First review of Alienware M17x with GTX 680M

Marveling at the max clock of the 680M

HD 6990M max OC = HD 6870 default = P4400 points
GTX 580M max OC =GTX 560 TI default = P4900 points

HD 7970M max OC = HD 7870 default = P6600 points
GTX 680M max OC =GTX 670 default = P8400 points ??


http://www.guru3d.com/article/radeon-hd-7970-ghz-edition-review/18/
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no one tried yet?

 

Isnt that the 3D score? Not arsed in the slightest playing in 3d

 

Do you even know what 3DMark is? It's not that kind of 3D. Nothing in that chart states that anything was done in 3D.

 

No i dont, i thought i made that pretty clear early on! I dont know sod all im a complete noob at it all which is why im here trying to learn and with the help of others become sufficent. Ive ordered a laptop i know nothing about with the veiw to learn and play games. Weve all gta start from somewhere havent we

 

Right sorry didn't mean to cause any offence Anyways, the chart above states 3DMark 11 scores. 3DMark 11 is a graphics benchmark. It is called 3DMark because the graphics are 3D not the rendered picture.

You are right, everybody starts somewhere. Happy learnings, I'm sure you'll pick up lots here

 

Ah thats alright no offence taken im just grouchy cause im 26 and had a sigmoidoscopy leading up to a full colonoscopy the other day haha so my 'man pride' is down! Just cant wait to get my laptop would love to vuild my own computer one day using cheap parts and try and overclock that before i go mad on a £3000 laptop!!

 

Oh wow... good luck

Also a big congratulations on your new laptop, seems utterly beastly get ready to get your game face on

 

Haha brute honesty! Cant wait to see what fps i hit in bf3!!!! Should be here week coming or week after!!!

 

i DONT think the 680m will overclock that far. In fact Im pretty darn sure of it.. Unless of course someone magically overvolts it and keeps it under some serious liquid hydrogen coolant.

 

How come? People thought the GTX 580m wouldn't hit top speeds but it was easily overvolted and I personally don't need liquid nitrogen to hit the upper voltage limit when overclocking.

I'm not saying that you are wrong. I'm just saying that it is too early to tell. Come Monday I may have an R4 with one on the way.

 

After seeing slickdude80's post on the subject and researching myself it seems so far conclusive that gaming wise theres going to be minimal difference between the 2, Game debate website says that the stock clocked 680M is 1% better than the stockclocked 7970M on battlefield 3! The 680 seems like an overhyped, overpriced fail! Glad i chose the 7970M

 

Guys...lets just be clear. The 680m is a massive increase over the 580m (its predecessor), so from that perspective, it isn't a fail.

It has done very well to match the level of the 7970m as the 7970m is a beast of a card

Where it fails is that nvidia charges the ridiculous premium on the cards.

Notebookcheck has shown slightly worse performance on average for 300 clams more...if the pricing was even with amd's, we would not be having this discussion at all

 

Exactly. In terms of performance and features, the 680m is not a fail. It loses in a few games, and wins in a few compared to the 7970m keeping competition good and fresh which in theory is great.

The failure is the price (and perhaps DirectCompute but that applies to all Keplers).

 

It's just like with the stock market. One particular share can be going down in price only because the company made less money than expected. It doesn't really matter that they are still in black, the expectations were higher and the company failed to meet those expectations. The same with 680m, it's a good card, but at the same time (if NBC numbers are correct) - it's a total failure from the business standpoint. If there was no 7970m, and if people (*cough* Cloudfire *cough*) didn't post all those ridiculous news about 680m before anything was confirmed there would be a different reaction when benchmarks were released.

 

i have a new r4 with the 7970m, i ran a few runs of 3dmark 11, and this is what i got, im also running the 3820QM look at the sig. AMD Radeon HD 7970M video card benchmark result - Intel Core i7-3820QM Processor,Alienware M17xR4 score: P6166 3DMarks AMD Radeon HD 7970M video card benchmark result - Intel Core i7-3820QM Processor,Alienware M17xR4 score: P6807 3DMarks, to be 100% honest, i really dont care if the 680 is a bit faster, for $200 more they can keep it, the 7970m is no slouch, i just wish we had some good drivers to play with, i got an error with diablo 3 after the latest update, video card not supported, the game ran fine the first 4 days of playing it though lol

 

7970m performance + doom 3 3D = win. will buy
Does the r4 have room for 2 x 2.5" drives?

 

7970 will not do 3d...

 

Is this true even if you hook it up to an external 3D monitor?

 

It's only the built-in monitor that can't do it. You can easily get 3D working on any external 3D monitor/TV and it has enough power to run it with great quality too.

 

Yup the m17x r4 has dual 2.5 inch bays. In addition, its also got an mSATA slot.

Sent from my Samsung Galaxy S2 using tapatalk 2

 

Thanks for the reply, good to know.

 

Yup I did mean Gtx 680m with 3D laptop screen but good to know thanks for the update on the 2 x drives too

 

god, where were you rorkas, i've been asking about 7970m playing 3d movies and games in 3dtv for a month with no definitive answer, +rep

 

Just get TriDef 3D from PC | TriDef 3D and connect your laptop to 3D monitor/TV via HDMI. There is a free 2-week trial, and if you like it you can get it for half a price (AMD gets 50% discount).

 

I've heard about this, but that was because of the GPU change with FN+F7. IE, not using integrated.

Haha, you'll have so many fps you won't know what to do with them.

 

Thnx you mitsuhide for the link and posts on clevo HM working with 680m. I can't believe the overclocking potential of this beast:
http://forum.notebookreview.com/ali...w-alienware-m17x-gtx-680m-11.html#post8640734

Happy new year

 

FIRST THING

HEY GUYS! i am a new guy here, so i just wanna ask u something, i wanted to buy an alienware m17x r4, but in india, its only available with the 675m as of now, but i want it with 680m, so is it possible to upgrade to 680m myself cuz the dell guy was saying that the graphic card cant be upgraded cuz its integrated to the motherboard while i told him that graphic cards go in the pcl slort, and ya another thing, does anyone here knows when will the 680m will be available here in india with the alienware??? ? AND CAN I UPGRADE IT MYSELF?

SECOND THING
after reading 13 pages i c that u guys r unhappy with 680m having d same performance as d 7970m but greater cost thingy, but u guys also have to consider the other things like, nvidia doesnt offer u just the graphic cards, it's got optimus, 3d vision 2, light boost tech, NVIDIA FXAA Technology, NVIDIA PhysX Technology Support NVIDIA CUDA Technology, which i dont think the radeon has, (does it? ? i am sorry if it does) , and the radeon's enduro, it doesnt to anything except make the 7970 lazy and makes the intel graphics do the work, so according to me, the price tag is justified, NVIDIA gives u so many things while the amd guys make a card and sell it cheap to increase sales, u guys are always pointing out d favour 2 amd

SO PLS ANSWER MY Q nd read my comment if u want thankx

 

m17x r4 is 100% gpu upgradable.

 

hi,

I have a question for those that have done upgrade to their GPU in a M17X, does Alienware allow you to trade up what your replacing (provided it still has value in M17X current build options) if buying the new GPU through them, or you're pretty much stuck with the old GPU?

 

Hi, good luck in India.

Q2; Optimus/enduro are two different names for the same technology. An attempt to use the on-board GPU when the extra power of a discrete card is not needed. Both camps have problems with it not switching correctly so I'm glad I went for the 120hz display where the intel chip is not even detected in the BIOS

Anyway, both OEM's have their good points and bad ones but I for one am just happy that we have two leading manufactures playing leapfrog and each has wins with each new release. The only real winners are us the consumers.

You have to look at your OWN priorities when deciding. There will always be people that say xxx is better because ..., but if that is not your priority then put it down the list. ATM if cost per benchmark # is your prime factor then AMD have it right now.

 

dell will not take trades, so you are stuck with the old hardware. AND if you have a warranty issue, you will want to keep your old hardware. Dell won't help you unless you set your computer back to stock configuration.

If you don't care about that, you can always sell your card on privately

 

So if down the line I upgrade I need to keep my old hardware?
Even if I get the upgrade from them like gpus?
Also does this applies to hard drives and ram?

 

Some would argue in favor of nVidia charging $300 more over the 7970M because of 3d, PhysX, Cuda and better driver support. I think the first and last features (3d and better driver support) are much more valid than PhysX and Cuda at this point, although you need to right laptop screen to make use of 3D.

Looking at GCN vs Kepler for the consumer, some could even argue that the 7970M should cost MORE than the 680M because of the fact that the 7970M completely slaughters the 680M when it comes to professional applications (Maya, AutoCAD, etc) due to GCN having more compute power than Kepler. That alone more than makes up for CUDA and PhysX, which are dying proprietary standards.

Also, FXAA is also compatible with AMD cards, but you can't force it via drivers like nVidia can. Light boost is part of 3d Vision 2 and it's used to make up for the loss in brightness from wearing the 3d goggles. Also, you will need a monitor that supports it.

Either way, you will not be disappointed with either choice. Both cards seem to be evenly matched as to what they are meant for, and because of that I don't think the 680M is worth that much over the 7970M (unless the 680M can clock to desktp GTX 670 speeds).

 

Actually, AMD have a type of FXAA in their CCC which you can indeed force. They call it MLAA and it is a check box in the Control Center.

Feature wise both are reasonable balanced. Nvidia has PhysX, AMD has much better pro graphics performance in CAD, Maya etc Both are reasonably equal in terms of drivers. The only thing nvidia trumps is the 3D which is to personal taste.

 

But why when i turn on phys x in metro while on my 7970m i still see a playable frame rate? Shouldnt phys x destroy the performance of non nvidia cards?

Or am i misunderstanding something

 

It's why the advantage of on-chip physx support is becoming a grey area. It is using your CPU which is underused in a game, so has the spare power to not hit performance. 3D mark 11 only uses the CPU for physx testing, even on NV, so the numbers are comparable

 

Do you know if the M17xR4 120hz monitor supports 3D Vision2?

I can't find this anywhere, have been doing a ton of research and was wondering about this.

 

Funny, I found it in one Google search:
http://forum.notebookreview.com/alienware-m17x/664179-wondering-if-r4-comes-3dv2.html

And yes, the M17x R4 does come with 3D Vision 2 and the monitor is LightBoost capable.

 

great, thanks for the useful info, I will make sure I keep the old hardware.

 

the light boost,can we use it without the 3d thing on? if i got a 3d display and i am watching a movie in 2d, will the light boost still work?

my prime factor is 3d so i am gonna go for the 120hz display but its gonna take 4 weeks
and yea i am gonna get it with the 675m and then i will change it to 680m, then wat will happen to the 675m?

 

Same as me re the 3D . Now I've seen it in leading games such as batman AC and Assassins Creed Revelations think it's gone past the point of a gimmick and is actually awesome to use - very immersive. When I first tried it out a couple of years ago it gave me headaches after about 20 minutes but for whatever reason now I can play for a couple of hours without discomfort.

You also get the advantage (personal opinion) of no optimus. The 120hz display is wired differently and the only GPU the system can 'see' is the Nvidia.

What will happen to the 675?

 

sooo, dell/alienware europe charging +330€ (~412$) more for the 680M (compared to 7970M)...

madness? this.is.alienware.

edit: 100th post !!!111

 

The price is clearly what Dell think the market will bare and not related to 'value' - unless it proves to be VERY OC'able.

 

Available in the UK and awaiting a rep to get back to me about a replacement

 

just support your comment.
i was talking to TSMC guys this week, my 3*680m order is completed on-hold due to limited production capacity. the initial batches of 680m are prioritized for OEMs..
I was also told, if i order 100+ card at one time, my order can be prioritized and delivered late Aug/early Sep..!! (I consider that comment as insult!)

All in all, the waiting time will be long...very long.

 

hahaha congratz on the 100th post...they are charging $600 over the base 660m here in Canada for the 680m...completely crazy. They are going to sell a lot of 7970m's, even to the biggest nvidia fanboys because of this.

from initial reports, the 680m OC'ed to it's max gets around 7k 3dmark11's. You will not be able to overvolt these cards, so that's about the max you can expect. This is no different from what you can expect from a 7970m that is overclocked to the max @ 1.075v

You will be the first here with the 680m...maybe...

Bro, the problem with that is that by Sept, AMD's refresh will be coming...that's why I said that if it takes too long for the 680m's to get into private hands, it doesn't make sense. The 680m is good now, but it will not be good in Sept

 

Well... overvolting... we don't know yet

 

if these cards are anything like my desktop gtx 670's, you won't be able to overvolt via software...you need a hardware mod...

BUT, i have no doubt that if there is one person here who can pull this off, it will be you lol

 

@SlickDude -- so what level of performance can we expect from the AMD refresh in September, how big a jump over the existing 7970M?

 

Haha was just about to say I bet the GTX 670's can be overvolted via a vbios tweak right? That's what people are saying about Kepler GPUs as they are volt locked but the vbios can allow higher voltages. We'll see though

I'm still in the process of arguing with my rep about giving me the GTX 680m though