ASI's IQ17-D2: Is Mobility Radeon HD 3870 X2 Still Fast Enough?

[Crashman]

After the launch of ATI's Cypress and Juniper parts, ATI's Mobility Radeon 3870 X2 is now three generations old. Is it still fast enough for gamers on the go? ASI sent us its IQ17-D2 with a mobile Core 2 Extreme and RAID 0 storage in order to find out.

ASI's IQ17-D2: Is Mobility Radeon HD 3870 X2 Still Fast Enough? : Read more

 

[Guest]

i have a 3870 x2 and its still rocking the new games great!
1920 x 1200 resolutions run smoothly,
i just have to tone the antialaising to like 2x or off on a few games like re5

 

[lashabane]

I love ASI's products.

 

[CoryInJapan]

That not bad for a gaming laptop.Could play COD4 and TF2 on there all day.

 

[lashabane]

There really needs to be an edit function.

 

[doomtomb]

Eurocom had some awesome performance but the power consumption is scary. You can't be away from an outlet for more than 45 minutes.

 

[tacoslave]

i like my desktop for gaming but when i have to go someplace and its a long trip i use this http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834152126
its got pretty decent battery life (3 hours) and it doesnt hurt the wallet that much anyway.

 

[curnel_D]

I'm an ASI partner, and I've been reselling these laptops since 2005. Most of their lineup are Brandless Compal (second largest OEM notebook supplier) notebooks. Not many score real high in the looks department, but the quality and durability is head and shoulders above the competition.

 

[melvis72]

I'd like to see a review on an Alienware M17x with Dual 280's or Dual 4870's just to see if all the money wasted is fast or not.

 

[liquidsnake718]

Not bad, I wouldnt get a laptop for gaming. Just get a mobile gaming device like a psp or dsi. I would rather play with a regular laptop than spend on a crazy laptop when I can just buy a ps3 or even build another great PC for that insane price. Crysis, COD5, STALKER and Fallout arent meant to be played with Laptops anyway on their max settings. You can play these in low or medium settings which is fine but I would never expect the world with even these mobile beasts.

 

[Ehsan w]

I suggest Ati drops whatever they have now, and start working on the mobility 5xxx series
Since the desktop versions already don't use a lot of power
but gives really good performance, they could totally rape Nvidia in a year

 

[amdfangirl]

Mmm... chunky

 

[jonpaul37]

I agree, if ATI had a mobility soultion for the 5xxx series that could be in a really nice position in the laptop market.

 

[jonpaul37]

I agree, if ATI had a mobility soultion for the 5xxx series that could be in a really nice position in the laptop market.

 

[Onus]

If the battery won't last through a three hour flight from TYS to MSP, it's not a viable option for me.

 

[LATTEH]

i still have a 3850 it still runs pretty strong (good enough for me to play the games i like) but with the 5xxx series i think it may be time to upgrade

 

[Guest]

I care less about performance on notebook drives.
But the Power efficiency, and battery life page tells me enough that this is not a notebook I'm looking for,or ever buy!
45 minutes under load???
I hope you understand after a year the battery will have 80% of it's capacity.
A year later it's only 66%.
That means after 2 years you'd only get 25 minutes of battery life out of this machine!

 

[cookoy]

can't convince myself why i should use my notebook to play games - the real stuffs and not solitaire. i use mine for browsing, watching non-HD videos and work. more concerned about the heat generated by dedicated graphics chips. if i want to play games, i use my desktop.

 

[fulle]

Articles like this always have people coming on saying stupid shit like:
"I would never buy a laptop with this poor of battery life"
or "Why would anyone try to play anything but solitaire on a Laptop? I could build a Desktop for far less".

Well, congratulations, a DTR style laptop doesn't suit your needs. There's still a market filled with people who relocate often (e.g. Military), or need a powerful machine to take to customer sites (which will have a power outlet btw), or even would buy one because they wipe their ass with 100s and just wanted something to take a friend's houses so they could game together.

 

[BoxBabaX]

[citation][nom]fulle[/nom]Articles like this always have people coming on saying stupid shit like:"I would never buy a laptop with this poor of battery life"or "Why would anyone try to play anything but solitaire on a Laptop? I could build a Desktop for far less".Well, congratulations, a DTR style laptop doesn't suit your needs. There's still a market filled with people who relocate often (e.g. Military), or need a powerful machine to take to customer sites (which will have a power outlet btw), or even would buy one because they wipe their ass with 100s and just wanted something to take a friend's houses so they could game together.[/citation]

hahahaha this is great

 

[scook9]

I am pretty sure corssfire was disabled on that laptop....if you go to the CCC and check Catalyst AI it needs to be enabled for Crossfire to be in effect. Pretty much ALL those numbers look like a single 3870 to me....

This laptop is actually a year old now, ASI is just new to selling it. It is the Alienware M17 (which can be bought for $700 now as a "recertified" (but brand new) system so screw ASI and their pricing...) as well as the now gone OCZ whitebook. Long story short, it is the Arime/Flextronics W840DI which has been out for a while. The best GPU's that will fit this notebook are a pair of 4850's which ONLY Alienware sold and ONLY for a short time (to clear stock of the laptop I think)

3870x2 Mobility will crush a GTX 280m so that is why I belive you did this test with Crossfire off (I can provide numbers if you need proof - I had an OCZ whitebook for about 6 months and now have an Alienware M17x)

As was stated by another user, except for very rare cases, the 3870x2 Mobility is easily enough for most modern games at high settings - I can provide sources for this as well.

Tom's needs to jump over to Notebook Review Forums and do some research themselves to make sure that their results seem right

 

[Guest]

I love DTRs, I just hope they can catch up with the desktop market again. I still use an old ASUS DTR from '05 the thing is way its glory days now, but at the time I could talk smack with benchmarks. It has a 3.8 P4, 2gb DDR2 and an overclocked Mobile Geforce 6800 GT, which easily go hand to hand with a beefy desktop in back in early '05.

Heres hoping that the next gen DTRs get an i7 and a mobile Gefore 300 / Radeon 5800. Sadly it seems like mobile hardware has been getting less and less attention in the past few years

 

[PotShotScott]

Of course the 3870X2 is still awesome. I'm running one paired with a Corei5 and an Intel DP55KG. It runs all the games I play on max res with max features at well over 40 frames. If it still performs well, why not use it? The lappy manufacturers are sure to have gotten the chips on the cheap!

 

[scook9]

Oh, and everyone needs to stop getting so giddy about GT300/HD 5k mobile cards.....it is going to be 6 months minimum before the topend parts are out...Alienware JUST released the 4870x2 option (REAL - WITH GDDR5. The asus cards in the w90 sucked and were really 4850s with GDDR3 - and ATI had NOTHING to do with the card design, part of why they failed)

 

[Crashman]

[citation][nom]scook9[/nom]I am pretty sure corssfire was disabled on that laptop....if you go to the CCC and check Catalyst AI it needs to be enabled for Crossfire to be in effect...Tom's needs to jump over to Notebook Review Forums and do some research themselves to make sure that their results seem right[/citation]

The results didn't look right, so Tom's Hardware checked and MADE CERTAIN CrossFire was enabled. With that certainty, any reviews that show different results seem wrong.