Getting my M17x in 5days time

Ive been actively reading this forum ever since my insurance company decided to replace my old Precision M90 with an Alienware M17x!?.. i have the gift of the gab! i have just a simple question..

My unit is coming with the dual 4870's, should i just leave it well alone or update it with the latest ATi drivers seeing as all the horror stories ive been reading about driver problems seem to be 5870 related..

All i want is to be able to play Crysis with it not looking like a PS2 game running at 5fps.. infact will my system play Crysis max'd out?

Thanks

my system specs are as follows:

17" WideXGA+ 1440 x 900
i7 Processor 620M
Dual 1GB ATI® HD 4870

 

Yep at that resolution and with those SPECS Crysis will be no problem at all, Maxed out settings. Enjoy.
Give it a try 1st right out of the box and if its all good then you don't really need to update or change drivers right away. Perhaps wait for the newer driver that dell is currently working on now. Hopefully released soon. Cheers.

 

cheers

Crysis & Age of Conan will be the first two games im gonna stick on it and if it runs both of those perfectly then i'll be leaving well alone. I assume i just download the ati crossfire profiles and leave the latest cataylst driver alone.

One of the reasons i went with a smaller display was to be able to keep the games (now and in the future) maxed out using the native resolution of the screen.. I found that on my old M90 (1920x1200 screen), when it could no longer run games flat out and when i knocked the rez down to gain extra framerates the game looked worse due to the resolution not being 1920x1200, so hopefully those 2 4870's will power crysis 2 better at 1440 than they would at 1900.

 

Big mistake not going with the 1920x1200 display since it's RGB LED vs the one you got which is CCFL and known to be low quality.

 

if i wanted the RGB screen, i wouldve had to pay the extra and tbh, if its anything like the screen on my M90 (im sure its better) ill be happy enough, like i said in order to make it look good you need to run games at the full resolution and games will run better with a slightly lower rez.. besides there was no way the insurance comp was gonna pony up for an i7 extreme proc & dual 5870's.. so i think i went with the right choice given the circumstances

 

Yup it's the right choice under given circumstance.

RGB is a must still lol

 

Nothing wrong with the 4870's after all there the second best cards and run flawlessly. Enjoy the games.

 

You'd be blown away by how vibriant and bright the colors are on the RGB. Might be the best part of the system IMHO.

 

i have to agree the price is well worth it when my friend,s RGB m17x screen was beside my m17 i wanned to cry and my screen can be considered as a quite good qualitie CCFL

your system can run crysis in 1900x1200 so in 1440x900 it will just eat it

the 4870 can be updated to the lastes driver but the choice is up to you

 

I would send the unit back day 1 and reorder with the 1920x1200. You will not be happy in the long term with 1440. The upgrade is only a few hundred dollars more and well worth it.

 

Reorder my friend.

Regular wxga/wuxga vs RGB wuxga difference is night and day. No joke.

Either way, it's a powerful system, but you will be missing out on the vibrant colors, and it really shouldn't be missed out imo.

 

Getting my M17x in about 15 days

Lunar Silver
i7 720QM
X-Fire 5870M
1200p RGB LED
6GB DDR3
250GB
Intel Wireless
1 year Advanced Warranty
EDD 8th September

Only 13% off "so far"

I jumped back to the wagon, again

 

Mine is on the way also
When did you order yours?
I see a 940 extreme in it's future

1 224-8240 M17x10 - Red Metallic
1 313-8570 Slot-Loading Blu-ray Burner
1 313-8792 AlienFX Color, Quasar Blue
1 313-8944 5.1 Channel Audio
1 317-3657 Intel Core i7 720QM 1.6GHz-2.8 GHz TM
1 317-3665 8GB Dual Channel DDR3
1 320-8856 17, WUXGA 1920 x 1200 RGB LED,1200p,ANB
1 320-8988 ATI 5870,DUAL,MLK,1GB,GDDR5,ANWNB
1 330-5063 Standard Nameplate
1 330-6350 AUTO-UPDATES,CRIT,AW
1 330-7841 Alienware M17x 240W A/C Adapter
1 342-0668 500GB 7,200RPM SATA-II HDD,ANWNB
1 410-1883 Adobe Acrobat Reader 9.0 MLANG CNB
1 410-2461 MCAFEE PEARL MUI,30DAY,W/O,CNB
1 410-3942 MS OFFICE 2010 HOME AND STUD,ENG,AWNB
1 420-6436 PC-RESTORE, DIM/INSP
1 420-9691 DATASAFE LOCAL BACKUP
1 421-1304 CyberLink PowerDVD SW, ANWNB
1 421-1305 Nero Media Burning SW, ANWNB
1 421-1360 Steam with Portal
1 421-1398 WIN 7 ULTIMATE,64,ENG,AW NB
1 421-1573 Alienhead 3D
1 421-1591 Alienhead 3D
1 421-2261 Alienware Command Center, M17x,ANWNB
1 430-0628 BLUETOOTH 2.1
1 430-3688 DELL WIRELESS 1520 WIRELESS-N,ANWNB

 

Mine should arrive the week after next. I'm not too sure exactly when yet, as the online order status is still showing "It may take up to 3 business days for your estimated delivery date to be available". However, I do have an email from my sales rep stating 1 Sep.

System specs are in my sig. The only changes I made to the base system were to go Nebula Red, 5870CFX, Blu-ray reader, and 2 years warranty. I'll probably extend the warranty in a couple of months once my bank balance has recovered .

I'm really quite excited, because I've seen Alienware systems advertised in Aus/NZ computer magazines since the late 90s, and they've always been crazy spec machines. I'll be the first person of anyone I know to actually own an Alien.

 

I ordered mine by the time I posted

 

I would only order the RGB screen if i couldve afforded the i7 Extreme & xfire 5870's to drive the 1200 display better, im sure the screen is gorgeous but i've been using an M90 for like 5years so its no biggie... i'll just try and avoid all contact with the RGB screens for the forseeable so i really dont end up regretting it..

Can the screens on these laptops be upgraded at a later date? might end up just buying myself a bigger monitor to play games on tbh..

Thanks for the advice, so stick with the stock dell drivers and await them releasing updated videocard drivers then

 

it can be changed but it will cost $500+ to do so. i agree the best part of this system is the screen, IMHO, i see 10-15 notebooks a week and none of them compare to the RGB screen. as for the drivers for the 4870s, i change them pretty much daily going back & forth from the 10.3 to 10.6 and now im using 10.7, which seems to give me the best in game performance out of all of them. the 4870s are pretty stout IMO, they aren't as "sexy" as being able to say you have the 5870 x-fire set up but, at the end of the day your going be happy.....if you never see a RGB screen that is......

 

Dell has changed the promotion to 8GB RAM and $410 off.

So I canceled my previous order and put on the new one as in my sig

 

Wouldn't you have been better off if you went with dual 250 gig 7200 RPM Raid 0? It would have cost the same and given you better performance.

 

My laptop is in the country! It's currently with the logistics company that Dell uses to manage their hardware distribution in NZ.Assuming that they don't stuff around and take ages to get the laptop moving, I should get it by the end of the week. That would be much better than their ETA of next Thursday!

I'm just hoping that I don't get a repeat of their performance when my wife's laptop was getting replaced - they took almost a week before finally passing the machine on to the local courier company. Dell had no idea what was going on, and their reps were telling me the machine was still in production! It was the worst customer service ever.

 

This has been my experience since the flickering issue has been fixed and drivers updated to 10.7.

However, I would like to update the cards to dual 5870s to get some DX11 action going.