Alienware M17X now with GTX 285M

Still waiting on Dell to bring the 4xx series. 485M or 470M would be fine but I'm not settling now that the X7200 brings 480M SLI into the fray (Clevo). If Clevo can manage it then 485M SLI has to be possible for a mobile CPU based M17x. Even if it comes, I'm still debating the X7200 with full 6 core chip (at a lower than top speed to keep the heat and power reasonable).

But I'm sure the 4xx series, and that includes the top end 485M in SLI, is coming to the M17x. Just be patient.

 

Got proof? There was no xfire support when I ran FF14 benchmark. The game fully favors nvidia.

 

I think AMD's latest profiles do offer CrossfireX support for Final Fantasy XIV. When I played the open beta the game did not run very well on either my M17x (AMD 5870 x2) or our Aurora ALX (AMD 5970). I was using the latest drivers direct from AMD and the beta VBIOS.

Various fansites reported that the game itself ran poorly on high end systems regardless of manufacturer. However, I heard much less complaints from the NVIDIA front. I believe their drivers are much more mature regardless of the hardware. Your friend isn't the only person who is specifically purchasing NVIDIA cards for FFXIV. My friends did, and I intend to as well.

 

SE worked very closely with Nvidia to make it work in full 3D, I would be surprised if Ati ended up working better on ATi cards, it'll probally be apart of Nvidia's 'the way it's ment to be played' program too. It's even hosted on nvidia's nzone site, and infact, on the MMORPG forums as well as FFXIV forums, detailed comparisons show that the benchmark (however inaccurate you want it to be) definitally does *not* favor ATi over nvidia.
http://www.bluegartr.com/threads/94743-The-OFFICIAL-FFXIV-Benchmark-amp-Beta-Performance-Thread

Cpu speed seems to be more of an issue for scores under 6,000 with the benchmark, and in the real world the bench doesn't matter one bit.

it's not brand new. The 5870 specifically is 6months + old, besides ATI 5000 being over a year old. AMD is about to roll out AMD 6000, so 5000 drivers are probally as good as they're going to get.

 

I disagree, the drivers will still improve. There are still improvements coming out for my 4870s. That is because the architecture is similar enough to the new stuff that improvements meant for the new cards still benefit older stuff some.

 

AMD6000 brings new architecture changes to the table though, just like Fermi did for Nvidia.. We'll see, but I don't have high hopes.

 

For the past 3 generations AMD has not drastically changed their core architecture, they just added more cores and features. Given the success this has given them, they will probably continue the trend. Nvidia has done a complete redesign for the last 3 generations (G92, GT200, GF100) and it has cost them time and a lot of money

 

On the mobile front Scook, Nvidia hasn't changed their architecture much. The 4xx series is the first "serious" design change in several years. You are correct on the desktop front however.

You'd also have to admit that any remaining bugs in the 4870 got a lot less attention when the 5xxx mobility series came out. I think it's corporate nature really. You will see some performance increases for the 5xxx series after the 6xxx comes out, just less of them. What I hope is that they do not fail to keep fixing issues with new software however. A lot of folks have put a great deal of faith in AMD making a long term committment to strong drivers and purchased 5xxx chips.

 

I would like to think the majority of the 4870 problems were ironed out before the 5870 came out lol (wishful thinking? )

I have made my vote of confidence in AMD as you can see in my desktop config

 

AMD's new 6000 series may indeed be a significant architectural change compared to the last few generations.

The 28nm parts should be an even bigger architectural change.

 

Anyone ordered an M17X R2 with the 285 SLI cards yet? So many of us are wondering what type of numbers synthetic and games will come out of it...

 

Just look at the x8100.....it has the same hardware (for stock comparison)

SLI GTX 285 and Core i7 mobile

 

dell is supposed to call me today, going to try to wiggle my way into a pair.

 

Oh cool. Let us know how it goes and cost?

Cheers.

 

I second that. I am very curious about how the M17X will handle the config.

 

Hopefully 240w is enough for those with XM chips.

 

It is not. At least not if you overclock. At stock it should be ok though. In my R1 with the cpu and gpus overclocked when I had the GTX 280m's (overvolt on gpus regular cpu voltage - pre throttlestop days) I could make my laptop draw 290W from the wall. I am sure you can see the problem with this lol

 

the cost is $50 more than the 5870s, but I should be able to get it free all things considered.

 

Oh you can do a direct swap ey? How much was the original 5870s for you?

Cheers.

 

He is aiming to do the swap as a warranty call due to dissatisfaction with the ATI cards. Given the myriad of problem they had before this new vbios he should not have too much trouble

I did the same thing in reverse over DPC latency to get the ATIs in my R1

 

no problem at all. switch is done. have a 740QM now because the BLU-RW was not avaliable. Still have the reader though, and now it's in silver.

should have an order number today or tomorrow. I've had a new system exchange in the works for a few weeks now, just stora 'asked' for the changes.

 

Oh cool!!

Welcome to the 740 bro oles!!! eheheh

Cheers.

 

Nice,did they give you a pair of 285m?

 

yeah, SLI 285s, definitally. He gave me the line about keeping the configuration the same when I tried to ask for no HDD's and getting an 840. So I'll just have to buy an ES to get an extreme edition, or have some more 'stuff' go wrong, like them being GDDR3 when they're clearly marketed as GDDR5. Or having the 900P screen (didn't confirm that I had the 1200p, but hopefully he saw that in my previous configuration). Any case, Im happy for now, but I won't at all expect this to be over yet. Dell has already proven they can mess a situation up even when it's 'fixed'

 

And that customer service is what the clevo folks in the x7200 forums just do not understand haha

They still think dell's are cheap and horrible

 

already have an order number! Can't wait!
I think I'm almost more happy than when I orginally ordered the thing. A CPU upgrade, a color change and the GPU's I *really* wanted. Still have the half-working one I have right now. I can't imagine Clevo would let you do that, or give you a brand new computer, or let you switch to 3 day old release GPUs, or let you switch around some components. As many things as have gone wrong, this was a big plus.

 

Congrats! Can't wait to hear how it performs especially when you get an XM in there.

 

I can't think of supplying all of that with mere 240w. Good luck and def. post some details.

 

They're living in a fantasyland that's why. Either that or they're just too brainwashed with the anti-Dell rhetoric. The latter seems to be prevalent across the web for some odd reason. I have yet to find any other notebook maker that can approach Dell's warranty service.

 

lol, I think we'll have to settle for some GPU swapping on a 740 for a comparison , I lack the $600 'lying around' for a 940 haha.

 

Hey theres chiefs,

Apart from the GPUs of course;
I have pretty much the same spec system as you. So if you want me to run any tests to compare results I'll be happy to give them a go.

We can go head to head eheheheh oles!

Cheers.

 

yeah can't wait that GPUs perform, I'm confused to exchange that one too!

 

I am surprised so many people want the 285M SLI without knowing how they perform on the M17X.

With the past year and half of experience we've had with different config and their issues at launch, I would wait at least 2 to 3 months to avoid being a beta tester...

 

They should perform just like they did in the x8100 from clevo. Just look up benches on that machine to get an idea of what to expect.

 

Yeah but that's under the assumption that Dell did not modify those cards like that had nerfed the 5870's...

Until, I see some real gaming FPS bench, I'll stay away from them.

I was part of so many "beta tester" for the M17X then M17X R2 that I am done being the first with something...

 

the Dell 5870s are not nerfed, unless you were referring to the driver issue. the issues we have had have been with brand new cards, and this is dells second round with the gtx200. so I would be surprised if they managed another 280m studdering fiasco.


to reborn2003;

that's sounds great, I didn't really want to risk opening up the broken r2 again if I could avoid it. throw up your ram timings and make sure the results are on a fresh windows 7 install before any tweaks besides the usual driver ones like minimap quality and aa/af quality though. you can install the chipset and video drivers only as that's all I will be doing to speed up the process. also need to know what hdd you are using so I can try to keep that the same too

 

Yeah I was referring to the vbios issue. Sorry for the confusion with the wrong terminology used...

 

I wonder if Joker is going back to Nvidia with the 285M.

 

I just have never had good luck with ATI. No driver support, cards that melted etc. I have to admit they hit a home run with the 3/4/5870's but its NVIDIA for me. God bless my 9800m gt SLI

 

"god bless your 9800m gt"

 

If the problems with the 5870s were still unresolved I'm sure he would, but as they are, I think he'll be content until SLI 4XX's show up. The only reason I'm switching is because most of the games I play are nvidia optimized, and I've always been a bit of a fanboy anyway, and most importantly, because it was free. There's no way I would have switched if I had to pay and wait for replacement cards.

 

I will bless my two 9800GT's because they have since been the way of the electronic graveyard. When they weren't frying eggs and boiling water for my coffee they were awesome cards.
Can't wait to see some benchmarks. I do wonder if the slight difference in power consumption will have any effect. Anyone know about how long the shipping estimate is on that particular config. So we know about when people will start showing up in the forums to benchmark.

 

just incase anyone is curious, the item number for SLI GTX285's is
320-9009

This is a online configurator new system number, which may not translate into a spare parts order number too.

if you read the tomshardware article, there's 3W difference in load between the two cards, and the nvidia card acutally uses significanlty less at idle.

 

Yep sure thing Lozz,

I'll do a fresh install pretty soon when I get the chance. Just load the drivers i need and bench press away

My hard drives are the original dell ones that I got with the machine 1TB in RAID 0. I was thinking about getting an SSD but thought I would just hold off and wait for a while. Seeing as others have told me that the price will be dropping in the next few months when newer SSDs come out.

Also whats this about throwing up my ram timings? How do I go about doing that?
I'm also not to sure about how to OC the GPU or CPU so if you want to push our hardware some more during the benches just tell us how and I'll do it oles! I wouldn't mind seeing how far I can push this 740QM heheheheh.

Oh yeh my 1st ever run of 3d mark 06 right out of the box, nothing touched at all was:

Overall score = 15001

SM 2.0 Score = 5861
HDR/SM3.0 Score = 8045
CPU Score = 3378

So just a throwing down the opening bench score eheheh. to give you a number to compete with ehehehee. I ran the full suite of tests not just the free dl version.

Any news on how far off the new machine will be?


Cheers.

 

Yah, the G92 architecture was the best nvidia ever did in terms of performance per watt. Everything after that has been a step in the wrong direction.

-Ash

EDIT:

And I am DEFINATELY going to switch to the 4xxm cards when they show up. I HOPE they are 470m's. God I hope so.

I can almost guarantee they will be faster than the 480m's.

-Ash

 

Yep count me in too. I can't wait to jump back to Nvidia. Even though I've been on this ATi machine for less than a month LOL. I miss the Nvidia goodness. ehehehehe

CMON Dell release them next week LOL

Cheers.

 

Hahaha, nvidia arent "good" by any means.

They are both as bad as eachother.

If I was on a desktop, I would use ATI all the way. I wouldnt not touch nvidia on a desktop.

On a notebook, its the opposite.

-Ash

 

Heheheheh yeh I agree with you. Both really are quite shocking lol but they do have their moments. I must say I enjoy all the little quirks and extra features Nvidia has popped out in recent times. Just personal preference really. Talking about the notebook arena that is. I'm not into desktops no more. I have sold all my desktops a couple years back now. Notebooks all the way eheheheh.

I like Nvidia's new driver every 2 days lol even though it is in an attempt to either fix something or whatever lol. I just like it when new stuff pops out ahahahha. I really like their Nvidia system tools. That is by far the easiest way I have found to OC notebook GPUs. If only ATi had a similar program that was up to date and still working properly. sigh! I like their cuda, physX support and especially the ability to switch between GPUs on the fly within notebooks using their optimus technology. Thats just brilliant I reckon lol. I swear I was dreaming about something like that a few years ago lol.

Going off course though if AMD released their new 6870 crossfire next week I'd like to get that instead then LOL. Assuming that it would be faster and better than the 480m's

What I have noticed and do like about ATi's Crossfire is the fact that it is much faster. I mean when loading up games and switching of resolutions. I'm pretty sure its a driver thing. I remember having to deal with Nvidia's SLi GPUs that had to flicker through so many black blank screens before it finally loaded into the game and the exact same effect when attempting to change resolutions. It was quite annoying at first but I got used to it after serveral months. I think that it has gotten slightly better now with the latest batch of drivers though.

Now we just wait and see what Dell/Alienware will pop out next for us. Will it be M17x R2 with GPU refreshes or a M17x R3. Or even better yet a totally new designed notebook. Oles eheheheeh.

Cheers.

 

I believe Alienware designer team is having hard time to create a nicer case than what we are having lol

 

There's plenty of ways to improve the current look. One of the first changes I'd make is replacing the plastic E2E with gorilla glass. Then redesigning the entire palm rest area. I'd try to make it at least a bit thinner as well and maybe curve out the sharp edges.