Alienware M17x R4 Pre-Order Configuration Questions... Ask HERE

Lols still confused

I'm very new to pc gaming, but every time I go to play a game I'm greeted with an nvidia logo and booming sound

Still reading up but I have no bias to either to be honest. I'm not into over clocking so the standard stock clocks need to be good straight out of the box

Thanks for all the replays keep them coming

Thanks

Ian

 

AMD/ATI usually reproduced colors more accurately. They are better for the money and run cooler. Throttling issues are rare, but a driver can drastically change things for better, or for worse.

nVidia historically has had better game support, both in single card and SLI. The benefit is more pronounced if you also run PhysiX games or CUDA programs. There drivers are perceived to be more stable but in truth that is tough to prove, even statistically. Their mobile brand pushes the heat limit, so there are possible throttling issues.

Overall nVidia has the better perception of brand, and have some custom technologies being used in the industry that give them a small edge overall, and a larger edge in specific scenarios. They cost more, a lot more, so the value for AMD is still there.

 

Really only you can decide if the 680m is worth the price premium. I am an admitted nvidia fanboy, and I chose the 7970m because I didn't feel that the cost for the 680m was justifiable. My last 3 desktops have all had nvidia GPUs.

IMO, the 7970 is the better value. But if you want 3D, the 680 is the only choice.

 

Yeah they say that but it's bs. Who here hasn't walked into an electronics store, and seen 2 TV's next to each other playing the same thing. 120hz vs. 60hz very noticeable difference in smoothness, what makes movies look weird you know..

 

That's something entirely different. Movies are filmed at 24fps, and 60 is not divisible by 24. 120, on the other hand, is. If you want to REALLY get into the dirty details, google 2-3 pulldown and telecine.

 

I've done my research I'm just using that as an example

If a game runs at 40fps, well below the 60fps standard, 120 is divisible by 40.. and it should make it plenty smoother.

However the m17x has true 120hz... But I posted earlier that I tested smoothness on my LG TruMotion 120hz TV with Battlefield 3 on my Ps3. The game runs at 30fps which looks terrible on console, but when I turn on the TruMotion 120hz... wow you could mistake it for 60fps in most situations..

Don't know if this is due to the interpolating, but if it does this on the M17x... that makes a single GPU sound way more appealing.

 

120htz on my samsung led makes everything look like a soap opera.

 

Ahh, now it gets into all the confusing stuff. had a TV tech jump in on a thread explaining how 120hz tv's are not 120hz at all but use interpolating, and propriety technology (e.g. truemotion) to advertise 120 (or more)hz.

This is why I cannot connect a 120hz tv, even over displayport. They cannot accept a true 120hz signal.

So, this explained why the TV's next to each other look so much better on a 120hz model. I thunk so anyway

If I wasn't going for 3D then I'd have a job deciding but the simple 60hz-each-eye thing does make for a much better 3D than a 3D-TV picture - to my eyes anyway

 

Well I definitely want 3D, and having 120 frames showing on your screen per second + faster response time is just awesome

What made me choose the m17x over the m18x

And the single graphics card isn't as bad with the 120hz because even if a game wont run at 60+ on ultra, the 120hz will make it look more smooth than it is perfect

 

Funny you should say that, I returned my m18x sli because it was such a pain (and expensive) to get 3D. I'm sold, but always add YMMV

 

Still trying to decide between the Vertex 4, Crucial M4 and Samsung 830 SSDs. Crucial is 50% cheaper than Vertex 4/Samsung 830 at 512gb. Also, Vertex 4 has a 5 year warranty compared to the Samsung/Crucial that only has 3 years warranty.

 

OCZ Vertex 4 is the best. It has double the Crucial M4's IOPS (Input/Output Operations Per Second). However it would be pretty hard to identify a noticeable difference between the top 2 SSDs. The M4 has the advantage of being cheaper.

If you can budget it, get the OCZ Vertex 4. If not, get the Crucial M4 its an excellent drive.

 

Yep, hard to argue with the M4 being 50% cheaper than the others.
I can get 512 x 2 without having to break the bank at $866. With the Vertex, it'll be double the price almost at $1600.

Thanks Leo. I'll see how much of $$ I have later on and decide then.

 

Well I don't know where you're buying them from but for my m17x R4 I'm getting 512 x 2 OCZ Vertex 4 for $1,300
And the Crucial M4 x 2 would be $1,000

But yeah other than benchmarking, you wouldn't notice the 1 second or whatever it is difference between the two. Guaranteed the extra $300 or more is worth keeping over the tiny performance difference

 

I'm in Malaysia, so certain things are slightly higher in price, and certain things are slightly cheaper. Not too sure why the M4s are cheaper though Works out to about $866 for the 512 x 2.

The Samsung 830 and Vertex 4 are pretty close in price.

Yep, if I'm not going to notice the difference much then I guess I could save the $700+ and use it for something else The ram will cost $100 or so.

 

The Vertex 4 is definitely the fastest drive on the market, but I trust Samsung and Crucial for reliability over OCZ. I've had 2 M4s and have been very happy with them both. In all honesty though, I mainly bought them because they were cheap.

Crucial is a brand of Micron, who makes the chips in a lot of different brands' drives. Being able to make everything in house, including the controller, gives them a leg up on cost and quality control over some other brands. Samsung is the same way, but more expensive.

 

Well OCZ has now acquired IndiLinx, so they also make everything in house. And the only problems with reliability were pretty much in Vertex 3. Now that everything is owned by OCZ, + the Vertex 4 and new firmware, theres are no such reliability problems. Not to mention the 5 year warranty

Only reason I would buy Crucial M4 was if I had a tight budget. But both are excellent drives.

 

The warranty is nice. We'll see. The drives have only been out a couple of months, so I think it is too early to say that there are no reliability issues. OCZ has a history, and until they prove to me that it truly is behind them, I'll remain skeptical. Proving me wrong probably isn't a high priority item for them, though, and of course everyone is entitled to spend their money as they wish in the mean time.

Also, they don't make everything in house. They purchase their NAND from TSMC, and even the controller I would consider a grey area. The Indilinx firmware was developed in house, but the controller is Marvell based.

 

Well I'm not a pro on the specifics, like does Crucial have their own NAND, own controller, firmware etc?

But as far as my research goes, not to mention the 5 year warranty, it seems like OCZ has really tried to make their name more reliable. With the acquiring of Indilinx, their Vertex 4 drives and firmware, I think they've accomplished this, and many will have no problems with their drives. But true I guess only time will tell

Either way I'm going with Vertex 4 because they are the fastest drives on the market

 

Yep, Samsung and Intel, too. Technically, Crucial's parent company, Micron, makes their NAND.

I think they have certainly made an effort, and who knows, you may be right. The Vertex 4 will go a long way in one to prove one way or another.

That they are.

 

I wonder what you get when you purchase the SSDs with the laptop configuration.

Dell website doesn't state the make and model. I tried calling their customer service but they haven't been able to give me an answer. One guy said maybe maxtor. This is for Malaysia!

 

I think they are Samsung 830's. Very reliable and fast drives.

Sent from my Samsung Galaxy S2 running Resurrection Remix

 

Well fiddlesticks to this. My AW m17x got delayed a week. X^S

 

Called Dell a few more times and was told that in Malaysia they only have Seagate and WD SSDs for the machine configurations. Thanks but no thanks to those brands. Way more than the Vertex 4 SSD drives (which are already pretty expensive).

 

Does the M17x-R4 use Optimus? If so can it be completely disabled in the BIOS?

10% off right now and the GTX 680's out...although I'm thinking maybe I should go with a notebook half this price + a desktop instead, but might as well ask...

 

Since it is a single GPU notebook I am rather certain you can disable Optimus no problem, however I don't own an Alienware yet so don't trust me 100%.
And personally i would highly suggest and Alienware laptop over whatever configuration you want to get as mentioned above, as it can run any game on Ultra perfectly, and is essentially a 'desktop replacement'

 

unless a modified bios comes out, I doubt its going to be able to be disabled. As to SSD's I'm pretty sure both WD and seagate don't make SSD's.

 

I'm pretty sure we'll be able to disable Optimus soon enough. And yes WD and Seagate make SSD's.

 

Hi could any one help me out ... need a little advice on the rig i was building up ...
1. How is 7970m compared to the 680m ( are the perfomance issues (due to the drivers) really that bad , I would mostly play MMO's like guildwars2)
2. Should i get the wireless upgrade to the Killer n 1103 .. or is the stock fine ? keeping in mind my wifi router isnt that great and the internet speed i get is 2mbps from the ISP.
3. Should i leave the RAM at 6GB stock or do i upgrade it and get a 4+2gb stick making it 12 GB or do i just order a 4gb pair of vengeance crosair ... and how much does a dual channel effect the performance and should i keep in mind the CAS latency of the stock RAM?
4. Is a 128 SSD sufficient for windows + guildwars2 + visual studio + sql server ... ( a little tight on budget)
5. Should i go for the advanced plan for support (1 year costs 50$ more) ?
6. How much discount could i haggle from the reps?
7. Nebula red or Stealth black ( not so important but still )

 

Or you could buy the 120hz model and have no iGPU problems at all to worry about

Hi, let's see:
1. So many opinions and data but I look at it this way. Both are capable of playing all the latest titles maxed out so it's down to cost and features. Nvidia costs a lot more but adds 3D option and physx. A Tight budget says amd all the way, and a lot have been sold so driver support should improve.

2. Stock was fine on my R3. Killer has some tricks for optimising game connections but I'm not seeing any difference. I believe it also improves a connection on a lan with multiple devices but only hearsay.

3. Unless you intend to go in for benchmarking the whole speed/latency/channel won't make any noticeable difference in 'normal' use. Most agree that 6gb is ample for anyone unless you intend to run multiple applications (or manipulate huge video files maybe?).

4 No problem.

5. I would say yes to the warranty extra, it's not a lot and they do provide very good support (usually).

6. no data

7. I would need to see your wardrobe, a clash can cause very embarrassing situations

HTH

 

That's the only way to get rid of Optimus? Spend an extra $400 on something I don't want?

Well...guess I'd have to consider that part of the price.

 

Thanks alot

Well i do plan to run multiple apps. starting with around 10 chrome tabs .. visual studio,sql server,torrents,youtube/windows media player and a game (that would be minimized mostly while working) and not to mention a few pdf files. So how do i go about the ram buy a 4+2 gb ??

well i really like the red .. find the black a little boring ... so just wanna know what people feel about both ( but I'm leaning more to red)

 

I got my Red in today, its by far the best looking Alienware ive owned to date (the other 3 were black).

 

never had a problem with running out of RAM on my machine, but thats just me. I personally like the black because it's not as flashy and I take it to school and such a lot. With the lights off it blends in quite well.

 

Being a bit flippant really . Manual switching seems to work for most people but there is no option to disable the igpu in the bios so it will need a bios mod to get to it. In the 3D model the display is only connected to the nvidia card.
There are things you can do in the driver as well but not having it I can't comment with any accuracy
Like you I just don't need it or want the hassle. Since I like the 3D loosing optimus was just a bonus

In that case i'd start with 2x4gb. playing safe and you get a matched pair. If you see your disk access going crazy as you switch between progs it's time for more memory.

 

Why? optimus doesn't have any problems its actualy a bonus of a NVIDIA card imo as it saves battery

Sent From My Rooted E3D

 

Only a bonus when it works right.

 

Hey , im getting my R4 by the end of the week hopefully. I was going to take the SSD out of my R1 and put it in the R4 but decided on keeping the R1 as it is, so im looking for a new SSD for the R4 , any suggestions on compatible SSD"s?

 

maybe your one of the lucky ones . I've see a LOT of threads about it not switching correctly in games and people wondering why the game runs like a dog The AMD version - can't remember the name right now, has the same issues.
Most M17x users are gamers so running on battery is not that common anyway - would be nice to just be able to turn it off altogether.

Edit: I see from other posts it has earned a new name: Floptimus

 

OCZ Vertex 4 is the best/fastest, and comes with a nice 5 year warranty.

Crucial M4 is cheaper, and gets good praise for reliability.

The truth is, you won't notice the difference between the top 2 SSD's in real life scenarios. So if you need to budget, get the Crucial M4.. if you want the fastest drive, get the OCZ Vertex 4.

 

Optimus is fine but enduro is sti new and will take some time

Sent From My Rooted E3D

 

you ever had optimus? Its a pain in the rear most of the time. Sometimes it won't switch to the discrete card when playing games even when the .exe is whitelisted. And on the other side of the coin, it will switch to the discrete card when doing things on battery, and this lessens your battery life. The original manual AMD switching with the r3 was the best IMO as you could pick what card you wanted to run manually. just my ten cents.

 

Hi have alienware m17x. top games dosnt play as it should. lower graphics games ok.It use to play top games but i dont here the fan come in on high graphic games it was playing ok a few weeks ago I have installed Win 7 ...It did have win 7 pro...

 

what revision m17x? r1,r2,r3,r4? and this wasn't the best place to ask. You probably wanna ask in either the m17x r1/r2 owners lounge if you have one of those systems or the m17x r3/r4 owners lounge if you have one of those.

 

Hi guys

Im currently looking at purchasing an Alienware M17x R4 laptop

Im really close to pulling the trigger on the system but there is one sticking point. The hard drive

I would like to have an SSD on the system for programs and the OS, as well as a spinning hard drive for file storage. The problem is that the smallest configuration offered by dell that would satisfy this is a 256GB SSD and 1TB 5400 rpm hard drive coming with a whopping upgrade cost of $913 over the standard memory configuration.
That is just a hill too steep.

What im hoping Ill be able to do is purchase the system without an SSD, and then install my own once it arrives. Is this a viable option?

If so, which configuration of hard drives from dell would be the best option and lend itself most easily to my plan?
-The standard configuration in my package comes with two 500Gb 7200 rpm drives set up in raid 0 (this will leave me with 1 500Gb drive that I have no use for once I remove it though and possible complications in breaking the raid 0 set up also concern me)
-For a few dollars extra I can swap to a 32GB mSATA SSD and a 750 GB 7200 Rpm hard drive (I should be able to just slot the SSD in without removing either of these drives correct?)
-And the final option, I can ask Dell to downgrade the 1TB Raid 0 configuration to a single 750GB drive. If I'm lucky they may even knock the price down on the system a little bit.)

So what do you guys thing? From what I've seen so far, it looks like slotting in an SSD is a fairly straight forward process (fingers crossed).

This is the SSD I am looking to install Intel 520 Series 240GB SSD [SSDSC2CW240A3K5] - $309.00 : PC Case Gear. If anyone could confirm whether or not it is compatible, I would also be GREATLY appreciative.

Thanks guys

 

Hey, i inquired about the same thing earlier, if you look throught the last few pages you should find the post. I was recommended a OCZ vertex 4 SSD, which i have ordered. The person that answered my post had that exact SSD in his signature so i assume its perfectly compatible. this is my second m17x and i can confirm that the installation of an SSD is a straight foreward process and easy to do, and definitely cheaper. Good luck to you and enjoy your new m17x. As for your choice in SSD , I see no immediate reason as to why it wouldnt be compatible.

Hey, I appologize if this is not the right thread to post in, but could anyone refer me to a section where someone explains how to back up alienware respawn? I plan to do a fresh Win7 install when i recieve my R4 and install my SSD, so I want to have the respawn partition saved somewhere incase i have to go back to "out of box" - state. Thanks in advance

 

I can't look up a thread at the moment (on my way to work), but it is pretty simple. There are options within AlienRespawn to back up your system to disc or a thumb drive. I recommend backing it up to a thumb drive as soon as you start it up. Then, once you get an install you're satisfied with on the SSD, back it up to another drive. Store them some place safe.

As for the "how to" part, the option isn't hard to find. The program layout is well laid out, IMHO.

Hope this helps, sorry i couldn't be more thorough right now.

Sent from my DROID RAZR MAXX Using Tapatalk 2

 

How very timely! Sounds like a floptimus/endurOh issue. I'll not ask any details as you should probably repost as bigtonyman suggests

 

Thanks! I sure hate having to pay the extra, but at least I know!

Yeah it does, and at best all it could provide for me would be worse performance. But in reality it leads to driver issues, etc. Even if I cared about battery life I wouldn't want it, and I don't care about battery life.

 

When I did a full reinstall after deleting the factory partition as well, respawn detected that there was no factory partition and created one. Then backed up to it. This is a 'one time' copy and future backups are kept wherever you specify. HTH