M14x R2 is out now

They are both 988 pin Socket G2 FCPGA.

Kepler is nVidia and compatible with whomever will buy nvidia's part.

Ivy Bridge chipset is backwards compatible with SB chips, just not the other way around, can't put Ivy Bridge in a Sandy Bridge motherboard (at least not mobile, desktop is another story).

 

We should place some friendly bets then as to if you order an M14x what CPU you will end up getting . id be willing to be it all that everyone will end up with ivybridge CPUs regardless of what the order states at the time of placing it .

The long estimated ship dates are there only because of ivybridge and Dell already knows as do the other resellers that if they give you Ivy instead of Sandybridge no one will be disappointed that is why they are doing this.

 

Oh I doubt that. I'm sure they will ship with Sandy Bridge to exhaust stock if nothing else. Maybe that's part of it, they just want to use up existing SB stock before switching to IB.

 

i just wanna know .. is the 650m going to give a nice performance boost over the 555m?? even with the 128 bit memory interface as opposed to gt555's 192bit??? or does the memory interface size not really matter that much?

 

Personally i think they run the risk of many returns when people get wind of the fact they could have had a new CPU so its my feeling people will be getting Ivy regardless but hey either of us could be wrong .

The 650 will be a very nice jump in performance i believe its more akin to the 560m in terms of performance from what little i have read about it.

 

PROCESSOR 2nd Generation Intel® Core™ i7-2670QM (6MB Cache, up to 3.1GHz w/ Turbo Boost 2.0) edit
OPERATING SYSTEM Genuine Windows® 7 Home Premium, 64bit edit
MEMORY 16GB Dual Channel DDR3 1600MHz edit
HARD DRIVE 750GB 7,200 RPM SATA + 32GB mSATA Caching SSD edit
VIDEO CARD 2 GB DDR5 NVIDIA® GeForce® GT 650M with Optimus™ edit
WIRELESS CARDS Intel® Advanced-N WiFi Link 6250 a/g/n 2x2 MIMO Technology with WiMax and Bluetooth 4.0 edit
INTERNAL OPTICAL DRIVE Slot Load Dual Layer Blu-ray Reader (Reads BD and Writes to DVD/CD)
LCD PANEL 14.0" High Def+ (900p/1600x900) with WLED backlight
SOUND OPTIONS Creative Sound Blaster Recon3Di with THX TruStudio Pro Software

, must not..

 

I must resist....

 

Im shipping my m14x R1 back tomorrow and going for the R2!! wish me luck guys, for the few weeks i have had my R1 i have fallen in love with it.. not sure what im gonna do without it for a month but hopefully R2 will be a good upgrade!! <3

 

I'm torn between the m14x r2 and the msi gt60. If I can safely overclock the 650 to 660m clocks my choice would already be made but alas we have no intel.

 

Go with M14X, it's more portable and better battery life so it have more use, 660m is basically a 650m (DDR5 version) if you ignore the marketing

The difference between 650m (DDR5 version the one in m14x~) and 660m is so minimum that is not worth it, M14X will have better resell value too, only reason I'd recommend getting the MSI is if you were to wait for GTX680m since the GTX660m, 670m and GTX675m are pathetic attempts, (GTX675m is identical GTX 580m, just name was changed, not even a kepler) and 660m is slightly overclocked 650m

GeForce GT 650M
Core speed 735
Memory speed 4000
Bandwidth 64.0GB

GeForce GT 660M
Core speed 835
Memory speed 4000
Bandwidth 64.0GB

And both are 128

In real world performance the M14x will perform in fact much better (Higher FPS) duo the 1600x900p screen if you went 1920x1080p MSI

 

Silly question, but how do you overclock the 555m? maybe i can get what i need without the ddr5

 

HSN.. how much of an upgrade and fps boost you think the R2's GT650m is over the R1's GT555m??

 

Use EVGA Precision to overclock, it's the easiest I find. Stick with version 2.x.x. The new "Precision X" sucks all kinds.

Then use Furmark to make sure it runs ok.

I think there's a couple of threads, lifehacker has a really simple guide too.

Seems like the 2230 has bluetooth integrated, but is only single band (no 5 GHz available). Also seems that it is more battery friendly.

The 6250 is dual band, no bluetooth integrated (separate module), but has WiMAX.

What confuses me is that it says they both do 300 Mbps, I thought only dual band can achieve this.

At least they got rid of the 6205. I HAVE A BAD VOCABULARY

Cheers,

 

thanks, before i do this, is overclocking the reason why people end up needing 2 and 3 motherboard replacements in the first year?

 

The 650m the m14x uses is 192 bit since it has the much better DDR5.

DDR3 = 128 bit
DDR5 = 192 bit

Huge win for m14x!

 

While the new card has better bandwidth the memory interface on the DDR5 650m is 128bit

 

After giving it some thought I'm going to wait until I see some performance figures first before I exchange.
Any expectations on the FPS difference in games?

 

Hey guys !
Quick question !
If I order an M14X R2 right now , I'll be getting it only on 18th May !
So does that mean that it will be equipped with an Ivy Bridge processor?

 

You get what you configured. I don't see Ivb processors anywhere on the m14x configuration

 

Someone said the R2 is slightly smaller in dimension than R1. Is this true?

 

Thanks.

And one more thing , is the 2GB GT650M a significant improvement over the 1GB GT650M? In terms of FPS that is.

 

I just looked up the wimax on the intel website and I think it would be an unnecessary upgrade since I don't think I would ever use my laptop when out away from Wi-Fi.

So I will go with the energy saver

 

the ram usually don't make much difference specially at those lower res
if you order now you will get ivy bridge there is no way DELL is going to take the risk of sending last get CPU's 15 days after is released

 

Heres the two sets of dimensions from the alienware site:

M14xr1
System Dimensions
Height: 37.8 mm (1.49 inches)
Depth: 258.34 mm (10.17 inches)
Width: 337.00 mm (13.27 inches)
Starting at Weight* with 8-cell battery: - 2.92 kg (6.45lbs)

M14xr2
System Dimensions
Height: 37.8 mm (1.49 inches)
Depth: 258.36 mm (10.16 inches)
Width: 337.00 mm (13.27 inches)
Starting at Weight* with 8-cell battery: - 2.92 kg (6.45lbs)

Heres the two sets of descriptions from the alienware site:

M14xr1
The most powerful 14" gaming laptop in the Universe! 14" (36cm) | 2.92kg

M14xr2
The Alienware M14x combines portability and performance to present the most powerful 35.6cm (14") laptop in the universe 14.1" (36cm) | 2.92kg

Very minimal if any lol, maybe just rounded up to the nearest significant figure!

 

Thanks Speedy

I'll get the 1GB GT650M then

When is the official release date for Ivy Bridge anyway ?

 

supposed to be the 23 First Intel Ivy Bridge launch expected on April 23 | Nanotech - The Circuits Blog - CNET News

 

Yeah I also have a theory that the reason theyve gone ahead and put it on their website with ship dates is so they can send the rest of the Sandy Bridge processors they have left back to Intel. It prevents people from being able to order the R1 versions. I like the fact that they have done this with the ship dates because it shows that they want their customers to have the latest updates and not be "Jipped" by ordering right now and being pissed when the Ivy Bridge Processors drop in the next couple of weeks.

In the same boat as you. Ordered mine one month ago yesterday and just received it last week. BEWARE though because from what I understand, unless theres something wrong with it you are subject to pay a 15% restocking fee which isnt worth it IMO with the high price of these. In my case they are letting me get the full 100% refund because there was a part shortage on mine when I built it and it was delayed. Makes all that waiting I had to do seem worth it now and I guess it was for a reason OH YEAH ALSO!.. Once I called the return department and got the ball rolling they offerred me a $135 return if I decided to keep it! So I told them id think about it for a couple of days. How awesome is that?!

No, the 21 days starts with the invoice date. So basically when they package it and make the packing slip to send to the carrier.

I hear ya! ive only had mine for a week but I love it as well. Def the best machine ive ever owned. Im gonna take another few days with it before I ship it off though.

 

REMINDER: 3DMARK11 scores DO NOT equal game performance. Wait to see what real, professional in game benchmarks look like at comparable levels before throwing out percentage increase figures. Will the 650m out perform the 555? Surely! By how much (if your a current m14xR1) is the question to help determine if its worth while to upgrade.

 

your theory is valid too but in that case people can just return their machines within the 21 day period or complain why they ship a last gen CPU after the launch of the new ones and get a CPU replacement I think DELL is aware of that

I can almost guarantee 99% that all the people ordering now are going to get new gen CPU's one way or the other

 

EXCEPT unless theres a valid issue with the laptop, or in my case, there were problems with you order originally you are subject to a 15% restocking fee which IMO def would not justify returning it and upgrading. Restock on my order would have been over $200 had it not been waived.

I agree, im sure everyone will.

 

When I ordered through a sales rep he told me my order would post after thE 23rd, take it with a grain of salt.

 

According to info around atm It seems only the Quad ivy bridge mobile is releasing first, The rest will follow much later on (2months~)

Can't know 100% for sure until end of this month

 

How? Every review I saw said that any 650m running DDR3 is 128 bit and bottlenecked and any 650m running DDR5 is 192 bit?

Doesn't make any sense that the m14x will be 128 bit?

Can you clear that up? I'm sure I'm not alone in that since I thought it would be advantage for Dell against other manufacturers.

 

Even the 660m is 128 bit

 

best info on the card is here: NVIDIA GeForce GT 650M - Notebookcheck.net Tech

 

yep that's right well at least that don't stop them from selling machines

 

So the GPU isnt as potent as it could be?

 

GPU is 128-bit regardless of DDR3 or GDDR5. nVidia specs don't call out anything but 128-bit: GeForce GT 650M - GeForce

 

Yeah, I think he just had the two reversed. The new 650M is 129-bit but since its DDR5 its still faster, but the 555M in the R1 was DDR3 192-bit. This gave it the advantage over all other GT 555M machines last year

 

http://www.geforce.com/Active/en_US...600M-GT-3DMark-RangePerformanceComparison.png

Thew new M14x will perform about +60%~ minimum better overall it seems in according to the various benchmarks that shows the different between 555m vs 640m and 640m vs 650m

 

....but what about the FPS difference.
Statistics are all very well and dandy but it's the real time performance that everyone is asking about.
Any expectations - 10-15Fps more?

And how would this compete to an overclocked Gt 555m which gains around 20-25% against stock?

 

Everything point toward that 650m is much faster and not a tiny boost

In theory with overclocking the 650m vs stock 555m you get 100% performance gain aka double frame rate

It will do all of that while being cooler card too probably duo 28nm lol

 

I mean , they wouldn't have put that card in the R2 if it wasn't a nice boost over R1's 555m.. Just my two cents

 

Every iteration shows improvement, otherwise what's the point? The 650m is showing to be between 460m and 560m which is a definite improvement from 555m.

 

It's not between 460m and 560m
It's Faster than 560m already showed why above

MSI Global ? News

"The powerful MSI GE60 and GE70 come locked and loaded with the Nvidia GeForce GT 650M discrete graphics card which boasts 2GB GDDR5 of display memory to give it the most advanced hardware. These machines boast over 10,000 points on 3D Mark Vantage (P Score)"

 

For the sake of statistics I ran 3d Mark 11 basic edition and scored P1824 3D Marks.

Not bad at all.
I could push a little more...
Keen on getting to know what the GT 650m would reach...

 

Considering that Clevo is releasing a 11inch laptop soon with 650m
And if 650m was easy to overclock it can easily pass stock 570m scores it would be extremely weird to have high end performance in small 11inch laptop

 

Would be extremely awesome though.
That Sager NP6110/ Clevo W110er does look incredible.
Although with no back lit keyboard, no in home warranty repairs and as-of-yet confirmed cooling capabilites I'm not jumping head first into buying one at the moment.

Neither have been given a UK release date or even a UK release in general...

 

I don't trust Vantage. It's a synthetic benchmark that can easily show false improvements through drivers. Game benchmarks will tell the full story. And the Clevo 11.6" only has DDR3 RAM which will hinder its performance. But still 650m in an 11.6" is quite impressive.

 

640m (DDR3) + weak CPU (17Watt ULV dual core cpu. so clearly there is CPU bottleneck) vs quad core 560m laptop
http://images.anandtech.com/graphs/graph5672/44875.png

http://images.anandtech.com/graphs/graph5672/44882.png

http://images.anandtech.com/graphs/graph5672/44888.png

Not only 650m is faster but it's also DDR5 combine it with a decent CPU and you will be amazed

Even if we ignore 3D marks Vantage or 2011 (posted at previous page for the same weak cpu+640m where it out perfom m14x R1) 650m DDR5 is a clear winner~