Hi : Help Needed regarding M17x

Hello everyone, I just came across this forum on the web, and found pretty interesting. Great reviews and comparisons from fellow members. Coming back to my query I am planning to buy the Alienware M17x. I will be using this laptop for the next 4 years, I have configured it and needed advice on particularly four aspects. I shall share my configuration first

Intel® Core™ i7 2720QM 2.2GHz (3.3GHz Turbo
Mode, 6MB Cache)
Genuine Windows® 7 Home Premium, 64bit
16GB Dual Channel DDR3 at 1333MHz (4DIMMS)
1.5GB GDDR5 Nvidia GeForce GTX 460M
750GB 7,200RPM HDD
17.3-inch WideFHD 1920 x 1080 60Hz WLED
Slot-Load Dual Layer DVD Burner (DVD+-RW, CDRW)
2 Year Advanced Service Plan


The points highlighted in red are my queries.
Firstly should I go for 16GB of ram?? considering the fact that I will be using it for the next 4 years plus the fact that if I get 8GB ram then all they offer is 4DIMMs of 2 gb, so for a upgrade in future I will have to shell out extra or get a replacement for one of the existing ram stick.

Secondly the major thing is the GPU, given the option of ATI's HD 6970m which is a better performer than the GTX 460m. Any idea if dell is going to release the 485x for the alienware or not. Or can I later on use another of the ATI's chipset in crossfire if I go with the HD 6970? Overall I will be using the laptop for extensive designing and gaming. Which GPU should I go in for?

Thirdly should I go in for a 3D screen at this stage or not?

Lastly should I opt for a blu ray rom?

 

1, 16gb of ram is good, do not buy the ram from dell though, they overprice it a lot.

2, I do not think there will be a 485 option anytime soon, so I would have gone with the ati. You cant run dual gpus in the m17x r3. only r1, r2 and m18x can do that.

3. if you go for the Nvidia, you can consider that. if you go for the ati, I would not bother about the 3d screen. 3d is very uncomfortable for the eyes

4. The bluray option is good if you use to watch bluray movies. I have never needed it though

 

thanks for the prompt reply.
1. If I look out for an upgrade then I will have two sell at least 2 dimms ( of 2 gb each) and purchase 2 of 4gbs. Wont that waste a lot of money?

2. Coming to the M18x. when is it expected to launch? I will order my laptop within a month. Is there any point waiting for it?

4. Was just thinking fot the bluray because I thought maybe if games start coming in this media in the days to come?

 

1. No keep the dimms in case you need service on the computer. Sometimes Dell will offer you a replacement if your computer breaks beyond repair. If that happens, you will need the 2 dimms. It wont waste a lot of money, it will be much cheaper than Dells upgrade price.

2. The M18x is around the corner. It is already reviewed on hardwareheaven Alienware M18x Laptop Review - Introduction . I would have waited for the M18x, mostly because it is aluminium

3. That will be a long time from now, but if you want to future proof your system, bluray can come in handy. You can always buy an external bluray player in the future.

Edit: Dells upgrade price is 360$ for 16 gb I would just grap 2 packs of theese instead http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produ...3081&cm_re=sodimm_ddr3-_-20-233-081-_-Product total = 160$ for 16gb

 

16GB RAM????? What are you a professional Adobe Premiere editor??? I challenge anyone who bought an M17x to prove to me you need 16GB Ram, even in 4 years time! There are tons of articles, especially on tomshardware that look at RAM scaling, even in the future - and you simply don't need it. Most programs, especially games, are all written in 32 bit - hence they can only use 3GB RAM anyway. And thats going to stay for the foreseeable future (64 bit windows has been around since 2000 and earlier - still we JUST had photoshop 64 bit in 2008 and NO native 64bit games)

I would invest more money into the warranty instead! If your warranty runs out and your laptop breaks (as is often the typical case) it's gonna be either a very expensive brick or a very expensive repair. I've had 4 Dell laptops and thanks to 3-4 year warranties I've never had problems, even had free upgrades to the newest systems because the old ones weren't being produced anymore.

Also, the HDD is far more important for speediness of ones system. Get an SSD. That 500GB HDD is slow as a turtle in comparison. You may have the patience to wait for your programs to load but this is 2011 and you shouldn't have to wait.

 

I am with zchay7e. Seriously, unless you have some professional demand for all that RAM dont waste your money. And as someone else said, please dont buy if from dell, heck of alot more money. I think 8GB would be suit most any user fine if you do alot of multitasking...with heavy duty programs. But if you are gonna just fire up ur laptop and play a game and not do other things at the same time...4gb is probably enough. I have 4gb and rarely ever use over 64% at one time according to windows gadgets.

 

How about if you are planning on keeping it for 4 years, you get the 4 year warranty?? Seems to make more sense for a few more $$$.

As for the RAM comments-Yeah, I don't need it either. But people are like WHOA!!!!!!!!! when I tell em I got 16Gb RAM. I do use Ps and 2 virtual machines though so sometimes it is handy. Just the cool factor for me.

 

If you plan to keep it for 4 years better get the 6970m rather than the overkill 16 gigs of ram.

 

Although I do agree the pricing on upgrades for Dell are higher, not everyone is tech savvy or comfortable doing upgrades themselves. If you need it and don't want to do it, just get ittttttttt.

chea

 

I turned off virtual paging and run 2 virtual servers and a virtual workstation on my 16GB of ram.

 

I like the 3d. The screen has a brighter LED 120 refresh rate and when not in 3d the screen is brighter.
would do a 4 year warranty, SSD drive.Max out the CPU ,I order everything from Dell because of the warranty.

 

16GB of memory there is no need in the real world.
If you go looking for mobility in the 460m. Performance in the 6970m.
3d The summer is not very recommended by too little use.

Another thing the difference of 485m to 6970m is only 6-9% performance and a price 37% more for the 485m , should not be worth

 

I recommend getting the 6970M. 3D has issues right now plus you need glasses and they tend to shutter. The 6970M is quite a bit better too.

Get 4GB of RAM then upgrade to 2x4GB (8GB) for about $85 on Newegg.

Get the 4 year warranty hands down.

Otherwise your specs look fine and I would recommend going for Blu-Ray if you watch movies.

 

@ all thanks for all your replies

@zchay7e I will be using this laptop for designing purposes ( which includes running softwares like unican, pro e, catia & solidworks) the 16gb ram is costing me an additional $240 over the 8gb. A solid state( 256gb) is costing me $ 600. I have a budget of $3100 max, along with accessories( gaming mouse, keyboard & a backpack). 256gb solid state is way too less amount of memory & if I opt in for a 512gb it will set me back by $1200!!!!!

 

@pmassey31545 I agree with the warranty scope but I can extend it at a later stage too.

 

I agree with Simplified... wait for the M18x if having better performance and better quality are your goals. If you are planning to use it for four years, the superior chassis build quality will be important. The R3 represents a compromise in quality for the sake of a lower price.

If you wait until later to extend the warranty to 4 years, I think you will end up paying significantly more for the coverage. I would recommend finding a way to pay for that now. Look at this thread... LINK

 

Any idea as to when will the m18x release?

 

Probably sometime in the next week or two... see this thread. LINK

Here is a link to a review of the system. LINK

 

Since you are planning on using this laptop for at least 4 years the options below are what I would choose:

Blue= Buy from Dell
Green= Upgrade either from retail or online store
Red= Don't bother wasting your money

Intel® Core™ i7 2720QM 2.2GHz (3.3GHz Turbo Mode, 6MB Cache)

I do not see the point in getting the Intel® Core™ i7 2820QM 2.3GHz (3.4GHz Turbo Mode, 8MB Cache) because it is only 0.1GHz faster and costs $200 more and would not see a noticeable increase in performance.

Genuine Windows® 7 Home Premium, 64bit

Like others I would not buy the 16GB Dual Channel DDR3 at 1333MHz (4DIMMS) from Dell. They over charge way too much for this upgrade.

I would go with stock 4GB Dual Channel DDR3 at 1333MHz (2DIMMS)
I would order either 8GB (2x4GB) or 16GB(4x4GB) from Newegg.com - Computer Parts, PC Components, Laptop Computers, HDTV, Electronics and Cameras! such as the Kingston HyperX RAM. If you are not comfortable installing computer parts yourself I am sure there are several computer stores near where you live that will install any parts you want even if you didn't buy the parts from them for a fee.

Like others has also stated keep the stock ram just in case something goes wrong with your system and Dell needs to replace the whole laptop. You will also not get much for it anyways.

I would go with the 2GB GDDR5 AMD Radeon™ HD 6970M and the reason being it is the best card you can buy for the system.

I would not bother with the 3D bundle with the 1.5GB GDDR5 Nvidia GeForce GTX 460M because the 460M can barely handle running current games in 3D on high settings.

As for the Nvidea 485M it is currently not available and has only been speculated of ever being an option for the M17x R3. It also cost a lot more than the Radeon 6970M with maybe a 10-15% increase in performance from what I have heard.

I would go with the 17.3-inch WideFHD 1920 x 1080 60Hz WLED

I would say it would be your preferance if you should get a Blu-ray drive or not. I personally would get the Blu-ray drive as you see I have in my sig. Like another person said you could always get it upgraded in the future and swap out the DVD drive for a Blu-ray.

As you stated you want to use the M17x R3 for 4 years at least so I would go with the 4 Year Advanced Service Plan so you are covered the entire time you are planning on using the laptop.

I would not buy a SSD from Dell they over charge like the RAM

I would go with the stock 320GB 7,200RPM HDD or upgrade to the 750GB 7,200RPM HDD all depending if you like keeping a lot of multimedia on your PC like movies and tv shows.

I would buy a SSD from Newegg.com - Computer Parts, PC Components, Laptop Computers, HDTV, Electronics and Cameras! There are a lot of options here but I would go with either and Intel 510 SSD or a OCZ Vertex 3 that supports SATA 3. As for the size I would go with either 120-250GB depending on what fits in your budget. If you want reliability go with the Intel 510 and if you want slightly better performance go with the OCZ Vertex 3

 

Without an SSD, you're bottlenecking your system with the hard drive. Trust me, I had an R2 with the 920XM and, at first, a 7.2k RPM HDD. I couldn't even tell that the computer had an extreme processor in it because the computer would only move as fast as the HDD would allow it.

Once I added an SSD to that system, it was like someone flicked the "ZOMG LIGHTSPEED" switch.

Secondly, you do not want the 460m. You want the 6970m. The Nvidia will not be anywhere near a decent card 4 years from now, while the 6970m has an outside shot of being a halfway decent card at that time because it's so powerful now. I mean really, the 6970m blows my mind.

 

Mobility with the 460? If you opt for the 460 then you cannot switch between dedicated and integrated graphics. If you want mobility AND performance, go with the 6970. I have that card in my R3 and get around 4 and half to 5 hours on battery using integrated.

 

No what you need is not a 256GB SSD, thats crazy and way too expensive. In your config you should make sure you definitely have 4-6GB RAM, but buy an aftermarket SSD paired with the HDD that comes with your M17x. The SSD should be between 90GB-12GB in size and house only Windows and your most commonly used programs. I suggest the Vertex 2 (not 3, because its hardly faster for a big price premium). The Dell SSDs are pretty bad anyway.
That way you'll stay in budget and get the best of both worlds.

 

wont I void the warranty by putting in after market parts? Some say that the ssd is quite relaible but some disagree, this is getting complicated.

And if the m18x's launch is around the corner so I will better wait for it.
how much is 8 gig ram for? dell's charging $240 for the additional 8gig ram.

 

You won't void anything. The SSD is just not covered by the warranty. Thats all.
The issue isn't so much the reliability of the SSD, its more about its pricing and speed. Aftermarket is faster and cheaper.

As I said before, get RAM and HDD aftermarket and extend the warranty instead, thats the MOST important thing. if your GPUs blow (and trust me it will at some point) and you don't have warranty it'll cost you almost another $1000 to replace them!

I assume you're in the US, cause I'm in the UK so I don't know the local prices but $240 sounds like twice as much as it should be. Spend less, and extend your warranty instead, even if you're waiting for the M18x. I support your wait, cause the M18x is the true successor to the M17x R2 with dual GPUs etc. Just be aware that dual GPUs are likely going to be a lot more expensive overall for the M18x config.

 

Thanks to you all. I have decided to wait for a month before placing my order. And if the M18x rolls out I will opt for it. I am from India and am in US at the moment for 2 months, so thought of buying my dream laptop. I will use the laptop back home and then obviously the extended warranty shall pay off!!

@zchay7e I too think i should opt for an extended warranty. A minimum 3years. Have planned to give up on the SSD and get a 750 GB HDD. This will save some money for the alien fx keyboard and mouse. The website says 4 dimms of ram for the 8gb config which will leave me with no free slot for a future upgrade. So have thought to opt for the 16gb itself.( don't want to take any chances of upgrading the ram myself or with the help of any 3rd party engineer back in India)

 

Which is exactly what I did. Got the 1 year and I just keep extending. As long as you extend before your previous warranty expires, you're good.

I want it too (M18) so there WILL be an M17x R3 for sale soon, if you know what I mean.

 

I think the performance weight factor, m17x and m18x not very valid in my opinion.
I would be with m17xR3 ...

I think you want to compare the mobility of 460m to 6970m, you do not know what speaks!
Test Alienware M17x R3 (GTX 460M, i7-2630QM) Notebook - Notebookcheck.com Tests
Compare your 4.5 hours with nearly 7 of 460m, with the advantage of technology from Nvidia Optimus, who simply does the job alone to exchange integrated and dedicated! Mobility 460m and 6970m performance ok?

 

Hello everyone finally I have frozen my specs and I am left with one last question. These are my frozen specs

Intel® Core™ i7 2720QM 2.2GHz (3.3GHz Turbo Mode, 6MB Cache)
Genuine Windows® 7 Home Premium, 64bit
8GB Dual Channel DDR3 at 1333MHz
(4DIMMS)
2GB GDDR5 AMD Radeon™ HD 6970M
750GB 7,200RPM HDD
17.3-inch WideFHD 1920 x 1080 60Hz WLED
Intel® Advanced N + WiMAX 6250 a/g/n 2x2 MIMO Technology
Slot-Load Dual Layer DVD Burner (DVD+-RW,CD-RW)
Internal High-Definition 5.1 Surround Sound Audio
Alienware Orion Laptop Backpack - Fits Laptop
of Screen Sizes Up to 17" - Black

My last question is which wireless card should I go in for? The Intel® Ultimate N WiFi Link 6300 a/g/n 3x3 MIMO Technology or the one which I have opted for above.
Secondly I was considering buying the dell aleinware backpack. Read some reviews about quality concerns. What do you advise?

 

If you plan to stream HD video wirelessly or use the 450Mbps wireless N speeds, you'll want to go with the 6300.

 

good very good!
changes the memory of 4GB only buying and placing eighth in the dell
Newegg.ca - Kingston HyperX 8GB (2 x 4GB) 204-Pin DDR3 SO-DIMM DDR3 1600 (PC3 12800) Laptop Memory Model KHX1600C9S3K2/8GX

the intel 6300 also has its advantages