Alienware M17x any good?

Hey guys,

I am new to the forum.
I have been wanting a decent gaming rig for a while now. I couldn't really get a a new desktop because when we move overseas in a year we are taking bare minimum kit with us. So I started my search for a good gaming laptop that I could get my hands on in the UK. I ended up stumbling on Alienware again after a few years. I have always wanted one but never ended up getting one.
I did a few hours of research and in the end I ordered an M17x.
The specs are as follows;

GPU - 2GB GDDR5 AMD® Radeon™ HD 7970M
Processor - Intel® Core™ i7-3720QM (6MB Cache, up to 3.6GHz w/ Turbo Boost
Ram - 8192MB (2x4GB) 1600MHz DDR3 Dual Channel
Hard Drive - 750GB 7,200rpm SATA 6Gb/s HDD
Operating System - English Genuine Windows® 7 Home Premium (64 BIT)
Optic - al Devices - BluRay Combo (Blu-ray read only, DVD, CD read & write)
Sound - Creative Sound Blaster Recon3Di with THX TruStudio Pro Software
Wireless -Intel® Centrino® Wireless-N 2230 with Bluetooth 4.0
LCD -17.3" WideFHD (1920 x 1080) WLED LCD

I went for the 7970m GPU as a heard it was a better option than the Nvidia 675m.
My question is do you think this is a good gaming laptop? I have kind of OCD and find it hard to play a game if it isnt maxed out... Should this be alright for a while?

 

You're not going to get a more powerful gaming laptop without upgrading to the m18x and its dual video card option. So, regardless of your OCD, there isn't much choice.

That said, I have the much older 6970m in my m17x, along with a slightly slower processor and less RAM, and I can max most games. Metro 2033 being an exception. I expect you'll be happy with the 7970m.

Edit: decided to add my settings for some games I play
Skryim, max settings with 4x AA
Metro 2033, high settings with FXAA and tesselation
Diablo 3, max settings with 4x AA
Crysis, max settings with 4x AA
Rage, max settings with 4x AA
Far Cry 2, max settings with 4x AA

Of course you can max out any COD or Source Engine games (Modern Warfare 1/2/3, Left for Dead 2, Team Fortress 2, etc)

 

Dude don't worry about it, that rig is going to let you play current games maxxed out with ease, and future titles for the next two years might run at around 30-35 fps (which is still completely playable) or even higher depending on how demanding the game is.

That 7970m is the hero

Oh, and you can overclock the 3720QM from what I've heard...

good config, enjoy your laptop

 

i think many of us have this OCD you speak of

That computer is the most optimal config you can currently buy. The 7970m is vastly superior to the 675m. IF you can't play a game on this config to your satisfaction, then you really need to get a desktop

PS...the nvidia 680m is coming soon. It is purported to be faster than the 7970m...but at a huge price increase.

 

Thanks lads. Its good to know I have spent my money well

Haha yeh the dreaded gamer OCD

Is it possible to open an M17x up and change a GPU or CPU at a later date or is that wishful thinking?

 

The only things you might consider upgrading in the future are relativity easy to do yourself and include adding an SSD for your primary drive and using the 750GB HDD for storage as well as upgrading your wireless card depending if you will be gaming over wireless and how OCD you are about your ping.

EDIT: Yes, you can swap out the processor and video card later on if you choose.

 

Many here have upgraded their GPU. Some more than once

Just browse the forum for a little while. You'll see many instances of people upgrading their m17x.

 

easy bro! I have an R3 bought almost a year ago, not R4...and the 7970m runs great in it

 

@ Banished Angel I have always wondered what a SSD is used for. Is that for faster file access for loading games ect?

Nice 1 Mark, I'll check it out

Awesome. That is the plan then!

 

Unless you wait for awhile for the Nvidia 680m this is solid setup. The 675m is nothing more than a renamed 580m. So it's last gen tech with a new name. Don't touch that one. You could opt for a solid state drive too depending on your budget. I full hearted recommend them and think they're very much worth the price.

You should be happy with that laptop.

 

Dont buy extras from Dell!!!!! They will sell you a £1 coin for £50 if it was an accessory or upgrade.

Ram, SSD's and HDD's, buy else where.

 

@Terreos I've done some reading up on the 680m and it doesnt seem to be worth my while waiting for. I think I'll be more than happy with my 7970m.

@Joe85 that is some sound advice. Thier prices seem crazy high! What would a SSD enable me to do?

 

SSDs are way faster than traditional mechanical hard drives, to put it simply. That said, they cost way more per GB as well. SSDs are used primarily for running the OS and other important programs since it greatly increases performance and productivity. In terms of capacity, well, let's be honest they suck lol

An easy example - my elitebook would take 60+ seconds to boot on windows 7 home premium 64bit on my hard drive. I installed a SATA III ssd (my sandisk extreme) and it boots in 20-21 seconds, which is phenomenal (counting the time it takes for me to type in my password too haha). Programs like iTunes, Firefox start in less than a second; Photoshop and Illustrator take about 3 seconds.

I am NEVER going back to a mechanical hard drive again except for storage, until the prices of SSDs drop, which they are already..

 

Thanks for that explanation. That sounds like a good idea. So maybe I should look into getting one and installing the OS onto it. Do you get any OS disks with the M17x?

Hey Mark, sorry just saw your post edit. Thanks for that info. My mind is at ease now. Im very happy with my choice of hardware

 

yup you should get a windows 7 disk along with all the documentation and such.

 

It's a good config! I'd only suggest you downgrade the CPU and save some cash..

 

Sorry but I skimmed through the posts and was not able to find a reason.
Was there any specific reason why you favored the M17x over the M18x?

 

Yep, get the SSD after sale from Amazon or similar. Theres an excellent step by step guide to doing a clean install on to an SSD on this forum.

Probably the best price/performance boost upgrade you can make on a laptop.

 

Thats good news! Thanks

Maybe it was over what I needed. I think I chose that CPU because my old gaming rig was getting chocked by the slow CPU so I think I'll find it easier to sleep at night knowing I deffo have a good one in this machine

I looked into the M18x but the price increase for xfire wasnt worth it for me. Everything else is the same I think apart from the 18" screen. I think I'll be very happy with this machine from what people have said.

Thanks Joe I will deffo look into that. Would it help games run better even if they arent on the SSD?

 

Yeah I was rather underwhelmed myself. The only reason I brought it up was of your comment on the 675m. So if you really wanted an nvidia card the 680m was the only one worth getting as the current ones were just rebranded cards.

SSD are great for speeding up for anything when your computer needs to read and load data. Loads games faster, system start up is faster, and you get the idea.

 

Yeah maybe if it was already out and I knew how it performed with games I might consider it more. Thanks for suggesting it though. I am normally a Nvidia guy myself. This is my first Radeon EVER.

I'm liking the sound of a SSD more and more

 

That's what I don't find justifiable about the price bumps from the SSDs over standard HDDs. If it were not just the initial load times, but the in-application performance itself that found a noticeable gain, I'm sure it'd be worth the extra $$$. Else, I'm sure I can save a considerable amount of money and live with having to wait a few extra seconds only for initial load time, especially since I pretty much use my computers like dedicated servers, leaving them on at all times.

 

everything feels 100x faster with an SSD. they are worth every penny.

 

I'm sorry, but that sounds like a completely blank statement.

 

It's pointless buying a high capacity one for a while now imho, unless you are an enthusiast and really want it or you actually work with special software that benefits from high read/write speeds. I personally find that it runs Photoshop and Illustrator noticeably faster and makes all the more difference when I have to save large files. Even starts those things in 3 seconds.. no more 20+second waits on the school's iMacs 27" ... lol. No kidding.

I don't know about games because all my games run off a storage-only mechanical drive, but I'm pretty sure they will load faster. In-game performance is probably unaffected since hard drive performance is the least important factor here, because of the relatively low amount of data being accessed, at least that's what I believe.

SSDs are wicked fast, and if you are buying a 64GB/90GB/120(8)GB SSD it is absolutely worth it. I was a non-believer and took the plunge because my laptop was taking way too long to boot and run my design programs compared to the macs around me in college and I was getting mad p****d lol. So I went ahead and got one from newegg, did a fresh install of windows, and I am faster than those darned macs with my laptop with otherwise much lower specs.

Trust me, when you run a lot of programs, use your computer a lot, etc, the performance bumps which are already noticeable stack up and it is monumental. I can wake up in the morning, start my laptop, check my email and shut it down/put it to sleep in under 90 seconds lol, and I cannot even begin to explain how convenient that is. Once you use an SSD, you will never want to go back to mechanical drives again. At least not me (except for storage purposes), and a majority of those who have used it will stand by me on this, I know do yourself a favor and at least try one out, they're not all about the hype brothers...

 

+rep for the great explanation... SSD's are indeed awesome and I'm never going back to a standard HD as a boot drive ever again either.

 

+rep'd back for backing me up on this I basically die every time I start up my girlfriend's Dell studio 15, despite all the upgrades I have done on it, an SSD is not one haha. And she hates me for complaining but I know she's jealous! Maybe as a surprise gift?

 

With gaming... an SSD not only makes load screens near non-existant. They also improve FPS... as wild as that may sound. there have been numerous times I've had FPS dips(on laptops) due to the game going to the HDD to load textures or maybe the next portion of the map. Just by switching to an SSD the FPS jittering disappears.

The SSD is literally the holy grail upgrade of the 2000s as was the 3D OpenGL graphics card in the 90s. and just like in the 90s people saying "oh that voodoo card cant add that much performance... it cant be worth the extra 250$"

Mechanical HDDs are in their final days.

 

Didn't know that it could improve in-game performance so much; I haven't had the courage to fill up my 120gig SSD with games yet but if you say so...hmm I might just reinstall GTA 4, Skyrim, Crysis 2 besides others and note by a factor of how much the performance actually improves...

 

If Windows boot times was your concern, won't "Sleep" solve it for you?

On the other hand, must be nice to have a large SSD on your laptop.
I run out of space faster than I can say "TV SERIES" though.
What are your hard disk setup guys?

SSD + 750GB for internal, rest is external HD / NAS?

 

256 SSD + 750 HDD and I have to agree that I would never go back to a traditional HDD as a boot drive. I don't know anyone who, after using a SSD, has gone back to a traditional platter drive for the OS. The difference really is amazing. I use my D drive for games, music, and photos; movies are on an external drive and the rest, including the OS, MS Office + programs + office documents etc plus all my work are on my C drive. That way it makes it easy to back up. Once a week (Friday night) I will make an external backup of my C Drive so my work is safe and once a month C + D.

 

Give it a shot copy one of you most played game to the SSD, run around and play in an intense part on both and see how it feels. I saw improvement on games with low demand like WoW all the way up to Crysis and BF3 type demand.

 

Lol dude, I never said booting was my only concern. It is one of many - the reason I hate putting my laptop on sleep mode is because it consumes power and I cannot do this when I am traveling and need all my battery life. Photoshop, illustrator, indesign and dreamweaver are the only programs currently installed on the ssd and I did this because I need these programs to run as fast as possible for my work - these are my 'other' concerns haha

So my elitebook is running on a 120GB ssd + 320GB hdd, and I'll be upgrading my R4 to a Crucial M4 256GB SSD + 1TB WD Caviar Black..