Advice For Buying New Alienware

Hi All!

This is my first time posting here so please excuse any errors I might make. I'm buying an Alienware laptop for the first time and was hoping for some advice. In fact, I created an account just to ask this. Basically, I need to know if I've missed out on anything and what I can expect with the configuration I've selected, such as what I can do with it, what games will be able to run on Ultra etc.

Also, I've gone with the one year warranty so I would like to know any problems that you guys have faced like faulty lighting, BSODs, faulty hardware etc. and whether or not the issues of GTX 580M throttling and Sandy Bridge architecture have been corrected in the current iteration of the M17X-R3.

For reference, here's the config I'm thinking of going with:

Alienware M17x, Soft Touch Stealth Black
Genuine Windows® 7 Home Premium, 64bit
Intel® Core™ i7 2760QM 2.4GHz (3.5GHz w/Turbo Boost, 6MB Cache)
16GB Dual Channel DDR3 at 1600MHz (4DIMMS)
Alienware M17x 240W A/C Adapter
17.3-inch WideFHD 1920x1080 120Hz WLED w/ NVIDIA 3D Vision Bundle
2GB GDDR5 NVIDIA® GeForce® GTX 580M
750GB 7,200RPM HDD
Quasar Blue
Slot-Loading Dual Layer Blu-ray Reader (BR-ROM, DVD+-RW, CD-RW)
1 Year Basic Plan


I'm getting the entire thing for roughly $2600 including tax. So what do you think guys? Anything I should know before taking the plunge? Any unpleasant surprises waiting around the corner for me? Sagely wisdom welcome.

Thanks for reading! Please comment.

 

One more thing, what's the 3D functionality like? I mean, is it worth the extra cash?

 

Nice laptop...but $2600? That's a tad high. Is that Canadian?

Did you call up and haggle with a sales rep? or go through a reseller for a 10-15% discount?

 

too expensive man, instead of 16GB ram, add an SSD, they include samsung 830 and at a decent price, samsung is one of the most reliable SSDs out there, but I would have dropped ram all together with SSD and bought an intel 520 (as soon as it is released) and 8GB hyperx aftermarket

 

+1 to dropping the RAM down. If you wanna save money just buy a smaller SSD such as a 128gb aftermarket and the hyperx ram as well. you will save quite a bit in the long run.

 

Just a thought, so you know why we all mention less ram.

People usually only need ram for running vmware servers, or other high memory usage programs. So if you plan on gaming, browsing the web, and viewing media stuff, you won't need the extra ram.

SSD's are a good investment too. I'm going to get one soon

 

Thanks a lot for the advice guys! I'm sorry but I should have mentioned that I intend to run at lease 4 VMs on this thing. I'm also going to be allocating some of the ram for a RAMdisk, so I kinda need the RAM. Also, I checked and to keep the price the same and get a 256 GB SSD (the lowest ssd option they have) I'd have to go down to 4GB ram.

In conclusion, I think I'll be going with this one and then buy an SSD from crucial.

and SlickDude80, yes, those are excellent ideas and I would have done that, but I currently live in the middle east so I didn't have that door to savings. I'm getting this one through a relative. The thing is that my current main laptop died quite suddenly after nearly 5 years of service, (it was an HP DV6000) and this is what prompted me to put my alienware plans on the fast lane.

Any comments or reviews on the quality of the 3D of this thing?

 

Why not get 4GB of RAM, and buy 16GB after-market? It'll work out a lot cheaper.

Dell wants $400 for 16GB of RAM. Newegg will give it to you for $160. You could easily fit a 128GB SSD in with that budget maybe even a 256GB.

 

Ram is much cheaper outside of Dell
I have 16gb of HyperX running in mine... and its only US$ 130~ for 16gb

Newegg.com - Kingston HyperX 8GB (2 x 4GB) 204-Pin DDR3 SO-DIMM DDR3 1600 (PC3 12800) Laptop Memory Model KHX1600C9S3K2/8GX

there are tons of youtube videos on how to open and install the ram... its pretty easy, just need to be "gentle" taking the keyboard off...

 

Well, those are again, great ideas, but out here in the middle east, I can't lay my hands on aftermarket ram. Plus, having my family run through all those hoops for something like this isn't something that I plan on doing. Moreover, I have had a really bad experience with aftermarket RAM. In my old laptop, the DV6000, nearly every single motherboard issue I had could be traced back to a single RAM module that I bought separately at a lower price.

Still no comments on 3D performance?

 

3d will cut your FPS in half at 1080p, so you might need to lower some settings or lower the resolution on a few more demanding games such as BF3 or the witcher 2. Should work great on most things though. 580m is a beast of a card.

 

Thank You Bigtonyman! finally something about the 3D functionality. So basically, when the FPS is cut in half, is it very noticeable? Also which games and applications support 3D? Could you be so kind as to name a few? I plan to play and run some of the most demanding games/applications that I can with this laptop.

One more question, I hope you know of SAP, the enterprise software. From what I've heard, the installation size is ~80GB so clearly is resource intensive. Will this laptop be able to run those kinds of applications?

Oh I forgot to ask, it seems that optimus is disabled on the models with the 3D functionality. Any ideas on how to enable optimus while I'm not using the 3D?

 

You can't, as the integrated graphics cannot use the 120hz panel 3D screen.

 

so there's no way to bring it down to 60Hz?

 

It will be noticeable. IF you were running 200 fps and it drops to 100fps, then no, not noticeable to your naked eyes, however, at 1080p with the nice graphical options on, your laptop with 580m will be running say 30-50 fps on the newer triple A titles. So, dropping it to 15 - 25 fps is a huge difference

Your chosen config will run SAP (regardless of module) easily. I've had intensive middleware and web servers running on my laptop without issues

there is...you can set the 120hz screen to run at 60hz, however, optimus is disabled and won't work regardless of if you are running 60hz or not

 

Thanks a lot for the advice guys. I think I'll be going with the config I mentioned. The only thing I'm apprehensive about is that there are some very negative reviews on the dell site. I know that the problems mentioned there are not the majority but I would still like to know what the odds are of getting a faulty system with issues like non functioning lights, frequent BSODs, hardware issues etc. and what I should do if I face these problems. Will my warranty cover me outside the USA?