MacBook Pro 17" vs Dell XPS M1710

[Sky]

Hi all,

I am debating whether to buy a MBP 17" or the XPS M1710 from Dell. Both seem to have outstanding reviews and are priced fairly the same.

I'd go with the MBP, however I'm a moderate gamer (BF2, FS2004) and I'm afraid that the X1600 won't be enough for future games. On the other hand, the XPS can carry th 512MB GeForce 7900 GTX.

Any advice?

Thanks!

 

[carfac]

If games is your only criteria, go Dell...

What other thinmgs do you run? Are they available on the Mac?

 

[Mord]

the x1600 is a great chip, the 30-40% difference in framerate is not worth the extra " thickness nor the 45 min battery life of the XPS. get the MBP it's pure joy Vs annoyance and a little higher framerate.

the x1600 is not a budget gpu like the x600 was, it's a 12 pipe very decent card and supports all the shaders that the 7800 does (SM3 ect.)

 

[Sky]

If games is your only criteria, go Dell...

What other thinmgs do you run? Are they available on the Mac?

No, I'm not a hard-core gamer, but I enjoy playing a few times a week. Looking at recent posts, it seems the MBP can run BF2, FS2004 pretty well.

However, I would like to still be able to play games that will come out in the next couple of years without a serious performance degradation, since the card is not upgradeable.

Most of my usage though is web browsing, word processing, and I'd like to start editing some of camcorder movies I made.

Thanks for the reply!

 

[MGLXP]

If gaming was your only concern, the Dell XPS M1710 would absolutely destroy the Apple Macbook Pro 17 inch because the graphics card in the Dell (nVidia GeForce 7900GTX 512MB) is the most powerful graphics card on the market (except for SLI - 2 graphics cards in tandem). Any hardware enthusiast site such as Anandtech, etc. would prove this. The ATI Radeon Mobility X1600, while a capable graphics card, is considered mid-range in the graphics world, while the GeForce 7900GTX is highest of the high end in the notebook graphics world (except those crazy SLI notebooks). However, if you don't really care much about gaming too much, the Apple Macbook Pro 17 inch is a stylish, light (relatively) and thin notebook and it runs Windows and Mac OS X; the Dell can't really compare in these respects!