Make $100: Find Me a Laptop, BBV

[Chesskid1]

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venz, he needs dual-DVI, not regular DVI to power the monitor.

First of all, you need to find a laptop that actually has a DVI port, not a DSUB15 VGA one. Astonishingly, this rules out 85% of the laptops out there, even though you can provide a dongle for DVI->VGA, yet you can’t do the other way around. Of the 15%, you then need to find ones with graphics chipsets that support dual-link DVI. This rules out all the NVidia GeForce Go 7600 stuff, or internal Intel or VIA-based stuff, which is most of that 15% of the market.

So you’re left with the maybe 2% of laptops out there that run ATI X1400 or X1600 chipsets (which support dual-link), and which actually have DVI ports so they might be able to use it. This doesn’t mean they actually will support it, of course, because that would make things too simple. They might have a chipset that supports it and the right connector, but not have the pins wired up or whatever. Cue much Googling around and discovering of hundreds of people posting things like, “are there any Windows laptops that support dual-link?”, met with general silence and tumbleweed all round. How can the market not have come up with products to fill this gap in well over a year? If they have, why aren’t they shouting the feature from the rooftops?

So, one of the laptops I’ve found that uses the right chipset and has DVI output is the Alienware m5550 . Great, so I go look at the reviews - does it actually have the pins connected properly and support dual-link? No one seems to know (that i've found).


Good luck OP. I am probably going to buy that monitor soon but you're out of luck if you are trying to find a laptop that not only has DVI but dual-DVI.

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you'll have to bear with me because I don't know what DVI and dual-DVI mean exactly: is that matrox box that venz linked to a DVI or dual-DVI converter thingamajig? is it helpful or am i still out of luck?

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You know the cord you connect your 30" dell to your computer? Well the difference between dvi and dual-dvi is this




the amount of connectors (the little wires that go into the black squares) changes, and the more there are the more bandwidth can go through the monitor. only the NEWEST video cards do this (and are for desktops) and i know you have one b/c you have a dell 30" that works at full resolution i am gussing. labtops just dont do that.



also, i think this labtop will support it, but it's expensive as [censored].

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16834220206

[jumbojacks]

Also, if you don't want to hassle with Bootcamp to install Windows [on a separate partition], there are options like VMWare's Fusion and Parallels Desktop so you can [virtualize] run Windows within OS X (it's just as fast as running it natively).

I would probably suggest running either program on the 30" in full screen powered by the MBPro.

[FoxwoodsFiend]

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venz, he needs dual-DVI, not regular DVI to power the monitor.

First of all, you need to find a laptop that actually has a DVI port, not a DSUB15 VGA one. Astonishingly, this rules out 85% of the laptops out there, even though you can provide a dongle for DVI->VGA, yet you can’t do the other way around. Of the 15%, you then need to find ones with graphics chipsets that support dual-link DVI. This rules out all the NVidia GeForce Go 7600 stuff, or internal Intel or VIA-based stuff, which is most of that 15% of the market.

So you’re left with the maybe 2% of laptops out there that run ATI X1400 or X1600 chipsets (which support dual-link), and which actually have DVI ports so they might be able to use it. This doesn’t mean they actually will support it, of course, because that would make things too simple. They might have a chipset that supports it and the right connector, but not have the pins wired up or whatever. Cue much Googling around and discovering of hundreds of people posting things like, “are there any Windows laptops that support dual-link?”, met with general silence and tumbleweed all round. How can the market not have come up with products to fill this gap in well over a year? If they have, why aren’t they shouting the feature from the rooftops?

So, one of the laptops I’ve found that uses the right chipset and has DVI output is the Alienware m5550 . Great, so I go look at the reviews - does it actually have the pins connected properly and support dual-link? No one seems to know (that i've found).


Good luck OP. I am probably going to buy that monitor soon but you're out of luck if you are trying to find a laptop that not only has DVI but dual-DVI.

[/ QUOTE ]

you'll have to bear with me because I don't know what DVI and dual-DVI mean exactly: is that matrox box that venz linked to a DVI or dual-DVI converter thingamajig? is it helpful or am i still out of luck?

[/ QUOTE ]



You know the cord you connect your 30" dell to your computer? Well the difference between dvi and dual-dvi is this




the amount of connectors (the little wires that go into the black squares) changes, and the more there are the more bandwidth can go through the monitor. only the NEWEST video cards do this (and are for desktops) and i know you have one b/c you have a dell 30" that works at full resolution i am gussing. labtops just dont do that.



also, i think this labtop will support it, but it's expensive as [censored].

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16834220206

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Can you get on IM for a bit? Wanna ask a few questions

[jumbojacks]

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16834220206

For comparison, you get a slightly faster processor 2.2 -> 2.4 GHz, less video memory 512 -> 256 MB, but option for larger res panel WSXGA+ -> WUXGA+.

[ikestoys]

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17" macbook pro

I has one, townsend has one, every self-respecting poker pro has one.

specs

# 17-inch MacBook Pro

* NVIDIA GeForce 8600M GT graphics processor with dual-link DVI support and 256MB of GDDR3 SDRAM.

iSight
# Dual display and video mirroring: Simultaneously supports full native resolution on the built-in display and up to 2560 by 1600 pixels on an external display, both at millions of colors
# DVI output port
# VGA output using included DVI to VGA adapter
# Built-in iSight camera



previous thread where I convinced someone to get a macbook pro. You can't lose.

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seconded, i absolutely love my macbook pro

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Actually, I think it's pretty close to being an obvious choice now that I think about. I'm not familiar with other offerings that support dual-link DVI, somewhat portable, supports WUXGA+ as it's main res, and doesn't slack on performance.

[FoxwoodsFiend]

Thread is over. Chesskid found me a baller computer that was exactly what I was looking for. He told me I didn't even need to ship him money, but I'm a man of my word so I shipped him a hundo anyway.

FTW

[bigshowmack]

I'm glad that the thread is over because if that stupid idiot called it a labtop one more time I was going to hunt him down and punch him in the face.