I've been using an 8600M GT for a while now and it's pretty solid and my desktop graphics card will never be anything BUT nVidia but for mobility I mean obviously I'm going to choose the more powerful option between the two. I'm not so much of a fanboy that I'm going to listen to what the guy on the phone says (just because he wants to make some extra commission) and to ignore the benchmarks. Thanks for all the info guys I'm not very happy with my choice.
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Old Jan 21, 2011, 06:21 PM   #8
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Re: ALienWare GFX Card - Did I make the right choice?
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I'm not very happy with my choice.
Is this a typo?

If not, why?
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Old Jan 22, 2011, 01:52 AM Threadstarter Thread Starter   #9
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Re: ALienWare GFX Card - Did I make the right choice?
Haha that should be "now". I'm sorry for the typo, it was early in the morning for me
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Old Jan 22, 2011, 04:20 AM   #10
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Re: ALienWare GFX Card - Did I make the right choice?
Judas, is there a single part of a computer you don't have a fanboy preference over..?

@OP Glad to hear it. The 5850 is indeed vastly superior to the 260.
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Old Jan 22, 2011, 06:37 AM Threadstarter Thread Starter   #11
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Re: ALienWare GFX Card - Did I make the right choice?
Haha I'm a heavy Intel/nVidia fanboy and if there was something better from nVidia available I would have paid extra for it but I'm not a fool! My only problem now is the sweet binder/portfolio case is only for the M11x! I contacted the manufacturer to see if I can special order one for the 15 inch M15x
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Old Jan 25, 2011, 05:17 PM   #12
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Re: ALienWare GFX Card - Did I make the right choice?
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Judas, is there a single part of a computer you don't have a fanboy preference over..?

@OP Glad to hear it. The 5850 is indeed vastly superior to the 260.

i don't have a fanboy preferrence over anything..

i just know what has been the least problematic.... easiest to use... most reliable, most stable... highest performing for the dollar value....

A few years ago I was using AMD .... today it's intel's i3's.....

For a short stint.... i was recommending nvidia's 8800 series gpus.... but even those have shown to be failing more often then ati's counter parts.....

It's not a fanboy preference...... it's a logical preferrence.

I specifically build for quality components... and when evidence shows one manufacturer or product is failing miserably..... i move to another that shows the best results..

Was using seagate 7200.xx series drives.. moved away from them when there hardrives started to show major failings....

been using the WD Caviar blacks for some time now.
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