i5 4690K & GTX980 or i7 4790K & GTX970 for Xenoblade Chronicles?

[Phönixfire]

Hi all together,

i'm having problems to decide which combination i should buy in a Laptop to get the most out of Dolphin for Xenoblade Chronicles with a higher internal Resolution (maybe 3x to 4x). I read that its heavy CPU dependent and that Dolphin utilizes only up to 3 cores, so which of those both options would be preferably:

Option 1: i5 4690K & Nvidia GTX980 (4 threads, 3.5GHz normal, 3.9GHz Turbo but better GFX with 8GB)
Option 2: i7 4790K & Nvidia GTX970 (8 threads, 4.0GHz normal, 4.4GHz Turbo but worse GFX with 6GB, especially because of the 3.5GB Bug)

I also need to mention that i plan to OC the CPU and play Dying Light on it.

My eyes picked the batman "Clevo P770ZM":
http://forum.notebookreview.com/threads/official-clevo-p770zm-sager-np9772-owners-lounge.768770/

The rest of the config will be:
8GB of RAM
512GB SSD Samsung 850 Pro
Windows 7 x64

I hope that you can help and explain me why either option should be chosen, THX in advance  

[shreduhsoreus]

When the shit did they start putting desktop CPUs in a laptop? That is ridiculous!

I would say go with the 4790K and 970M because I personally believe the extra 50 bucks for the CPU is better than the extra 300 for the GPU. Plus, the 970M is beastly enough to handle just about anything you throw at it anyway. I would also say to get the heatsink upgrade too and go ahead and buy some MX4 or Arctic Silver 5 thermal compound to replace the stock compound. Not sure why they only offer IC Diamond, that stuff is garbage.

$1750 if you get the two upgrades I suggested. That's pretty good I think.

[Gortom]

(02-20-2015, 04:44 AM)Phönixfire Wrote: Hi all together,

i'm having problems to decide which combination i should buy in a Laptop to get the most out of Dolphin for Xenoblade Chronicles with a higher internal Resolution (maybe 3x to 4x). I read that its heavy CPU dependent and that Dolphin utilizes only up to 3 cores, so which of those both options would be preferably:

Option 1: i5 4690K & Nvidia GTX980 (4 threads, 3.5GHz normal, 3.9GHz Turbo but better GFX with 8GB)
Option 2: i7 4790K & Nvidia GTX970 (8 threads, 4.0GHz normal, 4.4GHz Turbo but worse GFX with 6GB, especially because of the 4GB Bug)

I also need to mention that i plan to OC the CPU and play Dying Light on it.

My eyes picked the batman "Clevo P770ZM":
http://forum.notebookreview.com/threads/official-clevo-p770zm-sager-np9772-owners-lounge.768770/

The rest of the config will be:
8GB of RAM
512GB SSD Samsung 850 Pro
Windows 7 x64

I hope that you can help and explain me why either option should be chosen, THX in advance  

Sager/Clevo has been doing this for a while.  I haven't kept up with that part of the market as I don't game on laptops - I just use ultrabooks for work/browsing nowadays.

Either choice should be fine for Dolphin. Both CPUs should be pretty close for gaming and for Dolphin. Dolphin mainly uses 1 core. Hyperthreading won't help (it can hurt in some scenarios).  I wonder how the cooling is on such a machine and whether throttling comes into play.

970 or 980 should be fine. 3.5 GB is plenty for Dolphin or pretty much any game that's not being played at 4K with obscene settings.

For gaming outside of Dolphin the i5 should be plenty to drive a single 970 or 980.  It can be OC'd to at least 4790k speeds, though I'm not sure if that can be done on a clevo machine. The lack of HT or a couple MB of cache shouldn't hurt gaming much at all. The i5 + 980 should give you a better overall gaming machine.

[Phönixfire]

Yeah thought it, too. Plenty Reviews state that the i5 can reach the clocks of the 4790k. The OC can definitely be done (Custom BIOS by Prema) and given that it should be easier to upgrade later to a new desktop-cpu, i think that my decision shifts to the i5 combo as of now.

I also saw already one guy in this forum that uses the batman xD

Only one thing you didn't explain or forgot to mention, what would be better for Xenoblade? I think that Games in Dolphin benefit differently from cpu and gpu, some need every MHz of the cpu and some need the extra gpu power...

THX both of you.

[shreduhsoreus]

If you want to stick with the i5 I would still say to save a huge chunk of cash and stick with the 970M as well. Dolphin won't really make any use of the extra performance you'll get from the 980M and unless you plan on doing some hardcore PC gaming, I don't really see it being worth it for an extra $300. Since you can upgrade the GPU yourself, you could always do that later on if you feel the need, then turn around and sell the 970M to make the upgrade cost a lot less than what they're charging for the immediate upgrade.

[Phönixfire]

(02-21-2015, 06:25 AM)shreduhsoreus Wrote: If you want to stick with the i5 I would still say to save a huge chunk of cash and stick with the 970M as well. Dolphin won't really make any use of the extra performance you'll get from the 980M and unless you plan on doing some hardcore PC gaming, I don't really see it being worth it for an extra $300. Since you can upgrade the GPU yourself, you could always do that later on if you feel the need, then turn around and sell the 970M to make the upgrade cost a lot less than what they're charging for the immediate upgrade.

Are there vendors in europe (germany) that sell these M GPUs? Only place i saw until today was eBay... If so that could be an option. I was asuming that i would be stuck with the GPU. Could you send me a list of such vendors?

[Nintonito]

Just wanna clear something up.  The 970M DOES NOT SHARE THE 3.5GB ISSUE THAT THE DESKTOP 970 HAS.  The 970M CAN AND WILL ADDRESS 6GB AT FULL SPEED.  Also I would personally get the i7 and 970M variant,  because from an i5 to an i7 you do get a small IPC jump.  If you really desire 3-4x IR then maybe the 980M is better.

[Phönixfire]

(02-21-2015, 08:22 AM)Nintonito Wrote: Just wanna clear something up.  The 970M DOES NOT SHARE THE 3.5GB ISSUE THAT THE DESKTOP 970 HAS.  The 970M CAN AND WILL ADDRESS 6GB AT FULL SPEED.  Also I would personally get the i7 and 970M variant,  because from an i5 to an i7 you do get a small IPC jump.  If you really desire 3-4x IR then maybe the 980M is better.

This was a really nice hint. So the M GPUs are not affected by this 3.5GB bug. Hmm thats now a different story. So it boils down to if i want to use 3-4x IR than "option 1" would be preferable otherwise not, am i right?

[shreduhsoreus]

I don't see why you wouldn't be able to hit those resolutions on the 970M...that GPU is better than mine by an extremely large margin, and I run at 2-2.5x IR.

I don't know of any vendors off hand that sell them new, I haven't had much reason to look that far into it because my dedicated card can't be replaced.

[Phönixfire]

After thinking i ordered option 1 reason being:
1) Lower Cash for i5 like shreduhsoreus mentioned and the possibility to OC to the speeds of the i7.
2) It may be possible to upgrade the GPU later but there are (after searching on the net) no vendors that offer newer cards with warranty.
3) I plan to play Dying Light, so yes hardcore gaming is the next priority AFTER Xenoblade Chronicles.
4) If i want i can upgrade the CPU in the future to an i7 4790K (or maybe something better of the next generation CPUs)

THX to all of you for the input delivered to this question.