M17X R3 First Impression Dr. J

Thank you for your reply. I asked Mandrake's opinion on the matter too and he explained it to me. Games that natively support NVidia 3D do NOT have to draw every frame twice to get the effect so you don't take a huge performance hit. I did not understand this. If the game doesn't natively support the 3D glasses it does cut the frame rate in half.

Understanding that, I am now extremely jealous that you have an R3 and I don't. It's going to be hard to keep from buying one now.

 

the R3's cooling is superb. running furmark with NO elevation at all only produced a max temp of 64 degree Celsius. OCing the gpu to 750/1075 and running furmark only increased temps to 65 degree Celsius.

running prime 95 brought my CPU temps all the way up to 80 degree Celsius. however, once i elevated it using a tic tac box, temps dropped to 71. 15mins of torture only managed a highest of 71 when elevated and 80 when not elevated.

so unless you plan on suffocating the ventilation fans, you will have no problem at all with heat/cooling issues.

oh, and the keyboard above where the GPU or CPU is located does not get warm either in both temp test.

 

Those temps are awesome...

 

lolz. see below post

thx. no cooler 4 me--binder it is!

 

Just thinking if you plan on gaming with it on your lap, the binder will get warm at the least and so will your cahones

 

I used to game all the time in front of TV with my R1 with just magazine in between my lap and the PC. It was fine. I did it for years with all of my laptop and I intend to continue doing so with my R3.

 

do pp really game while the laptop is on your lap? when do you even put your mouse? and no way can you play a fps with a trackpad, no matter how good the trackpad is on the R3.

 

I have played ALOT of D2 with the laptop in my lap - mouse on sofa cushion next to me (laser )

 

Same here, game in a recliner with the mouse on the arm rest without issue. I do use a Targus lap cooler though.

 

Well it all depends what game... I play WOW on my lap with the trackpad in front of TV. I go into raids and do my daily quests all the time (I am a keyboard player so I barely use the trackpad). Now I would NOT go into arena nor into difficult raid with the trackpad but it serves its purpose for everything else. For arena or any pvp, a good gaming mouse is required.

I also play Starcraft 2 missions the same way and a few other game that does not require a good mouse and all with the trackpad.

Really you get used to it and at least your wife does not yell at you for playing since you are next to her on the couch "watching" girly movies...

 

oh. i had this image of some dude with a laptop on his lap trying to play games like COD with the trackpad.

i guess if its playing dirt2, you will only be using the mouse for choosing of options.

@scook9 & DR.J, do you place your laptop directly on your lap? or do you have somekind of tray/cooler on your lap?

 

definately a cooler under my XPS 16 for the lap. I have not played with the R3 on my lap yet, fyi. Still sitting on a table.

The extended battery on the XPS gives a great space under the laptop but the R3 sits very flat with little clearance for airflow. The cooler might be more important for the R3 as a result even with such good Temp numbers. I like the Tic Tac method by usshelfire, quite clever/frugal.

 

I sit my M17x R1 on my lap but usually run it on the 9400m then. That way the side fans which are for the 4870s are not needed and it is ok if they are blocked (I will spread my legs slightly to make a gap for air to the center fan)

That will not work as well for the R3 though with the 2 fans one on each side

 

the tic tax was the only thing avaliable to me to prop up my laptop on such a short notice. and while prime 95 was running too.
im still searching for coolers. was thinking of the cooler master U3
Hot News - Cooler Master NotePal U3 - Cooler Master - Leading Provider of Computer Case | Cooler | Power Supply

but mandrakes CM storm looks awesome.
CM Storm SF-19

just need to find a local dealer...

 

In my opinion, those are the 2 coolers to buy right now.
The CM Storm if you have the $$ and the coolermaster if not

D.

 

I might have missed it, but what are the dimensions of the R3? I understand the Dell website might have the R2 dimensions instead.
Trying to decide if I want the Coolermaster U2 or U3.
The U3 fan speed is adjustable, but the U2 is smaller.

 

Cooling sound like it was built with a 6970 in it

 

Check out Mandrake's pictures. If I were getting another lap cooler, I would totally go with the one he has as its looks custom made for the R3!

 

The SF-19 is nice, but it's almost 3 times the price of the U3.

 

Around $80...not bad but the lack of being able to stow it in my messenger bag kills the viability of it for me

 

I was just playing dead rising 2 with my M17x on my lap last night. Surprisingly was great, do you really need a cooling pad under these beasts?

Didn't feel that hot at all, it cools really well right?

 

If it felt good for you then prob. no need. If still curious, play the same game on your lap with and without a binder for extra clearance allowing extra air to pass and check the cpu/gpu temps.

 

Hm, so are you hinting that the R3 will be lightweight enough that I could just put it on my lap without pain?

 

Mine's on my lap right now. It's not heavy or hot, though using it like this on a regular basis would probably be a bad idea. Make sure your intakes are getting reasonable air flow

 

Intakes I'm aware of. It's my balls that I'm concerned about. Thx for your input!

 

The balls are inert after using the R3

 

Who needs kids when you have an Alienware?!

lol

 

A new lappy should provide all the happiness in the world. I agree.

 

I have my AW as therapy from my kids lol, j/k! Your "boys" will be just fine.

 

As we have decided to keep our R3's as they are, knowing we are unlikely to ever use the 2-5 3GB Sata ports (5% of which may degrade over 3 years of use), it was nice to see Tech Report's suggestion of throwing in one of these* if the need ever arose.

The R3's work perfectly and waiting two more months for a replacement or having the motherboards replaced outweigh the change of ever using those ports. If we did use ports 2-5, the 5% risk and option of adding the link below are far outweighed!

**************for a laptop

Newegg.com - MASSCOOL PCI-e 4 port SATA2 (SIL3132 Chip) Model XWT-PCIE10

 

There's only one problem with that idea Dr. J, that is a desktop part lol.

 

**************for a laptop

You missed my caveat or I did not express it well enough. In any case, does not alter the 5% 3 year issue or unlikely ever to use.

 

And the absence of a expresscard slot limits your actual laptop options as well

 

Ok ok, yeah I didn't get that part lol. I'm not too worried about the issue, if the SB issue manifests itself before they have fixed mobo's I figure this is one of those situations you can get a refund any time between now and the fix if something goes wrong. Dell can't exactly replace it as there is nothing to replace it with at this point leaving the only other option as refund.

 

Just have to get a big fat SSD to replace the current HD if upgrade was necessary...


Anyone know if the new USB 3.0 port for an external dvd or HD capable of utilizing it would be comproble to a 3.0gb Sata II???

 

In theory USB3.0 could replace Sata II for speed, in reality though it is probably about %60-%70 as fast as Sata II (since the controller itself is the bottleneck)

 

isint one of those 3gb sata ports uded by the dvd/br drive?

 

Ya, the 2 hard drives should be the SATA 3 ports, the DVD drive and eSata are most likely the Sata 2 ports

 

oh well, since i really do need this laptop for uni, i guess i'll replace it when there's problems with it.

 

Ports 0 and 1 are used by the HD and DVD as shipped from Dell and those are the uneffected ports.

If you wanted to add an SSD or second HD then you might move the DVD to one of the potentially problematic ports or just get a big fat SSD and put the HD in an external case to connect for data if necessary.

 

Are you sure about that? Another user who posted on the Sandy Bridge thread used this tool:

Gigabyte releases Sandy Bridge fault checker | bit-tech.net

which showed that there were devices on ports 0 and 2. Nothing was connected to port 1. I would think all R3s would be the same, but maybe not...

 

He showed ports 0 and 2 because he's using a single HDD, Ports 0 and 1(Sata III 6gb/s) are for the HDD bays otherwise they couldn't run in RAID on Sata III, port 2 should be the optical drive, and I would guess port 3 is for ESATA.

 

I will check.

 

Result

Updated 3DMark06 link above with associated pictures below including nVidia Control Panel status and Intel Chipset Port Status. 0 and 2 in use!

 

Guys here's more proof on what I said, single hdd configs are going to show only port 0 and port 2 being used because only 1 HDD is installed:
Port 0=HDD 1
Port 1=HDD 2
Port 2=ODD

Thanks for the updates on the scores and control panel J

 

@both of you, this is great information. Thanks!

 

Another R3 owner notice that adjustment of the volume using the top row buttons can kick you out of your game? My XPS 16 does not ever do it, FYI.

 

Yeah I've noticed that as well, it's really annoying when you try to change the volume in game and it kicks you out to the desktop with the OSD displaying. I'm really considering uninstalling OSD and seeing if it changes anything. On previous AW's OSD has been basically just visual eye candy so if it's the same an uninstall shouldn't change anything.

 

You will lose some of the key mappings without OSD though wont you?

 

I remember when this used to happen to me with my hp (its called quickplay or something). When you change the volume, it shows you visually on the screen with bars that increase/decrease. When I uninstalled it, I stopped getting kicked to the desktop. They should really try to implement it a bit more better (if only betterly was a word lolz).