Dell adds dual NVIDIA 8800M GTX graphics to M1730: the be(a)st, now better

They may not be the first, but Dell's 17-inch XPM M1730 "Beast" deserves a warm welcome to the NVIDIA 8800M GTX club regardless. The dual-card update represents a 49% performance gain (3Dmark06) over Dell's previous top-end, dual 8700M GT card configuration. That puts the laptop on par with the DX10 performance of many new desktop rigs. Available now-ish in the US for $700 more than the dual 8700M GT option. However, orders placed today are estimated to arrive on February 20th with a cautionary footnote of possible delay. Ready for EMEA and AsiaPac regions sometime "soon." Now, if only Alienware would update us on their M17x availability we'd have our 17-inch, 8800M GTX gaming options sorted.

[superted @ Jan 30th 2008 6:01AM]

i'm guessing this thing runs HOT. Not one for your lap, me thinks!

[Jack @ Jan 30th 2008 6:14AM]

ARGH! My burnt testicles!

[webon @ Jan 30th 2008 6:42AM]

huevos cocidos

[SteveMB @ Jan 30th 2008 1:55PM]

As long as this is designed by Clevo, you're good. (D87P)

[André @ Jan 30th 2008 6:19AM]

I wouldn't be surprised if they built an asbestos heat shield in it or something, just to keep the price down..

André

[SimonRichards @ Jan 30th 2008 6:23AM]

And yet it will still suck, because its a DELL!

[Mobius_1 @ Jan 30th 2008 6:27AM]

I hope you are joking, I mean, come on, their quality has improved according to various reports, and heck, my 4 yr old Dell is working pretty damn smoothly (though somewhat slowly)

[SimonRichards @ Jan 30th 2008 6:42AM]

Well I guess there are always exceptions :P

I personally know 6 people with dell laptops that all perform badly in day-to-day use...

[Don @ Jan 30th 2008 8:02AM]

The Dell XPS series of computers are in a class of their own. You may be right about their standard products, but you get real quality with XPS. I love my M1210.

[Rusty @ Jan 30th 2008 8:55AM]

Dell's don't suck.....I've had two. Inspiron 5100, then 2 years ago
I bought an E1505. About a month ago, it developed a problem where it
the cpu would peg 100% ONLY with the AC adapter connected. Called Dell,
and within a week, they sent someone to my office, swapped out the motherboard, no questions asked. UNDER WARRANTY.
Say what you want, but I was impressed.

[Neebs @ Jan 30th 2008 6:36AM]

...still so ugly.

[BubbaGump @ Jan 30th 2008 12:23PM]

But Compared to the old IBM and some of the Lenovo ThinkPads,
its pretty damn sexy,

and with this Beast,
i think its about its inner beauty

[Akshay @ Jan 30th 2008 7:55AM]

So, what will this be priced at. The gateway p-170 FX is $1600 for 512mb 8800GTS, 250 gigs hd, 3gb ram and 3.6 ghz c2d.
Btw, how much of a difference is there between 8800GTX and 880GTS, and does it really make a lot of difference?

[illicit @ Jan 30th 2008 8:56AM]

There will be a noticable increase in performance between a 8800GTX and a 8800GTS, however instead of having one video card, the XPS has two GTX's.

[Ty @ Jan 30th 2008 11:55AM]

Aye I'd venture to say that the performance boost you see would be roughly the same as the performance boost you see in GTX v. GTS desktop implementations.

[SteveMB @ Jan 30th 2008 1:57PM]

I have one of those Gateways, but this Dell is nicer.

[Danny Griffin @ Jan 30th 2008 8:53AM]

this thing must get a full 4 minutes of battery life!

[BradVT @ Jan 30th 2008 9:15AM]

I wonder if this can run vista faster than a mbp.

[Zeus.:God @ Jan 30th 2008 9:58AM]

Of course it will- its a MUCH more powerful setup.

[Chris @ Jan 30th 2008 11:23AM]

The MBP isn't in this thing's class. Of course you are going to pay a black market kidney to get this as opposed to half a kidney for the MBP.

[BradVT @ Jan 30th 2008 12:22PM]

Sorry, I guess I didn't make it appearent, that was sarcasm.

[SteveMB @ Jan 30th 2008 1:58PM]

Actually, the MBP will also cost you a kidney, considering the specs of them.

[Ken @ Jan 30th 2008 9:38AM]

Be(a)st?

I'm sorry, you're insinuating that this laptop now is "the best" because it now has SLI 8800GTX. This is not even "catch-up" to Clevo's D901C which adds quad-core and RAID for a better price.

[builder1 @ Jan 30th 2008 2:38PM]

@Ken

I find your comment even more amusing, since Dell's sister brand, Alienware, sells rebadged, reworked Clevo machines.


IIRC, at one point, Clevo was also the ODM for the XPS series of "Notebooks".

[Ty @ Jan 30th 2008 12:07PM]

I'm not sure people would want to carry a laptop with three hard drives in it just so they can run RAID 5 when SAN / USB2.0 arrays at your destination(s) achieve the same goal. I would never ever run RAID in a laptop unless it were with SSD drives. As for SLI, the laptop you mention has an SLI implementation for the 8700GT, not the 8800M GTX. The quad-core is nice though.

Personally, I'm looking forward to when Sony starts throwing the 8800GTX chipset in to the performance VAIO's. Now THAT is a product I'd buy.

[SteveMB @ Jan 30th 2008 2:01PM]

Dude, have you ever owned a Clevo? And a quad core in a laptop? That thing will get extremely hot. Clevo makes some of the best spec'ed laptops, but the quality is very low. Just look at the D87P, I had one of those. Te ATI 9700 would always fry, even if you bought a new motherboard. They never recalled those pieces of crap.

[JohnTitor @ Jan 30th 2008 12:52PM]

nope, Clevo's D900C has proved to be the most powerful Laptops now like 3 years in the running
The current model runs a desktop Quad-Core and was first with the dual 8800GTXs

[RokkaMan @ Jan 30th 2008 2:45PM]

They should give it an external, flat heatsink and market it as a portable egg frier.

[OnTheRoadAgain @ Feb 11th 2008 4:37PM]

As a consultant always on the road it's impossible to lug my gaming rig from hotel to hotel. So this is a little dream come true. i looked (drooled) at the Clevo, but all that desktop hardware just generates too much heat to not crash.

Now i just need to give my IT dept a good reason why i need this laptop upgrade ... any suggestions?