Almost pulling the trigger on m17x R5...

Guys, I'm trying to figure out if I'm getting a good deal here. Basically, I'm looking at the m17x R5 with 3 year accidental and all of this:

Item Number Quantity Item Description Unit Price Extended Price
210-AAPS
1 Alienware 17 Base $3,029.16 $3,029.16
370-AANN
1 16GB Dual Channel DDR3L at 1600MHz
580-ABEG
1 English Keyboard
490-BBGQ
1 NVIDIA GeForce GTX 780M with 4GB GDDR5
555-BBJN
1 5G WiFi Broadcom 4352 802.11n/ac and Bluetooth 4.0 driver
400-ACNC
1 750GB 7200RPM SATA 6Gb/s + 80GB mSATA SSD Caching
619-ACMQ
1 Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit, English
389-BDCY
1 LBL,FGA024,UPC383,AW17R1
429-AAFS
1 Slot-Loading Dual Layer Blu-ray Reader (BD-ROM, DVDRW, CD-RW)
555-BBES
1 Wireless : Killer NIC 1420 802.11n/ac WiFi and Bluetooth 4.0
470-AAKG
1 US 125V Power Cord
340-ABEU
1 Documentation, English
939-7682
1 Premium Phone Support, 2 Year Extended
950-3339
1 3 Year Limited Warranty
954-1690
1 Premium Phone Support, Initial Year
954-4168
1 Dell Hardware Warranty Plus On-Site Service, Initial Year
954-4171
1 Dell Hardware Warranty Plus On-Site Service, Extended Year(s)
954-4191
1 In-Home Service after Remote Diagnosis, Parts and Labor On-Site Response, Initial Year
954-4187
1 In-Home Service after Remote Diagnosis, Parts and Labor On-Site Response, 2 Year Extended
938-6762
1 Accidental Damage Service, 3 Years
338-BCHV 1 4th Generation Intel Core i7-4800MQ processor (6MB Cache, up to 3.7GHz w/ Turbo Boost)
391-BBEM 1 17.3 inch (439.42 mm) WLED FHD (1920 x 1080) Anti-Glare Display
451-BBCB 1 8-cell Lithium Ion (86 wHr) Battery
450-AAJI 1 240W AC Adapter
354-BBBB 1 Anodized Aluminum
640-BBLC 1 Alienware Command Center 3.0
658-BBNS 1 System Software for Alienware M17xR1
340-ADEL 1 Alienware 17 Anodized Aluminum
389-BCCZ 1 Windows 7 Label, OptiPlex, Fixed Precision, Vostro Desktop
430-XYGR 1 Power DVD 9.6 BD, 3D,V2
340-ADEV 1 Setup Instructions English
332-1530 1 Dell.com Order
332-1530 1 Dell.com Order
658-BBOZ 1 Additional Software
340-ACQQ 1 Not Included
340-ACQQ 1 Not Included
817-BBBP 1 None Required
730-7434 1 Fixed Hardware Configuration
* -DISCOUNT/COUPON APPL
600-0277 1 State Environmental Fee for display 15 inches, less than 35 inches
A5750525 1 Dell Advantage benefits have been applied. eGift card will be sent via email in 10-20 days. carries a 90 day expiration $0.09 $0.09
Subtotal: $3,025.25
Shipping & Handling: $0.00
Tax: $194.98
Environmental Disposal Fee: $4.00
Total Price w/Discounts: $3,224.23

I'm also getting a 5% Gift Card in addition to the above...

 

Wow 3,224.23 for that. My god. I got the one on my sig for 2,000 from dell. But I guess the price is so high cause of the warranty .. My god.

 

You should consider buying the one I have. Will save you much money and you would get a brand new item and would not have to wait 10-14 days.

 

Its all good, pulled the trigger on the rig in my sig

 

will be pulling the trigger in mid march....the most annoying thing = ordering the R5 then finding out the R6 is released the next day! this happened to me when i ordered the M11x R2...the R3 came out the next day....OH W-T-H?!?!?!

 

Haha that sucks man, you gotta remember they're always coming up with something new, so you're damned if you do and damned if you don't

R5 is a beautiful machine and my understanding is they've been working on this design for a few years, so I doubt much will change aside from probably insides... I've heard that the rebranded Nvidia 780 --> Nvidia 880 will be possibly making its way into these beasts, but whose to say when

 

I'll be fine with the 780m though it's super downclocked to 771Mhz base clock with a 797Mhz boost clock....what gives alienware? I hope a soft OC with the help of precision x or afterburner will remedy this.

EDIT: I think i'll be getting the same as you but it with 16gb instead of 32gb and a 256gb SSD + 1TB HDD instead of the 80gb SSD + 1TB HDD.

still unsure if i want to move to 8.1 or stay with 7.

 

771mhz base clock, 850mhz base clock. And unlocked vbios will solve any clock issue. I have mine at 1.1ghz.

 

1.1ghz is an impressive 24/7 clock.

 

Well it's 1.087 @ 1.1mv I think I'm ranked 3 for 3dmark 11 performance. (For the alienware 17 with my specs) http://www.3dmark.com/3dm11/7917618

 

Hope you enjoy the machine, the extra warranty is worth it.

P.S. It's called "Alienware 17", not M17x R5.

 

Congrats on the machine. However just to warn you having a 5,400 RPM drive, even with SSD caching, is going to hold your performance back quite a bit. Pull that slow drive out when you get it and replace it with a Hitachi 1TB 7,200rpm Travelstar!

 

I agree with Amroth. Those 5400RPM HDD's are slow, slow, slow.

 

It's such a shame they are penny-pinching even right down to the RPM's on hard drives. Consider they advertise these machines as the gamer's choice, they don't half cut corners.

 

Caching it helps but it will be a big gulf if it misses the cache and has to disk hunt.

 

Yep! It's not so bad with informed people like us who make time to read and tinker... but think about hundreds or thousands of consumers shelling out $1500 - $3000 on a machine and never getting the performance they paid for, all because Dell wanted to save a handful of dollars per drive! Awful :/

 

As an Australian I am incredibly jealous of some of the prices you guys claim to be paying for your machines. It can easily be well over double the price for the exact same config here.

 

canada is not as bad as australia but still worse than the US and i'll be heading over to the GWN in a few days....excited and freaking out at the same time but mostly freaking out because of the snow!

 

I'm thinking about buying: Newegg.com - SAMSUNG 840 Pro Series MZ-7PD256BW 2.5" 256GB SATA III MLC Internal Solid State Drive (SSD)

Is this a good SSD drive and will it fit in my machine? I'm going to use it as a boot drive and leave the one that comes with my comp as a storage drive.

 

Yup it will fit and work in y our machine just fine.

 

I placed a new order with the SSD boot. VERYYYYY happy considering the deal I got on this new build was probably the best deal I've gotten in my history of dealing with Dell/Alienware over the past 8-10 years.

Gotta give my rep a MAJJJORRRR thumbs up and cheers. If anyone is in the market, call her up:

Jessica Everhart
[email protected]
1-800-695-8133 x 4167796