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    Alienware Noob question

    Discussion in 'Alienware 17 and M17x' started by macaddict84, Mar 3, 2011.

  1. macaddict84

    macaddict84 Notebook Consultant

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    Ok so I have been following this whole sand bridge issue with the R3 and now with the revised R3's out I had a few questions about what to buy.

    So the revisions have the option to choose either a nvidia 260m or ati 6970m. From what I have looked up the ati 6970m is better for graphics then the 260m but the 260m has the 3d option. Is this correct?

    Now I have been looking around and have seen that alienware did have the 485m in the R3's before. Benchmarks suggests that the 485m is better then both the 260m and 6970m, is this the case?

    Now if I went with a 485m R3, is that the laptops that had the sandy bridge issue? I thought I read that the sandy bridge issue was with the sata ports 3gbs, if I get an SSD drive in the AW will it not be affected?

    Thanks for the help everyone.
     
    macaddict84, Mar 3, 2011
    #1
  2. jywang

    jywang Notebook Evangelist

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    This is the re-release with the B3 stepping of the H67 chipset so there are no sandy bridge issues.

    The 485m has not been released yet. It was briefly seen in a spec sheet so it is presumed to be an option in the future.

    The 460m is the current option and it does support 3d. However, if you choose this option, the integrated graphics is disabled in order to support 120Hz output. So, battery life suffers greatly.

    The 6970m does not support 3D but is the fasted GPU currently available for the R3.
     
    jywang, Mar 3, 2011
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  3. macaddict84

    macaddict84 Notebook Consultant

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    Holy crap i'm stupid, I thought the new ones had a 260m lol. Ok basically just forget everything I said in my post lol. Thanks jywang for the help.
     
    macaddict84, Mar 3, 2011
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  4. wt66

    wt66 Notebook Enthusiast

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    Does the 6970m support 3d outputted to an external 3DTV via hdmi 1.4?
     
    wt66, Mar 3, 2011
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  5. macaddict84

    macaddict84 Notebook Consultant

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    If 3d doesn't matter, which would I be best to got with for best graphics;

    m17x R2 with crossfire ati 5870
    m17x R3 nvidia 460m
    m17x R3 ati 6970

    Thanks.
     
    macaddict84, Mar 3, 2011
    #5
  6. ghostdunks

    ghostdunks Notebook Guru

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    I would think the m17X R2 with ATI5870 CrossFire based on what I've seen. Could be wrong though, I'm sure others will chime in and correct if I'm wrong.
     
    ghostdunks, Mar 3, 2011
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  7. RED-XIV

    RED-XIV Notebook Consultant

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    As far as I have seen on the alienware website/s the R2 is no longer for configuration :( I do hope they put it back up, but from what I hear, (DO NOT START ASKING QUESTIONS ABOUT IT AS THIS THREAD MAY BE CLOSES), the M18x may be out in about two months. If 3D is what you are looking for get the 120hz/460m R3... if you want more power, and you want to gamble on the release of a new laptop in the future, I would wait.
     
    RED-XIV, Mar 3, 2011
    #7