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

Hi guys,

Considering options for a new laptop to run games - but not uber serious graphics needs. However - I want something that will keep me ticking over for ~3 years, so I usually go for something with a decent spec.

So - Considering the M17x as a decent option and I have a couple of questions.

How much difference is there really between the current CPU choices ... the 3610, 3720 and 3820 CPUs. It's about (in UK terms) £200 and £430 difference to step up. Is a 3820 really worth £430 extra, or are we in the realms of "want the best" rather than something noticable?

Likewise on the GPU front ... Between the 660 and the 680 there is a sizable ££ difference. I know that the 7970 is popular and beats the 675 hands down in speed, but I've had horrific issues n the past with just about every Radeon card I ever had (PC and laptop) as the drivers seemed flakey as hell. Maybe I'm paranoid, but I would rather stick with NVIDIA. So - that begs the question. 660, 675 (+£180) or 680(+ .. ooof... £430). Again I'm thinking £430 for real noticable gains or just "something".

Was thinking to go middle road on CPU / GPU and go for the 3720 / 675 combo but I was curious what people thought of the 660 ...?

Last question is around hard drives. Similar story.. is it worth the extra "discussion" with my wife to justify an SSD? Was thinking about a 750GB 7200rpm drive and the 32GB mSata cache card ... kinda cheaper SSD-ish ...


Hope this makes sense guys ... Im kind of out of touch with the recent batch of CPU/GPU options, since my "build your own PC" days are behind me


Thanks for any pointers on the above - and on the M17x in general ...

Icey.

 

Not much. Any flavor of i7 is more processor than 95% of users need. If you were planning on running a ton of VMs, folding, or encoding video 'round the clock, I might consider upgrading. Otherwise, no need.

The 675M is a renamed Fermi (last generation) part. It was the GTX 580M in its former life. Still, it is faster than the 660M, but it is less efficient and generates more heat. I would go either 7970M or 680M. The M17x I just ordered will be the first ATI/AMD GPU I have ever owned, so I'm hoping I don't regret the decision. I'm an admitted Nvidia fanboy, but I just couldn't justify the extra cost.

SSDs are absolutely worth it, however, I'd do it yourself instead of paying the Alienware premium. I personally stuck with the cheapest HDD option, and I was planning on using a spare 64GB Crucial M4 I have lying around. Then the 256GB versions went on sale on Newegg over the weekend, so I ended up buying a new one. $179 for a 256GB SSD is worth it to me.

 

Antipathy has pretty much covered it - all I can add is that you can get the msata ssd much cheaper and since the bios and intel SW are already set up it will be almost plug n play to add a caching drive, and get most of the benefits of a dedicated SSD. Just plug it in, go into the IRST software already installed and select 'acceleration'. Done - instant speed gain. Leaves one of you bays free as well for future expansion when funds permit.

Oh yeah, my 675 performs just great with all the latest titles - actually runs cooler than the 580 (I know it's basically the same card) I had in my R3, and I'm seeing a very slight increase on FPS - but this could be just the latest drivers. Like you I had a bad experience with a home built rig on AMD and became an NV fanboy after building a quad sli + physx rig - awesome!

 

I'm probably not being entirely fair to the 670s and 675s. Yes, they are renamed Fermi parts, but they are late life cycle silicon and have fewer defects than early life cycle. So the 675 is more efficient than the 580 was, and it's clocked higher.

 

Thanks for the feedback guys. I reckon I'll stick with my "gut feel" and avoid the 7970. Would rather lose some performance than be screaming at the d@mn computer like my last incarnations of ATI/AMD cards. As I'm not playing top notch graphics hitters, I reckon I would rather sacrifice speed for stability and less chance of a stroke

As for the "home fit" SSD ... Heard that a lot that you can avoid paying Dell prices - get a decent (better) SSD and self fit. i guess you could start getting into warranty issues if you go down that path? Or is the AW kit actually designed for a certain amount of acceptable user "probing"

Given I'm sitting with several TB on a gigabit NAS, I'm happy with lower capacity on the actual laptop if it's fast to boot

Just need to see what's happening with Windows 8 ... and see if I can time any purchase to get an upgrade "voucher" if I want to go down that route.


Thanks again,

Icey.

 

yup you won't void your warranty by putting in a new SSD though of coarse the drive won't be covered by dell if It fails. Two very good SSD's you can look at are the crucial M4 and the Vertex 4. Both are reliable and fast!! As to the windows 8 voucher, any system purchased after June 1st should be eligible to upgrade to windows 8 for $15. Hope this helps answer your questions.

 

I get my m17x r4 today cany wait to get off work today haha

Sent From My Rooted E3D

 

I'm a big fan of the Crucial M4 myself (got 3 of 'em), but I'll also add that I think pretty highly of the Samsung 830 and Intel 520 series, as well. The Vertex 4 is the fastest drive on the market at the moment.

 

Finally got mine today, 3610qm 680m 8g ram 500g 32g caching drive with 3d vision 2.

I'll run Arkham City benchmark stuff later and see how it fares up.

The windows index scores were pretty healthy too.

7.6
7.9
7.9
7.9
5.9

I was wondering if there was anyway to verify that you have a caching drive installed, i did have a look under the covers so to say and it did say momentus 500g 7200rpm but i didn't see any mention of anything else.

I was also surprised to see that out of that 500gb you only get about 430ish left over to play with, should that be correct? I was kind of under the impression that the 32gb would be kind of used for the windows installation and kept seperate from the standard 500gb of the actual main drive part itself.

Anyone else get the caching drive? And have a way of verifiying that dell actually did install it?

Thanks,
Matt

 

The 32GB drive is used to accelerate the 500GB drive, if caching is enabled. The OS isn't installed on it, and it isn't visible in Windows Explorer. To verify that caching is enabled, you can launch Intel Rapid Storage Technology, and click on Accelerate at the top. It should show that the 500GB drive is being accelerated by the 32GB cache drive.

 

Ah yes thanks, it is enabled so it was just me being skeptical, i've not had much recent experience with windows as i've used a mac for the last 2 years so will have to get used to everything again.

Initial impressions are good though of this system, i'll post some benchmark data later on if i can if anyones interested.

 

3720QM is more than enough, however I never like picking the lowest option so I would suggest against the 3610QM... But if on a tight budget, always choose worse CPU over worse GPU.

I will find you, and kill you, if you get the 660m

My suggestion would be the 680m. It's the most future proof, and nvidia has great drivers and features. But if on a tight budget, and you're leaning towards a 675m... remember its a renamed previous generation card, a waste. The 7970m is an excellent card, and depending on your budget your choice should be between the 7970m or 680m. (if options are 3720QM & 675m VS. 3610QM & 680m, choose the second one)

SSDs are fantastic especially when your OS is installed on it. Every single thing you do will go faster, whether its searching, or opening files/programs, launching games and game levels... everything will be snappier.
However yet again the most important part is getting the best GPU (680m recommended, 7970m if you can't)
Honestly the Hybrid HDD (with the mSata cache) will really boost the speeds on stuff you use often, and boot times.

GPU > Hard Drive > CPU > RAM

Get the most valuable and performance changing component first. Then get as good of a hard drive as you can. The CPU is not as important because they're all overkill and won't bottleneck your performance. And anything above 8GB of RAM (or even 6GB) is way more than enough unless you mega multitask, and its super cheap/easy to upgrade later.

Questions?

 

Hey guys..

I am looking at ordering my first Alienware here in a couple weeks.. Had just a quick question. I am super confused when it comes to SSD's.. I am an avid desktop builder and built my last computer about 3 years ago, its still able to run everything at max but I can feel it is slowly getting behind.. I am wanting to step into the portable world and pick up an M17x R4..

Stats that I am looking at going with.

i7 3720QM
GTX680M
12GB ram DDR3 1600
750GB + 32GB Caching SSD..

Now my question is about the hard drive. I realize this computer has two hard drive slots.. Does that combo take up both spots? Also does the caching drive have the OS installled on it? I would like to install the OS on the SSD since I get quicker boots and my games will launch faster.. I think? Or should I just stick with the 500GB hard drive and buy a seperate SSD from newegg for the second bay?

Thanks everyone! Can't wait to place the order and join the club!

 

No. There are two 2.5" drive bays, plus an mSATA slot. The above configuration would fill one 2.5" bay and the mSATA slot.

No. Caching, using Intel Smart Response Technology, uses an SSD to accelerate a mechanical HDD. Everything is installed on the HDD, and the SSD is not even visible in Windows Explorer.

That's what I would do (did, actually). Plus, I think the mSATA slot is only SATA2. That combined with the fact that caching isn't quite as fast as going pure SSD, anyway, and I think the choice is clear. Of course, you could always use an mSATA drive to accelerate your mechanical data drive, and STILL buy an SSD from newegg for your OS drive. It should be noted that SATA operation must be set to RAID, not AHCI, for caching, though.

You're welcome!

 

Platelock that sounds like a damn solid spec

Antipathy answered well about the hard drive though, but about your thoughts on the 500GB hard drive + SSD... unless you are going to install your OS on the SSD I don't think it's as valuable of an improvement... I would stick with the 750GB Hybrid Hard Drive, unless you can budget an SSD and then buy another hard drive from newegg for storage

I can't wait to join the club too You'll love your system

 

Finally made the order today, got a 9% discount from the Dell salesperson to total $2699 (comes with the Orion bag pack)

3rd generation Intel® Core™ i7-3820QM Processor(2.7GHz with Turbo Boost 2.0 up to 3.7GHz, 8MB Cache)
Genuine Windows® 7 Home Premium SP1 64bit (English)
17.3" (43.94 cm) WideFHD (1920 x 1080) WLED LCD
8GB2 Dual Channel DDR3 SDRAM at 1600MHz
2TB 5400RPM Hard Drive (1TBx2)(Raid 0)
2GB GDDR5 AMD Radeon HD 7970M
Killer™ Wireless-N 1103 a/g/n 3x3 MIMO for Gaming & Video (MY)
Slot Load Fixed Blu-ray BD-ROM / DVD + /-RW Combo Drive
3-year Premier Service with CompleteCover Accidental Damage Protection

Should be here in 8 or so days. I'll upgrade the RAM and add the SDDs shortly after I receive it hopefully.

 

I don't think your salesperson was honest with you. With your build, you should have gotten the 15% off easily. There is a promotion going on right now for all alienware 17x..
Alienware Deals

It's not too late to cancel your current order and do it through the website, if you hurry. good luck

 

I think that only applies to machines in the US. 9% was pretty good for my region Even 5% is something to jump for joy for, lol.

Thanks though.

 

Any of those will be nice CPUs. Personally I'd probably pick the middle one just 'cause, and if you can afford it, hey, the best one is best, but even the "slowest" one will be good.

Yeah, likewise. I've been running both at various points since the Rage 128 and the TNT, and aside from the first 3 weeks I owned my TNT (when it was a BRAND new part in 1998 or whatever) Nvidia's drivers have always just worked for me. Since I care about Folding @ Home, Nvidia's way better for that too. AMD's GCN GPUs are better...but a benchmark I saw last night pegs AMD's best single GPU desktop card as being 50% worse than Nvidia's now ancient 216 core part from 2 generations ago LOL

At any rate, the Geforce 660m is no joke compared to what's in most notebooks, but the 680 has 3.5x more Kepler cores than 660 (okay, so the clock speed is like 100MHz slower, but still).

I think for games AMD has a nice part, but still, driver issues, and everything but games Nvidia wins.

Though...unfortunately unless you get the "3D" screen, Dell saddles you with Floptimus So...hello driver issues anyway? LOL

I'm told Dell includes the mounting caddy thingee for the second drive even if you only order it with one drive, which is awesome if true.

Another option would be Seagate's 750GB second gen Momentus XT, which is a best in class 7200RPM drive with a 32MB RAM and 8GB SLC flash cache. I've used the first gen 500GB (32MB/4GB) drive for years, and while tons of people continue to rave about SSDs, and obviously they are nifty, there's a bigger "feel" difference to me between a normal 7200RPM drive and the Momentus XT than between that and an SSD. My boot times went from like 1:30 to maybe 20-30 seconds at worst (on now older hardware), and the second gen model would be better.

Of course with a system like the M17x, you can put two drives in there, so it's possible to put a smaller SSD as your boot drive plus a larger 7200RPM drive as secondary. SSD prices are cheaper than ever, but still, I'd never skimp on the CPU or GPU to get an SSD...much better to spend the money there, and upgrade your drive later if you want to, since 1) you can upgrade your drive (and cheaply), and 2) once Windows is booted, there's not that huge a performance difference from an SSD anyway...I mean once stuff's in RAM, doesn't much matter.

My personal picks for SSDs would be Intel's 520, 320, and Crucial's M4.

The 320 is most resistant to...what's the word I'm looking for? Issues caused by fragmentation/TRIM stuff. It's also THE drive you'd want if you were using an OS or device that didn't support TRIM.

The downside is it doesn't support SATA 3, so top transfer rates are capped at something like 270MB/s. To me that's not a big deal, as random performance is more important to me anyway, but lots of people seem to freak out if they don't have SATA 3. Also the 320 costs more, at least the 600GB model is proportionally WAY more expensive than the 480GB 520, or 512GB M4.

The 320 and 520 both have built in whole drive encryption, which is awesome. Your data is all encrypted if you set a BIOS password for the drive, and of course no performance penalty as it's handled on the drive.

The 520 is a Sandforce based drive, but Intel spent a year fixing the firmware so it actually works. There's NO way I'd touch any other Sandforce drive than this...and supposedly Intel's brought it up to 320 reliability. Heck, in Andantech's review they found a horrific way other Sandforce drives were STILL breaking, that Intel's isn't.

The M4 of course is Crucial/Micron, which is another company to trust with memory-actually Micron and Intel jointly produce Flash together! Seems like of the three the 520 is least resistant to like really torturous writes, and the 320 is basically completely resistant. Though real world you probably wouldn't run into the situation, and at worst I think the 520 hit like 160GB/s levels or something, but the M4 seemed a bit better at handling crazy workloads, and the 320 just shrugs it off (which is probably why it costs the most despite being supposedly "lower end").

Samsung's supposed to be reliable too, but does much worse than any of those for getting in to a bad spot it can't recover from, plus it costs more, plus I'd sooner support Micron and Intel then Samsung personally. I just don't see the point of Samsung when they're more expensive and less able to deal with torturous writes than Micron or Intel.

 

For UK buyers: i think you get 5% cash back if you use quidco but it expires in 3 days.

 

I got a healthy discount on mine in the UK, I used a link via wizmark computers which has a few discounted options... On top of that I used a 10% promo code discount and then I can also claim the Vat back on it so in total would have saved about £500ish.

I've still not had chance to play Arkham City and run it on any benchmark stuff as I have been playing around a lot with the 3d vision 2 setup. It will happily run Skyrim at highest res full settings with modest AA and Aniso filtering with a great frame rate.

My only dislike of the system so far is that the keyboard is a bit iffy in terms of the consistency of the placement of the keys. I'm sure that they all don't sit exactly at the same level and will almost certainly be touching the screen when the lid is closed. Also if i press down the keys around the W E R etc the whole keys actually sink down lower than most of the others too. I'm not sure if this is a design fault or just where the keyboard supports are positioned underneath?

Apart from this negligible irk I'd definitely recommend the system to others.

One other thing, I also noticed that mine came installed with the A05 bios already installed which is a plus considering all the trouble some people were having flashing their bios.

 

How is the 3D Vision 2? You can probably get them to send you a new keyboard if you're worried about it, I think it's a pretty easy swap.

 

The 3d vision is rather impressive especially on skyrim once you do all the mods.

I'll see how the keyboard goes for now, it will be interesting to know if anyone else has some issues with theirs?

 

can anyone tell me how the samsung ssd that comes with the m17 r4, stack up with other ssds?
I dont mind if i cant notice the difference, just as long as it is still really fast at booting.

 

The Samsung 830 is one of the best drives on the market.

 

holy crap dude thanks for the quick reply. I am about to buy my system in 30 minutes.

I was gonna just go with the 7200 rpm HDD and then buy a $400 crucial m4 512 gb ssd and install it myself. But I think I can get more bang for my buck just buying it from the AW rep since its 10%off. Also saves time installing it myself.

Thanks!

 

No problem!

Run the numbers just to be sure, though. I'd be surprised if it was actually cheaper going through Dell than to do it yourself.

 

Well on the dell site it is 294 -10%: 261
on newegg its 269 for the samsung 830! Plus I was going to get a cloning kit so however much that is on top.

 

I'd disagree about that being one of the best drives. Despite costing less than Samsung, I'd pick Intel's 520, 320, or Micron/Crucial's M4 over Samsung's drive any day. All of them handle being pushed to the limit better.

 

What are you referring to? I am a big Crucial M4 fan, myself; I have 3 of them, but I have always recommended them alongside the Intel 520 series and Samsung 830.

 

Check out Anandtech's review. Intel's 320 handles extreme writes the best-just shrugs them off. Looks like the M4 is next, can recover with enough sequential writing. 520 next, but the Samsung is just terrible if hit with anything extreme. That plus the fact that it costs MORE instead of less, and I'd rather support Micron and Intel anyway means I don't see the point of getting a Samsung drive, unless you're buying it from an OEM or whatever.

 

Love Anandtech. Unfortunately, I can't get there at work. It's not blocked, it just never connects. Weird. I'm pretty sure I've read that before, but I'll go back for a refresher when I get a chance. I will say, though, in a gaming laptop, I'm far more concerned with 4k random reads that any kind of writes, and the I'm pretty sure the Samsung beats out the drives we are talking about. I personally like M4s because they are a great value and are reliable, plus sport 4k random reads over that of most of the competition.

 

Yeah, I can't believe how cheap the M4 is now...$400 for 512GB is actually in "you can afford and actually potentially use this as your only drive" territory! And that's for one of the BEST drives out there from one of the best companies, not some weird off brand thing.

This stuff was like $1000 not that long ago!

 

I know! I bought a 256GB M4 last week on newegg for $179, shipped. I bought the same drive in May, also on sale, for $199. In December, I bought a 64GB M4, again on sale, for $99.

$1.54 per GB back in December, down to $0.78 per GB in May, and now $0.70 per GB. Who knows where we will be a year from now.

 

OCZ Vertex 4 is the best/fastest.

 

Best is subjective, but yes, the OCZ Vertex 4 does have the highest 4k reads and writes.

 

True that, but the OCZ Vertex 4 is the fastest drive on the market. And all reliability issues from Vertex 3 have been fixed along with great new firmware. And the 5 year warranty is awesome, not to mention the Vertex 4 is usually cheaper than the Intel SSD's.

But the Crucial M4 is known for reliability, and is cheaper.

 

Hey Leo, after a few researches that have done through out the week. I realized that the Vertex 4 is the fastest of them all but is also the "new kid on the block". Vertex 4 being new couldn't guarantee you how long it may last. Then I looked for more SSDs available and there I went with the Samsung 830. It may be true that the Vertex 4 is the fastest of them all but I went with the Samsung 830, a lot of people have been telling me that the Samsung 830 is amazing when it comes to reliability. It may not be par with the performance compared to the Vertex 4 but it is guaranteed that the Samsung 830 will perform great for a very long time unlike the OCZ's past reputations of their SSDs dying out in the next few months. Either way though, an SSD is an SSD. It will surely make your Alienware a SPEED DEMON

 

Yes Kyrius but any disliking of the OCZ Vertex 4 is due to that past reputation. It's still a fairly new SSD but from all my research on it apparently they have fixed those reliability issues since the acquiring of Indilinx, and with new firmware. And adding a 5 year warranty is a good sign, however only time will tell. But when talking about 'reliability', you can't measure that in any way except that a few people complain when something happens to their model. OCZ is trying to fix any reliability issues so lets hope it goes that way
But yes I completely agree an SSD is an SSD... nobody will notice any difference between the top 2 brands, so unless you're picky about having the fastest one.. price is more important.

 

Hey , getting my R4 on tuesday hopefully Does anyone know if the shutterglasses come with the 3d - screen option ? or do i have to buy those seperately ? And is a caddy for the second 2.5" HD bay included if you only ordered 1 drive ? I want to put my shiny new ssd in there , but if i have to order a caddy through dell again ill cry (

 

Order it faster yah rump! jk jk.. If you are in the US, the discounts might run away this week. Just warning you. Also Im pretty sure if you get anything 3-D it will give you the shutter glasses.

I used to wonder like you: will it come with a 2nd drive if I get just 1, or is there 4 DIMM slots still if I only get 2-DIMM. Don't worry the slots that will always be available are the 2 hard drive bays, 4 ram slots ect...

So yeah you can install your shiny new SSD in no problem as long as its 2.5". Plus I hope you know how to install a hard drive. If not, you can simply learn it off youtube.

 

Good choice on the Samsung, Kyrius. I have the 256GB model and it absolutely flies. From a cold boot, including time to type my password is 22 seconds. I imagine that if I remove the password, I'd be under 20 seconds. And this is stock programs loading, nothing "optimized" to boot faster by eliminating any programs at start up.

 

Hey , thanks for the reply. Found in the invoice that its bundeled with the glasses so yay for that. In regard to the SSD, my question was if it comes with a caddy? I am aware that the bay will be there , but if i just install the SSD without a caddy to hold it in place , its not gonna be stable in there. I read elsewhere on these forums that the caddy in the free slot came preinstalled in some machines with some plastic foam stuffing where the HDD goes, can anyone confirm that for the R4? Will i need a transposer like in the R1, and is it included ? And yes I"ve dismanteled my R1 many times and upgrade / change out parts regularly on all my machines, so installing it shouldnt be a prob thanks in advance for the replies !

 

Everything you need will come with the computer. No need to purchase anything else.

 

Thx for the reply. 2 questions:
1: Do i need to put the SSD in bay 1 for best performance or are all the bays the same ?
2: How do i backup the alien respawn partition so i can reinstall OS on the SSD ?

 

with the m17x r4, I think you can use either bay as they are both SATA III capable. Not sure how to backup respawn as I always wipe it off and just use the installation disk instead.

 

1) Doesn't really make a difference, but I always put the boot drive in the primary slot, which is actually 0, not 1. If you don't, you'll just have to set the boot device to the proper drive in the BIOS.

2) Before doing anything, create a set of restore discs. The disks will recreate the partition.

 

Does the Windows 7 OS disc come with every order? I talked to 3 service reps and got 3 different answers.

 

Haven't gotten mine yet, but pretty sure it does. I've read people here say yes, and there should be a line on your order detail that looks like the attached image.

 

Right on. That's what I got. I even got "1 331-6909 Resource DVD, M17X R4" in my order config and they tried to tell me that the resource DVD was not included. It has me pretty confused and unsure.