Buying M17x R4, What specs should I get?

My mind is made, I am getting an Alienware!
I'd like to keep my budget at no more than $2800, although if something is really amazing I will go 3k.
What specs should I make sure I include in my laptop?
Eg: Video card, I get mixed responses as to which one to get.
Please help a man in desperate need of a gaming machine

 

You'd be better off getting an MSi for that money, some people reported problems with the dell 680M.

 

Like I said, mind has been made up, please do not influence me otherwise. I would greatly appreciate it if you could help me with the spec

 

I'm going to move this to the Alienware forum, it's very active and a lot of support should arrive for you there. It might be helpful to mention what you'll be using it for, i.e. which games specifically. Good luck with the M17X!

 

I assume you are ordering for the US, I bought mine for UK delivery, still in pre production, personally it depends, are you happy taking apart the computer (literally a couple screws and the base comes off!) if you don't mind tinkering I'd say get the basic computer
+ some extras
3630 i7 is enough (the graphics card is more likely to cause the bottleneck in gaming)
6gb ram (upgrade yourself later, 16gb kit of 2x8gb memory at CL9 vs dells cl11 lower is better is very cheap anyways).
if you can go for it get the gtx680m, its the most hassle to change and most expensive if you choose to do it later on.
killer wireless its a cheap option anyways
get the basic hard drive too 500gb HDD, you can get a new SSD cheaper yourself than through dell.
and make sure its the 1080p screen!

you should be able to find a few decent discount codes too somewhere. Chat online/phone them after you spec it online and they will probably get you a better price if you can haggle.

I hope that helps. Just keep it basic buying only options which are more expensive to upgrade yourself (killer wireless and GTX 680m).

Good thing about the m17x is its pretty user maintained, you can change the internals as you wish. SSD and ram are cheaper to buy yourself.

 

Do you mean you can order from the US and get it shipped to the UK or you ordered from the UK site? (Sorry for being off-topic.)

 

Sorry I meant I ordered from the UK for the UK, I think there are different base models for specific regions.

 

You can't go wrong with those specs there. I do advise that once you get the system you like is to save it to your cart and than call Dell. You should be able to save at least 15% up to 20%just from talking to them on the phone.

 

Just so you know a rough price...
My order
i7 3630
6gb ram
1080p screen (not 3d)
gtx 680m
500 gb HDD
killer wireless
£1750 list price
there was automatic discount of £205
+ 10% off (voucher code)
and free delivery
£1400
which is around $2300 so you'd have a few hundred to go crazy on the SSD and RAM.

If you ring up they should email you a quotation after you have rang them, they should be able to put some discounts on for you.

Just to let you know at the moment there is a shortage of m17x base and lcd lid cover (stealth black) which are holding up orders, although it should arrive within the EDD. Mines still on pre production I ordered on the 15th.

 

Thank you for the contributions so far

And I'm from Australia, so AUS shipping

 

The 7970m is just as fast, actually in Bf3 and crysis 2, skyrim, it gets quite a fair bit more fps... And driver updates are coming soon to fix the enduro issues, but you can resolve it by using discrete graphics only (fn+f7)

In my opinion, it's much more worth saving the money, since the 7970m is less than half the price of the gtx680m, and actually performs better in most popular games.

Check out the benchmarks + see for yourself. I have the 7970m and it's perfectly capable, glad I didn't go for the gtx680m. It's better to just spend that money on an ssd (if you pretty much just want a faster bootup + want programs to install faster) , good set of headphones, mouse, cooling pad, and possibly upgrade to the 750GB hard drive if you would make use of the extra space.

Hope this helps.

 

dont buy ram or hdd or ssds from dell waste of money buy them yourself easy to install little hassle and you save a lot of $