Does M17x R2 = only ATI cards will work?

I'm considering getting an R2 if I can catch the right discounts but something I read in another post here concerns me. I asked this question there but wanted to give it a standalone post to be more visible and hopefully attract a consensus of answers. Maybe my perception is wrong, but it seems like there's a lot of problems with the ATI 5870's that come with these standard. I read on another thread here that the R2 may likely only ever support 4870/5870. Why? Is the there some reason why I couldn't replace it with an nVidia card instead?

I'm not saying the ATIs aren't good, and I know the 5870 is a very fast card, but we know sometimes a game runs better on one vs the other. In my case, most of my gaming interest is FSX, FS2004, Silent Hunter 4, SimBin racing sims, Third Wire air combat sims. Flight simulator (both FS2K4 and FSX) historically just does better with nVidia. Maybe the 58xx ATI cards change that, I don't know. It's not a question of speed but display issues. FSX isn't as GPU intensive as most games, so it doesn't really need the most powerful card in the world. Anyway Alienware and the M17x gave me the impression that they are more upgradeable than your typical laptop, and I just figured if for whatever reason the ATI cards weren't working best for what I want I could try an nVidia. But now I'm not sure. I switched from ATI to nVidia in my desktop (granted, this was like 4 years ago) without a hitch so never really figured it might not be possible in a laptop.

Also, I have to be honest I've been reading so many posts about things not working, failing after a couple of days, arriving DOA, failing BIOS updates, lousy support etc. that I'm more than a little hesitant to jump in and buy one. The configuration I would get is pretty mild compared to what you can load one up to, as you can see most of my gaming interests are actually older titles that I'm hoping to finally be able to max out rather than be ready for the next Crysis. I'll probably go for the fastest available core i5 or the i7 dual core and the hi-res display, with a single gfx card. That might not make it comaratively "all powerful" but it should handle my needs easily and leave me at least some room for upgrading over a few years. I just want something that will work, I don't want to be chasing problems from day one. I know you usually only hear from the people having problems with things, but please tell me there are far more m17x (R1 and R2) owners that are running trouble free than not?

 

The overall hardware/software/whatever does NOT work with nvidia cards in the R2

 

Well.. there is 480m support in the M17x (that or 460m).. so technically that's not quite true (Bios support)

 

Yes jubbing is right, there is suport for the 480m in the bios, though no one up until now has tried putting the card in the system. Dell/Alienware is likely to use them, otherwise they wouldnt have included it in the bios.

 

Jubbing,

This may be a stupid question seeing that the 480M/460M are GDDR5 capable, my question is will they work in the R2? If so does the R2 just need a vbios update for them to work? Thanks!!

 

As of right now, only ATI cards work. Having been a long-time Nvidia user, I too was a little reluctant to jump into ATI. Particularly reading the hell one must go through to update the drivers for the R2. Performance-wise, I am satisfied. And that's with the stock drivers. If you get the 10.7's installed with the rigamarole process, performance gets even better for games.

I have no regrets getting this, not even buyer's remorse. You can wait until AW releases a refresh with new Nvidia, but lately Nvidia has not impressed me with their ability to innovate and push the performance envelope.

 

I was a long time Nvidia fan, and was concerned about driver issues with the 5870. Dell seems slow with updates. I got the 4870's, I am not got to have cutting edge. And have been very happy with them. They play every thing I throw at them and are very stable. And I feel they will be high end for a long time to come.

 

And I'll sit on the other side of the fence to balance the beam...

I'm waiting for 480M's. I have no wish to be involved in any of the rigamarole surrounding the 5870's, though I'll honestly say it's hard to sort those problems from those who have tinkered too much with their system and then it breaks or from overclocks gone bad. But still, I don't wish the problems and they still exist.

Trackpad needs fixing, so again good reason to wait.

480M might not come till Sandy Bridge. If that's the case I get 2 upgrades instead of just 1 with the 480M's. If it comes before SB, then I'll take 480's.

Oh and USB 3. Really want at least 2 ports built in for that. Don't care if all the ports aren't USB 3 but if they all were that'd be a plus. M6500 comes with USB 3 so it can't be impossible since they put that daughterboard on a thinner machine packed with stuff.

$.02

 

To be honest, we don't really know.. just because support is there for something doesn't mean it will actually work well. We'll have to wait and see till its released widescale.. but the 480M BIOS support tells me its in the plans for Alienware in the future!

But as far as I know, Nvidia card's aren't 100% supported by R2's at the moment (or 50% for that matter)