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

Looks fine to me.

But do you really need the 3720QM? Because I think that i7-3610QM can do the same work for less price.
Same with the Blu-ray reader. I personally don't know anyone who is using it

 

That is a healthy configuration. It should perform nicely.

I moved your new thread into a discussion where it belongs.

 

Hey guys, I have a couple more questions about AW. I've decided to go for the 7970m, but would I be able to change it to the 680m once it comes out? Also, can somebody explain to me what 7970m crossfire means? Is this a specially configured GPU? Thanks!

 

question what mxm board does this use? Will future gpus be compatible?

crossfire is ATI version of SLI

EDIT: Woot I am getting it! my wife is letting me get it! Well I am 90% sure but this is my config

Alienware M17X R4 with Soft Touch edit
Genuine Windows® 7 Home Premium, 64bit edit
3rd Generation Intel® Core™ i7-3720QM (6MB Cache, up to 3.6GHz w/ Turbo Boost 2.0) edit
6GB DDR3 at 1600MHz (2DIMMS) edit
17.3-inch WideFHD 1920 x 1080 60Hz WLED edit
2GB GDDR5 AMD Radeon™ HD 7970M edit
500GB 7,200 RPM SATA 3Gb/s edit
AlienFX Quasar Blue edit
Hinge Up Stealth Black with Soft Touch Finish edit
Creative Sound Blaster Recon3Di with THX TruStudio Pro
Slot-Loading Dual Layer Blu-ray Reader (BR-ROM, DVD+-RW, CD-RW) edit
Intel® Centrino® Wireless-N 2230 With Bluetooth 4.0 edit
Alienware M17x 240W A/C Adapter edit
Alienware Documentation edit
90WHr 9-Cell Primary Battery edit
Hardware Support Services 3 Year Basic Plan

All for $1620 ahhhhh wahhh hooo!!!

 

ummm with this type of system hardrives and SSDs are not going to be a battery saver...the upgraded cpu will not really make too much of a difference unless under constant load...in the instant of constant load i can't see this thing getting more then an hour juice...if that. No expert but this is a power hog. SSDs and raid or whatever wont make any more difference than a couple mins if that. Again I am speculating. Your dealing with a gaming system that has a 240W PSU.

EDIT: my load out is supposed to cost $2518 but is it always going to be that expensive or is that just because its preorder? Will it drop several hundred in a couple months?

 

about the same due to stepping and ~ same clock speed. Also it really isn't worth the upgrade for the money...i got the upgrade for 9 bucks

 

you can buy a hardrive clone or just reinstall everything yourself. it costs about $1 per GB for an SSD if you buy it yourself

 

I plan on installing my own SSD, should I clone it from the hard drive my M17x will ship with to keep all the drivers, software, etc? Or should I just do a clean install?

 

your choice on what you want to do

 

Hey guys, I am going to buy my first alienware laptop. This is what I am planning to order, is there anything I should change (I am not too sure which hard drive to get) or is everything fine?

3rd Generation Intel® Core™ i7-3820QM processor (8MB Cache, up to 3.7GHz w/ Turbo Boost 2.0)
Genuine Windows® 7 Ultimate, 64bit
16GB Dual Channel DDR3 at 1600MHz (4DIMMS)
2GB GDDR5 AMD Radeon™ HD 7970
500GB 7,200 RPM Storage + 64GB mSATA Boot Drive -or - 1TB RAID 0 (2x 500GB SATA 3B/s 7,200 RPM)
LCD PANEL17.3-inch WideFHD 1920 x 1080 60Hz WLED
Intel® Advanced-N WiFi Link 6250 a/g/n 2x2 MIMO Technology with WiMax and Bluetooth 4.0
Slot-Load Dual Layer DVD Burner (DVD+-RW, CD-RW)

Thanks

 

i personally would not upgrade ram...buy it yourself from newegg.com and save yourself some money

Also if you dont have a blueray player like me you should upgrade to having one.

Question do you guys think 300 bucks for a 3 year warranty is worth it? I have had most things break on me in the 1st 2nd and just after 2nd year so i figured an extended warranty for 300 bucks was worth it. What are your opinions?

 

Hi guys,

Is it possible to change the 32GB mSATA into a boot drive instead of using it as a cache? As we do not have the 64GB option available here and the 32GB comes as a default

 

i dont think 32 gig is big enough for system OS..could be wrong

 

Well I pulled the trigger last night. I took the money I was going to use for dual 7970's in my R2, and used it for an R4. Originally I sold a bunch of stuff to raise funds for the pair of 7970s for the R2, but couldn't pass up the deal on the R4.

Ordered the following specs. i7 3720, 500GB HDD, AMD 7970M, DVD Burner, 1080P 60Hz, 6GB RAM, Intel N 2230, Win 7 HP. All for $1,211 shipped. Which is less only $92 more than the pair of 7970's was going to cost shipped.

To upgrade from the 3610 to the 3720 was $9. How much better is the 3820 vs. the 3720 cpu?

At least I'll be able to test a Dell 7970 in my R2.

One thing I can't wait to do is see the R4 screen side by side with the R2 screen. I'm sure I'll still like the R2 better though R2 will probably remain as my desktop, and I'll use the R3 for just messing around, some gaming, travel perhaps. In the end I may just give it to my wife and put dual 7970s in my R2. Gotta get the wife into gaming though. Maybe we can bond over some BF3 together lol.

 

LOL...bond over BF3 LOL hahahahahahaha

The 3720 is a great CPU, the 3820 is only 100mhz more so its not worth the additional cost. I assume that eventually, a XM CPU will find its way into your R4.

Congratz on the new laptop...you got a great deal. I wouldn't have passed it up either if it was offered to me

 

Hahaha, thanks. Yea depending on price I may pick up an XM ES chip. Depends on the price. But now I'm tempted to get a SATA 3 SSD. Originally I didn't get it for anything special as it was just too good a price. But with me thats like opening a can of upgrade worms. Though the only reason the wife let me get it is because I sold a bunch of stuff. She won't let me dig into the bank account for computer stuff at the moment

 

I don't have AAFES access anymore, but I have many friends who do. I just sold my house yesterday and I am trying not to beg my wife for a $1200 advance. It would be easy with all the house equity money sitting in the bank, we wouldn't even notice the $1200 missing, but I promised her we could move into the new house, put in a pool, and get surround sound before I bough another laptop.

Keeping your word is hard

 

Haha, Completely understand that. Selling a bunch of old stuf for some "play money" is the only reason I was able to do so. Especially since we have a son on the way and paid plenty of hospital bills this far. Just glad to have good insurance Otherwise my R2 would have been gone months ago, only with my M11x, Yamaha R2, and just about everything else I enjoy

 

BRO! COngratz!!!!!!!!! Get all your toys now because you will be in the darkages for the next 2-3 yrs lol.

 

Haha, exactly what I'm trying to do Been thinking about selling my bike for a while to build a nice desktop. I meant to say Yamaha R6, I guess the R2 is always on my mind hahaha.

I guess now I have an M17x R2, M17x R4 and Yamaha R6 funny how that works out. And since I'll be in the dark ages, I may come around when the M17x R8 comes out if the pattern persists. hahaha

 

DR do you think the ~$300 is worth it for a 3 year warranty? I can just see a MOBO or GPU go out in 3 years and cost me a bunch of money

 

Yea, I think it is. Though I didn't get anything but the 1 year basic warranty with my R4. but in my R2 I've had the GPU's replaced at least twice. But thats mostly my fault

 

congrats man! I would be crazy to pass up such a deal (as if I could get access to one ).

 

How is everyone able to get it for under $2k?? I ordered mine with everything base except for the screen upped to 1080p 60hz and the video card to the 7970... came out to a lil over $2k

 

Got mine for $1,211 because I'm a member of the U.S. Military and ordered through AAFES which is a military store. Aside from the discounts, it's also tax free and free shipping.

i7 3720, 500GB HDD, AMD 7970M, DVD Burner, 1080P 60Hz, 6GB RAM, Intel N 2230, Win 7 HP

 

yea and i stick'n missed out!!! i was buying mine tonight! but now screwed! I was holding onto the idea of it through the 14th!!!


wait the overseas one works with the same discount and it goes to your cart....i think you can just ship it in states anyways! Anyone know for sure?

 

Finally have my quote together from dell.fr for an m17x. Posting this here to say that I basically felt that I have no choice but to get the 7970. I am a long time ATI hater, but based on everything I have read here, what choice do I have but to give AMD a shot.

Thanks to everyone here for the pages and pages and pages of info to read through. Hopefully you will all still be around when I get mine and have a chance to muck it all up.

(and for anyone waiting for the 680m, my guess is it will be available the day after my machine enters production, so not too much longer to wait

 

I got a discount from Allan in the Sales Assistance thread. He's stopped giving quotes though so you'd have to call in when ordering and get a discount that way. My final price was $1964 with the 3720QM, 7970M, and 1080p screen upgrades.

 

if you buy anything from dell always call you can nearly always haggle them out of some money.

 

How easy is it to swap out the harddrive? If I buy a crucial m4 aftermarket, would it be easy to add in as a primary harddrive and keep the 750gb as a data drive? Would it void my whole warranty?

 

Extremely easy. Almost every laptop allows you to swap drives. It won't affect your warranty.

 

+1 to all those who said to call in. The rep I talked to was able to do even better than the Allan/Juan quote I had been given. I got my order placed today and now the wait begins.

The fully loaded M17x w/ 3820, 16GB RAM, 64 SSD + 500GB, 7970M and Blu Ray should be quite an upgrade over the 17-inch Arrandale based MacBook Pro I'm upgrading from, especially when it comes to gaming performance.

 

congrats! and can you share you much did you pay for it?

 

My discount came out to approx. 17% off. So essentially $2500 after tax. They included expedited shipping too!

 

Man I'm still stoked with my R4 price. I'll probably turn it on, set up F@h, close it, let it run, and check on it once a month. Lol. Not sure I'll use it much especially since I don't really need it. My passion is for the R2.

 

if you ever think of reselling it, I'm all ears

 

Yea I don't think I'd have much problem selling if I did that lol

 

Hey! I did the exact same thing! At first I was just curious about upgrading the 460m GPU in my R3 and concluded upgrading would be ~$500 so not an option. Then I ended up discovering there's an R4 now. I played around with configuring a build like I always do and ended up around 2k for the same specs. Then I went to my AAFES site and got it for $1600. Yesterday I told my wife that for my birthday I want to buy the R4 and sell my R3. So I went to change one of the options and all of a sudden the price went down to $1211! I basically said ?! F* that, I'd be dumb not to pull the trigger. Sure enough I check the site today and it's nowhere as good a deal as yesterday.
Anyway, estimated ship date of May 25, I sure hope it arrives faster like my R3 did. Faster CPU, a million times faster GPU, better battery. I don't think I will miss my 120hz. 3D screen that I never used for almost 2 years. I can't wait! Too bad it won't be here for Diablo 3 release But at least I can compare 460m to 7970m

 

how many ram slots does it have? 4?

 

Yes, four.

 

How many times are you going to mention the deal you got?

I'm in the process of buying a keyboard at the moment so I don't have to touch my laptop keyboard much. I hate when I get a little grease smear on it. I wipe it down like a beast.

 

Until I get tired, and I just woke up and am pounding some energy drinks!

 

Hey, could any owners talk about the switchable graphics functionality of the 7970m please.

 

You at work? I'm at work drinking coffee and falling asleep. Going to get some serious game time on the laptop this weekend, then pull an all nighter for Diablo 3 next week.

 

Nice. Yea I'm at work. It's not a bad gig. desk job in a cubicle, but people leave me alone and I have headphones in listening to some Pandora as I work.

 

Same here, minus the cubicle walls part haha, I'm a programmer. All I need is my 2 large screens, headphones, coffee, and my chair. Sleep's optional but I've gotten use to that. I can still complain.

 

Hey guys, another questions from me. Is the 3820QM considerably better than the 3720QM? I'm asking this because whenever I see people's specs here they always say 3720QM and I'm starting to wonder whether the 3820QM is worth the extra $200. Thanks!

Also, how much is tax? I configured my system on the dell website and it comes to about $2100 before tax. I was just wondering how much it would be after tax and shipping? I can't seem to find it without entering a credit card and I don't want to accidentally buy it lol. I'm in Virginia btw.

 

IMO no, the 3820QM is not worth it especially for gaming. Virginia sales tax looks to be 5%(?) so just multiply the price by 1.05.

Oh and never pay the website price. Call in and haggle to get a discount.

 

Any word on the switchable graphics feature of the 7970m?

 

Why does anyone need switchable graphics? 7970m has got the Zerocore technology which I believe idles at the same power as an IGP.

AMD ZeroCore Power technology
<1W idle for GPUs with inactive displays
Ultra-low power state support for multi-GPU configurations
<1W idle for slave GPUs in AMD CrossFire™ configurations

source: AMD Radeon? HD 7900M Series Graphics