Information & guidance required.

Hello people. I am considering a M17x R4. However, I am unsure whether I 'should' customise it or not? What would you guys recommend and also is there a significant difference in specifications between the R4 and R3 without any customisations?

Finally, what customisations would you recommend?

p.s I am an avid league of legends player, WoW and more than likely going to play the new WoW expansion.

Any replies and help will be greatly appreciated

Thanks.

 

There is a pre-order thread in the stickies section... which would probably answer this question.

However, 1080p and either 7970m or 680m would be highly recommended. Would advise against the ram/ssd upgrades as easy and cheaper to do yourself.

 

3720QM is the sweet spot for processor, for the $150 or so you get a faster base speed than 3610 but you also get 4 extra bins via OC. 3820 is a lower priority upgrade as you get extra L3 cache but only 100Mhz more than 3720. What I did was pass on the RAM upgrade and purchased a kit on my own. I got 8GB (2x4GB) 1600 CL9 for like $30 off newegg. The upgrade from 6 to 8GB on the configurator is something absurd like $75. For storage I also just accepted the base 500GB drive and bought the SSD and hard drive replacement on my own. I got a 750GB Scorpio Black (fastest pure mechanical available to us) for like $80-90 and transplanted a SSD I already had. I don't know how much this saves but I do remember the storage upgrade prices being insane also. I stuck the 500GB that came with the system into an external enclosure and use it for miscellaneous storage.

Display and graphics are kind of a toss up. I knew from experience on the desktop that Kepler (680M) was not just faster but more importantly in a laptop, cooler running and less power hungry than Fermi (675M). It was pricey but I bit the bullet on the 680M and I have been very happy with the temperatures on it. Overclocked to the max you end up with something a little slower than the desktop 660Ti. This is kind of an iffy amount of performance on 1080p display...you can max out today's games at that resolution, but it probably won't be enough for the next gen. I came from a 25" 1080p display, so 1080p squeezed into 17inches is also a bit of an eyestrain for me. Keeping the lower resolution display (no upgrade) has two tradeoffs to consider:
1 - things appear larger on screen / fit less on the screen
2 - less stressful on graphics card / aliasing more apparent on lower resolution screen

If you mainly play WoW and less graphically intensive games...you might be able to save a lot on the graphics and screen and still be really satisfied...by choosing 660M + 1600x900....but if you play anything graphically intensive the 680M is really worth it. AMD cards have some issues, maybe they're solved by now, but I would read up in the rest of the forum to get up to date on that....675M is kind of a last resort, its really unattractive IMO for the money, but I understand the available options keep changing around...with 680M not availble to choose right now.

On wireless, there are benefits to the upgrades but none of them are worth the money in my opinion...the base 2230 wireless will operate at 2x2 on a single band and that is pretty robust compared to anything available just a few years ago.

Those are just my opinions on the most important big money portions of m17x configuration...you definitely want R4 though....Ivy Bridge / Kepler is the sweetspot combo that will deliver the most longevity for your money right now.

 

Thanks for your time guys. I mean, I mainly game and won't be doing much else really, so wouldn't the standard processor suffice? I would only require a better processor if I were doing heavy video/audio editing, right? Plus the 3720QM is a lot more expensive than $150. I live in the UK and it's £200 so that would be approximately $310. I was thinking of just upgrading the graphics to 7970M and leaving everything else standard. Of course I'll upgrade the RAM myself.

What exactly is Ivy bridge/kepler? I am kinda new to this type of jargon, aha.

 

@ NA1NSXR You sir just sold me on what to upgrade on my M17x R4!

 

Ivy Bridge = The 3rd generation intel I7 processor that is on the m17x r4.

 

@ jninth is the M17x r4 completely re configurable after it being built?

 

Oh and any of you guys use a laptop cooling stand/pad? I heard it can produce considerable heat.

 

Ivy Bridge is the newest generation of mobile processors from Intel. They're a touch faster than the last generation clock for clock but they're better on power which may or may not matter...but I don't think the old ones are available anymore anyway. Kepler is the new generation of nvidia GPU...they are significantly faster, cooler, and more power efficient than the older chips. All your tech is going to become obsolete but the best you can do is buy at a time when meaningful new stuff comes out at the same time. The new Intel CPUs and nvidia GPUs from this year so far make now a pretty reasonable time to buy a system.

7970M is great on paper and the best value but like I said you need to do your own research on how that is working out for the people who have them. I only know that there have been some complications for some users...whether or not the issues have been sorted out yet should be researched by you.

As for the 3720QM...its the same as the 3610QM except its faster out of the box and more importantly, allows for overclocking up to 400 additional MHz. When you load up on all 4 cores, the 3610 runs at 3.1GHz, and can go up to 3.3 max in certain situations. You cannot change these speeds much. The 3720 runs at 3.4GHz on 4 cores, but the M17X R4 will allow you to add up to 400MHz to that, resulting in 3.8GHz during 4core operation and up to 4GHz on a single core. basically you should look at the upgrade as being 700Mhz instead of 300. That is kind of a huge difference....it brings you into the realm of what the 3920XM gives you if you were to just buy it and leave it untweaked. Then again, you said its just going to be a gaming machine...and the games you primarily play aren't really going to require that much CPU power...its really up to you. All I am saying is that the gains from going to the 3720 from the 3610 dwarf the gaps between any other two successive CPU's they are offering.

I have repasted my CPU and GPU and laying flat on a table in the warm summer ambient temperatures my 3720 idles at around low 50C's. On my cooling pad which elevates the laptop, letting it draw fresh air, it idles in the high 40's. I think they temperatures would be much lower, but the BIOS shuts the CPU fan off completely at these temperatures so there is not really much that can be done. If I force the fans on with hwinfo to flush out the heat stored in the radiator...temps drop to low 40's maybe even if some singular readings in the high 30's. Its hard to report maximum temperatures because there are hard limits as to how much power the CPU is allowed to draw, both in terms of TDP and amps supplied to the chip at any moment. These protections kick in if you try to run any crazy CPU stress test, but in normal operation on my cooling pad the highest I've seen in the low 80's. Maybe a little hotter if the laptop was just on a table. This is actually very good on a laptop considering I am getting upper midrange desktop PC performance and you'd probably see much cooler temps if you went with a 3610 or even a 3720 without the extra overclock.

 

Thanks a lot for all that information. My gratitude is shown. I think I have decided what config I want now. Furthermore, could you recommend any decent discount coupons?

 

Look at the discount thread for your region, in the main Alienware forum.

US:
http://forum.notebookreview.com/alienware/456885-aw-dell-ordering-advice-how-save.html

UK:

http://forum.notebookreview.com/alienware/547949-saving-uk-buying-any-dell-aw-system-accessories-please-contribute.html

 

You've been given great advice so far, if you want to see the main differences between R3 & R4 side by side, take a look at this article

Which are the main differences between the Alienware M17x R3 and the M17x R4 platforms?