So I currently own an MSI GE62. Has an 5700hq, 16gb ram, 128gb boot drive, 1tb storage, and a 970m 3gb. I find the performance to be acceptable but the build quality and the screen is honestly complete trash to what I am used too(also feel as if too small). Anyhow, I recently found a deal on an open box alienware laptop(its on hold at a local microcenter and someone will buy it for me if I give them my current laptop). The Alienware in question is an 18.4 inch model, it has an 4710hq, 8gb ram(will upgrade to 16gb), and crossfire M290x’s (2x4GB). I benchmarked both machines… The Alienware is 50% faster than this 970m in heaven/valley and such. So I know people will say CF can be iffy and dual gpu’s are not supported by all games(of course we all know this). Here is the kicker, I only truly play Battlefield. Since BF3 80% of my gaming is battlefield. Battlefield has always worked great on AMD. So knowing this, would it be worth it getting an older yet faster solution(due to the dual gpu’s) for Battlefield 1?
Your getting Basically a 7870 cfx setup, which honestly is by no means recommendable for games. That architecture of that video card in particularly is especially bitchy in crossfire. I would look up sell the current laptop and save up some to get a single Gtx 1060 based laptop, as crossfire, while in raw performance is faster than your current setup, is a pain in the ass on those cards. Also keep in mind that 50% faster raw does not translate to 50% faster in games, scaling in games is never as good as in synthetics.
Yea you make some valid points, but also when it comes to Battlefield I saw a benchmark were the average FPS was actually 50% more in BF4 compared to my 970m.. Another thing I will not be buying nvidia again. This is my 4th gaming laptop this year.. intel drivers and nvidia drivers have been nothing but trouble for me on Win10. Lots of driver crashes and graphical artifacts. If anything I will got one of the new rx 470 gaming laptops coming out.
Drivers can be hit or miss for any brand, but if you want AMD than that's fine. I would suggest a rx 470 laptop over a cfx 290m any day. Crossfire is a bitch, and a dual r9 290m laptop is going to run hot and loud. Its also worth noting that crossfire and sli on battlefield games has not been very good at launch historically. BF4 and BF3 both had launch problems that lasted for months for some SLI and CFX users. BF1 being based on the same frostbite 3 engine as BF4 hopefully would nullify this trend, but you never know.
Well I decided to go with the alienware.. but for a few reasons. I played BF1 last night and honestly the screen is too small on the MSI. I also looked at what upgrade options there is for that alienware.. the 980m sli kit is only $700 for it. saw vid showing bf1 running better on the cf setup which is the only thing that matters to me.