Alienware M14x R1 Vs Alienware M14x R2

I 'believe' the real benefit with the 650 is the updated driver set, cooler running technology and efficiency.

 

Ivy runs at 2.7 ghz. It's already clock4clock faster than Sandy, and along with higher clock makes it THE DEFINITIVE M14x. We're seeing near desktop performance in a laptop.

 

Hehe, I wish I had a m14x, so you guys stop complaining about gt 650m vs gt 555m. Im here stuck with a super low-end 6490m.

 

I think i will stick with the R1, not worth the money for the upgrade IMO

 

I'll be getting one when it launches. Guess I'll like it cause my present lap gives 20fps at 640x480 and details lowered in nfs Most Wanted

So it will overcome m14x r1 's greatest hurdle..... noise and heat

 

A good pair of headphones will fix the noise and quality thermal paste/notebook cooler will fix the heat

 

So how easy would a motherboard replacement be on this? Just a plain one with the card? I know one now costs $200 for the r1. If it was the same price for an r2 mobo I'm for sure in on it. Oh, and by the way, does it seem like Alienware did this on purpose?

RAM: A little better, I will NEVER need 16GB of RAM though! Processor: No difference HDD: No difference LCD: No difference.

Hmm, so the only real difference from an r1 and r2 is the graphics card. But I can't just pop out and change the 555m for the 650, it's built into the motherboard!

 

But you can swap out the motherboard.

 

Lol, yeah I'll wait for a tutorial by someone first. I'm sure it's not easy.

 

I have my doubts this will work. Wouldn't the addition of the mSATA to the mainboard result in a complete re-design? Complete re-design would mean new casings which means it will be slightly different internally from the R1. Don't know anything, just seems unlikely.

 

Yeah idk. Guess we'll have to wait until someone gets one AND decides to rip it apart.

 

I'm sure it's possible. But the fact that that the mainboard consists of the GPU, as a service part it will probably cost $600-700. Best to sell your R1 and buy an R2.

 

Well, IMO the upgrade will totally worth it. Why? because I bought my R1 in México (where is pretty more expensive than USA), so I'll sell my R1 here and buy the R1 in USA.

If I buy the r2 with the equal specs of my r1 I will keep some bucks. So, I can make a great improve with just some more bucks. I think I'm lucky

 

Has anyone seen/made any teardown videos of the r2 yet? would be interested to see how different they are.

 

Il be sticking with my m14x r1 since I def cannot afford to upgrade lol.

Plus I'm happy with it plays Dota 2 and Diablo 3 great and that's basically all I play.

 

Does the R2 have the same 16x9 screen with the abysmal color gamut?

Do you guys know if they've improved the screen at all? It kept me from purchasing the R1, but now with a much better video card in there it's making me want one.

But again, the limiting factor is the screen. I just can't get comfortable using a screen under 90% color gamut.

 

The screen is the same.

 

I honestly forgot how good colors and blacks are on some monitors, when I went back to my samsung Monitor I couldn't believe how much better it looked!

It's really depressing to see such a crappy monitor coupled with awesome hardware.

White fuzz + glossy finish

I prefer matte anyways

 

Hello, So I purchased my M14xR1 a few weeks a go since I was eager and could not wait for the R2..Plus the speculation thread on here speculated its release around late Q3, but whatever.

I currently own a M14x i7 2860QM 2.5Ghz 8mb, High Def 900p, GT555m 3GB,
750Gb HD, Killer Wireless-N, Bluetooth and a Internal 60GHz Wireless transmitter. stock dell 4GB ram, however I upgraded and purchased ram separately(Hyper X 8GB)

I have no problems with it, I enjoy this machine a lot and it runs BF3 on Medium with an average fraps of 28-30.

I called dell and they said "no problem" I could return this unit for a refund and purchase the R2

My question to you guys is should I do it? I got a really good deal on this order and to upgrade I had in mind two setups

This more expensive R2 setup will cost me roughly $350 more; i7-3820QM 2.7GHz, 2GB GT650M, 750GBHD, Intel Wifi with Bluetooth, but no Wifi HDMI, no blueray and stock 6GB Ram. Is the $350 worth the difference with this set up?...

Or should I go with the less expensive version with cost the same as my current R1: i7-3720QM 2.6GHz and 1GB GT650M, High-def 900p, Advanced WiFi Intel card with Bluetooth, 500GB HD, 6GB RAM... mind you I will be losing the Killer Wireless card, 250GB of the HD and the Wireless HDMi on both set ups

Any suggestions, will the new ivybridge with the GT650M really make that much of a difference that is worth upgrading?

 

hey did you return your r1?

 

Go with the 2nd config with GT650m 1gb and the i7-3720QM the differences between the 3720 and the 3820 are only 0.1ghz so not noticable and 2gb on the 650m is only usefull for multiple external monitors. And yes it's totaly worth it imo. There wont be much differences between sandy bridge and ivy bridge (about 15% boost) but the 650m is a big upgrade, just look by yourself: Computer Games on Laptop Graphic Cards - Notebookcheck.net Tech (restrict with 650m and 555m only)

 

The Ivy I dont think so, but the Video card it should provide a notice boost, I estimate about 30% give or take

 

Clock to clock ivy is about 15% more powerful than Sandy bridge, so it's still a good improvement.
And for people who say Ivy bridge produces more heat than SB yes it's true but only when overclocked, since you can only overclock the GPU on the m14x I don't see the problem.

 

No it's not. Its disappointing. The Ivy is basically what the Sandy should've been.

It's Sandy 2.0. We don't see the step up that we saw going to i7 from the Q series.

Even the going from Bloomfield to Sandy was a slight let down, but at least it ran cooler and drew less power, but atleast it showed some results.

Frankly at this point I see the Ivy bridge worth skipping.

Again thats my opinion

That being said, maybe going from i7 Bloomfield to Ivy will be worth it, but I think I'll wait for the next CPU launch! Hopefully Intel won't skimp on the Thermals

 

Well since it's about the same price as the sandy bridge and it's just a tick so a small update of the sandy bridge, so a bit more powerful, use less battery, yes it's hotter than the SB but only when overclocked, I don't see why you are complaining about it.

 

Wait a minute.... hotter?
Than the i7's from the 2nd Gen?

 

Yes when overclocked, it produces more heat: Intel's Ivy Bridge Chips Appear to Run Hotter Than Sandy Bridge Chips When Overclocked | PCWorld

 

I'm not arguing that it's a step up, but you made it look a lot like the holy grail of Step ups. Also TDP shows 45 Watts much like the Sandy Bridges In the mobile at least.

The reason for the heat issue from what I remember is Intel's poor choice to skimp on the method of cooling.

Also this is ofc a huge deal, most ppl doing the upgrade are enthusiasts looking to push the system to the max.

Now laptop users I can understand, I mean it's rare to see overclock.

Still this is imo a disappointment. I skipped Sandy Bridge for my desktop for the Ivy bridges, looks like I'll keep waiting!

Now for the m14x R2, the Video card should be a good enough reason to upgrade.

If you already have an R1, and you can't get your money back or have to spend over 300/400$ for the upgrade (I'd even say 200$, buts that me) then it's not worth it. You might as well send the money to my paypal account

I'm going to make my choice in September what the next laptop is for me. I was hoping more for a Decent LCD screen.

I honestly thought that cod had a very low color range and Battlefield...even Dead island!

Nope the monitor was just garbage

M14x R3, let's hope it brings 3D option!

 

It's Sandy 2.0. We don't see the step up that we saw going to i7 from the Q series.

Even the going from Bloomfield to Sandy was a slight let down, but at least it ran cooler and drew less power, but atleast it showed some results.

Frankly at this point I see the Ivy bridge worth skipping.

Again thats my opinion

That being said, maybe going from i7 Bloomfield to Ivy will be worth it, but I think I'll wait for the next CPU launch! Hopefully Intel won't skimp on the Thermals

@L1qu1d
Well for upgrading from Bloomfield.
Intel made the sandy bridge-E and the upcoming Ivy bridge-E for people with deep pockets (bloomfield wasnt cheap at that time).

 

That's an article on the dedktop chips, not the mobile versions.

Sent from my Kindle Fire using Tapatalk 2

 

They probably forgot to turn off their heater while doing these benchmark. Hotter sound like sexy sometimes.

 

the alienware m14x r2 with the second generation processor, how would it run bf3? it has the nvidia GT650M 2gb and 12gb RAM.

 

BF3 --> 50-65 fps on high according to owners. Depends on 720p or 900p.

 

For those with an M14x R2 dealie...did Alienware address the loud fan that kicks in with the R1 whenever it gets too hot? Every review I read mentioned that 50+db noise when the fan kicks in.

 

Imagine the GPU they could've fit if the Optical drive had been removed.
Hopefully the R3 will explore this...

 

Was looking to upgrade my laptop and after a week or so decided that the Alienware M14X R2 seems a good choice with a good bang for buck, but before investing £1200 (24 month plan direct from Dell) I thought it best to ask what the life expectancy I should expect from it. I will most likely be using around half of its capacity 3/4 of the time with an average of 8 hours per day / 6 days a week. This will be mainly surfing the web, playing poker, exel spreadesheets & databases, watching DVD's, some fairly heavy down/upload traffic & maybe 5-6 hours (per week) playing fairly demanding games. So disbarring any unforeseen accidents would this laptop keep going strong for around 5-6 years if treated with care. From my experience the models half this price range last around 4 years but you notice a steady decline in performance as each year passes to the point of irritation, and it's hard to compare todays technology with that of 2008 (for me anyway). Also it seems the more powerful the machine the more demanding the resources get, so will these factors end up balancing out resulting in a life span equal to it's predecessors and on a par with the degradation of system processes? Sorry if this is a long-winded and, for the time being at least, unanswerable question but I just know the basics when it comes to computers, and for the price tag I need something built to last more than just a few years, my theory is that if something is twice the pricetag then it should last twice as long.

Here's a summary of the specifications - £1,068.98 inc VAT & Shipping

Module Description Show Details
Base Alienware M14x Base
Operating System English Windows® 7 Home Premium (64 BIT)
Memory 8192MB (2x4GB) 1600MHz DDR3 Dual Channel
Video Card 2GB GDDR5 NVIDIA® GeForce® GT 650M
Hard Drive 500GB 7,200rpm SATA 3Gb/s HDD
Optical Devices DVD+/-RW (DVD, CD read and write)
Sound Creative Sound Blaster Recon3Di with THX TruStudio Pro Software
Wireless Networking Killer Wireless-N 1202 a/g/n 2x2 MIMO for Gaming & Video and Bluetooth 4.0
Primary Battery Primary 8-cell 63W/HR LI-ION
Processor 3rd Generation Intel® Core™ i7-3630QM (6MB Cache, up to 3.4GHz w/ Turbo Boost 2.0)
Camera Integrated Skype HD Certified FullHD Camera with dual digital
LCD 14.1" WideHD+ (1600x900) WLED with TrueLife

Thanks.

 

Here’s some thoughts in no particular order:

Well Alienware are definitely good for build quality, so as long as you treat your laptop well there’s no reason it wouldn’t last as well or better than any other laptop for a few years.
After this amount of time though, there’s some unavoidable general facts that any laptop is subject to:
The hard drive is mechanical, thus it will definitely eventually fail. Hard drive performance drops off over time, but they can and do fail spontaneously. 5-6 years is a long time to expect the hard drive to last. Alienware generally use Seagate hard drives, which are OK.
Generally its bloatware, running processes, installed programs and sometimes virus scanners that cause steady slow down over time rather than hard drive issues. You can solve this by making your laptop a very tightly run ship, or at least reinstall whenever things get slow.

Batteries only last a limited amount of charge cycles. I am yet to hear of a laptop battery lasting 5-6 years still with acceptable performance. There are ways to improve lifespan that you can find out online, but expect to have to replace the battery at least once.
Finally, with any gaming laptop you get a lot of air drawn through, so you can expect significant dust accumulation and/or fan failure after that long. Be prepared to have to open up the laptop at least one to replace the fan and/or clean out the dust.

As for some specific points and thoughts about using the m14x for 5-6 years:
The biggest reservation I’d have is that the r2 still uses the r1 chassis, which required serious cooling because of the femi chip.. This is one comparatively chunky, heavy laptop, and wasn’t re-designed to account for Kepler’s lower TDP. With a shift towards an increased focus on performance per Watt and Maxwell arriving next year, manufacturers are able to make thinner, lighter notebooks still with great specs. My guess is that the m14x r3 and many other upcoming laptops will take advantage of this a lot more than the r2 did, so if you buy the r2 you are going to be stuck with quite a chunky laptop for a long time.

Here’s some other points in no particular order:
The Chassis is metal, so it should have a little less flex that other laptops. It feels solid and well constructed.
The wifi upgrade options that exist for the m14x are well suited to your needs of heavy downloading/uploading. Both of the upgraded cards have good reviews. My Intel Wireless N card with WiMax has better regular wifi range than any other laptop I’ve used so far.


The amount of processing power required of modern computers has hit a bit of a plateau. An m14x will definitely carry plenty ‘o’ power to do what you have described, I think for the foreseeable future. There’s a general shift towards smaller devices, so developers are thinking smaller and more efficient again. With that said, personally for me, any laptop really starts showing its age after about 2 years. I like to have the latest so I can play games at their optimum. However I think the specs in an r2 bought today would age better than say a laptop purchased in 2006 and still being used now.

Finally another point to consider are the huge changes upcoming in the mobile sector. A lot of new form factors are appearing, and touch screens are the new big thing. Your r2 doesn’t have that, and for now you certainly don’t want Windows 8 on a non-touch screen device. So bear in mind that you’ll probably be using an outdated OS for a while if you buy the r2.

Anyway those are just some thoughts. Good luck!

 

Thanks, after some serious considerations to the points you raised I've decided against the M14x and will go for something cheaper and to just build a gaming PC, which in the end will be around the same price.

 

I have to say that I do not agree on your statement about windows 8. I have it installed since the day 1 when I got the laptop and you can customize the touch pad to have all that functions of scrolling up/down and left/right, zoom in/out etc. I find it much stable with windows 8 and running much cooler (The cooling part may be because of repasting it).

Overall (I do not say this to give credit to anyone), I believe that this system is way above our expectations with the upgrade of the processor to a such a high level (there are many people having the extreme processor installed as well in this system), none out there do this (I've seen maximum to a 3630qm model). Parts are so easy to upgrade, option to use the wihd / msata, swapping the dvd-rom for a caddy device is way too much. And on top of that, where do you put it has a top of a line GPU with DDR5 memory and most of the games out there run at full settings with no issues. I just got the new Need for Speed Most Wanted and it runs without no issues, settings to the maximum... It's an m14xR2 gaming system, not an ultrabook*.

 

I'm not a pro that could compare mathletics numbers between m14xr1 vs m14xr2,

I had m14x it can't even handle bf3 on ultra setting , only able to play smoothly on medium/high setting 900p.

but m14x-r2 able to handle bf3 on ultra setting 900p , 64 players b2k maps , around 30-20fps , in some rare cases like 2 or 3 vehicle exploded in same time the fps will reduced to 15fps which will slightly little lag.

PS : Armored kill map its killing me :'(

 

I just got done running my r1 on ultra Cept for anti analyzing, low shadow quality and the MSSA or whatever on nothing. And it ran smooth. I believe 30 frame rates if I'm correct.

 

That would be great if you can upload a video , here is my video.

my previous m14x can't even record it. could be 5-8fps more if not recording.

 

Can do. I recorded some last night. Just gotta find em..

 

After waiting all day just for it to upload, I finally have it. Here ya go: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nVlfHTcPktQ&feature=youtube_gdata_player

 

I haven't been on this forum in a while but my son is still loving his M17X R1 and I've been looking for the M14x R2 and finally purchased one. It arrives on Monday. After seeing the videos, I'm really excited about this.

 

Congrats on your purchase! The R2 is a fantastic rig, these are the main differences between the M14x R1 and R2.

Alienware M14x R1 vs R2

That list also shows the highest validated configuration for both platforms in case you want to check out possible upgrades for a near future