Will my SLI Mobile GPUs be bottlenecked by my CPU?

[T-Rex]

Hey everyone, I'm currently building a Sager NP7280 (Clevo X7200) Gaming Laptop. I've decided on everything, including dual SLI GTX 485M along with an Intel Core i7 960 desktop processor. Will my CPU be okay with these 2 GPUs? or do I need to upgrade to i7 970 or i7 990X?


x2 SLI GTX 485M: http://www.notebookcheck.net/NVIDIA-GeForce-GTX-485M-SLI.49201.0.html

Intel Core i7 960: http://ark.intel.com/products/37151/Intel-Core-i7-960-Processor-%288M-Cache-3_20-GHz-4_80-GTs-Intel-QPI%29

Intel Core i7 970: http://ark.intel.com/products/47933/Intel-Core-i7-970-Processor-%2812M-Cache-3_20-GHz-4_80-GTs-Intel-QPI%29

Intel Core i7 990X: http://ark.intel.com/products/52585/Intel-Core-i7-990X-Processor-Extreme-Edition-%2812M-Cache-3_46-GHz-6_40-GTs-Intel-QPI%29

I know nothing about bottlenecking and it's scaring me, any help would be much appreciated!

 

[Toxxyc]

You're better off going socket LGA1155, it'll produce less heat in the already high-power consuming laptop you are currently planning. It also performs remarkably better than the older socket, as the 990X and such are way too much, you're never going to use that power for gaming at all. You're just going to fry everything at the laptop's exhaust...

 

[ragenalien]

But to answer your question no, that CPU is powerful, if overpriced. Any of those (and pretty much anything in the i7 range) will allow you to put anything in them without a single complaint, as long as you have the money that is. Much like a hooker...Sorry, inappropriate.

Oh and the LGA1155 (sandy-bridge) is going to give you comparable performance for much less money.

 

[T-Rex]

Hooker, lololol. Well, the laptop I want to build only offers these CPUs, other laptops with sandy bridge CPUs don't offer 485M SLI It's either single or dual 580M. Single will be outdated soon enough, and SLI is overpriced in comparison of performance and value with the 485M SLI. So I think 485M SLI is the best value for money without having my laptop becoming outdated very fast Oh, and thanks for the help!

 

[Timop]

Unless you're doing heavy video processing and truly not moving your laptop, the m18x with a 2720QM would offer slightly (less than ~15% in most cases) worse CPU performance while performing better with games with a pair of 6990Ms. Plus you get some degree of mobility and somewhat decent battery life.

Though in neither case would even a 2620QM bottleneck anything, the fastest pair of Mobile GPUs ATM (dual 6990Ms) is about as fast as a 6970 factoring scaling/

 

[T-Rex]

I considered Alienware's M18x. However, I heard many people complaining about CrossFire problems, and even more people complaining about Alienware having hardware/software problems and crappy customer service. I wanted the Alienware originally, but the overwhelming amount of horror stories is preventing me from doing it