M17x R3 - Please Use This!

NVIDIA GTX 470M highlights rollout of 400M mobile GPU series -- Engadget

GTX 470m SLI.

Thank your mother for the rabbits.


Sandy bridge + this would make me very very happy. No my crying over crossfire.


470m looks to be just the right amount of performance/scalability/power/heat for these machines.

Thoughts?

-Ash

 

Sandy Bridge won't have bclk overclocking so it'll be limited to turbo multiplier manipulation only. Plus we won't have any TS for it unless Kevin decides to do work on that front so it will initially be slower than what we can run our 920/940xm's at.

The 470M SLi looks intriguing though and since nVidia has already rolled it out, I'm sure we'll see new notebooks with it this fall. I don't know if Alienware will have 470M SLi for the M17x but I don't see why not. They don't need to wait on SB to get it going.

I'll hold on to my Crossfire setup since it's working great now with the new vbios to see how the 470M SLi pans out and if there's any bugs/driver issues with it.

 

What do we reckon performance difference between 5870 CF and 470M SLI will be.

 

Considering the 470 will likely overclock better then the 480 which would end up putting it on equal grounds ironically with the 480 (480 seems dead before it was even released) 10-20%. Supposedly I hear keep hearing things about Nvidia scaling better then ATI so maybe more at the higher end CPU level, but then again I guess we will get to see first hand whether this scaling claim is truth or bust.

 

oh, great, now who am I going to give my R2 away to now lol...

 

I prefer if R3 coming with HD 6870 crossfire...

 

Hmmsss wonder if Dell will use one of these cards soon?

NVIDIA 400M: DX11 Top to Bottom Solutions Now Available - AnandTech :: Your Source for Hardware Analysis and News

 

Would be great if we R2s can switch to SLI 470ts.

 

I can't wait to see what power supply they decide to use. If it's what we have now, you can forget about serious overclocking, or for that matter, stable stock clocks at 100% utilization. They still haven't fixed the problem completely with the 280Ms

 

Didn't the A03 BIOS release for the 5870's include some NVIDIA cards??
http://forum.notebookreview.com/alienware-m17x/483463-bios-a05-now-available-m17x-r2.html

 

Looks like we will be getting a R3 in the holiday.
Dell
"The best experiences in high definition video and 3D gaming demand the latest and greatest in video technology, like NVIDIA's 3D Vision and Optimus solutions," said Glen Robson, vice president and general manager, Dell Consumer and Small Business Product Group. "Dell continues to work with NVIDIA to push mobile technology at a rapid pace, so we can deliver the ultimate mobile entertainment experience."

NVIDIA Newsroom

 

IDK about that article as it is still speculation that there will be an R3. The article doesn't state anything that leads me to believe that there will be another revision for the M17x.

 

Don't care about the OC really, because the 2920 runs 400 better than the 940 as it is, even before turbo. Some may care, but I see no need to OC that. The question for me is whether, if such a thing comes out, I would actually wait for SB, if they brought forth a 940 with SLI 470's. Power won't really be an issue on 470's, maybe just a touch of a few watts on 480s'. That's an overblown issue, never tested by any voltmeter coming out of the wall. Given the number of sleep and hibernation issues, I suspect the CF's might run cool but aren't all that power stable as it is. Anyway, if you don't care for the SLI configuration I suspect you'll be able to find a whole lot of CF equipped R2's on Ebay should you desire one

I also agree the 470 is close enough to the 480 that the 480's existence is curious. What I think is coming, and not to far in the future is a newer core version of said chip, that I'll call a 485M for lack of a better term. The newer, smaller cores are churning out some good numbers, and would pretty much provide a good basis for a 485M, and give some added performance distance from the 470.

So the questions are:

Will Dell risk being super late to market and wait for SB before bringing 470/485 SLI to the M17x?

If they come up with an updated R2 with SLI will I feel inclined to wait for the SB version or just leap? (hmmm

 

so far dell's 5870 are performing on par with the 480 and dell ahd a bad enough experience with the area 51's 8800 and 9800 not counting thier xps line that had the issue at the same time and not counting the stutering issue on the R1 cause by the 2X0 serie and the 9400 igp not to touch nvidia's mobile offering for a while

 

The R1's problems were the chipset. There is no stuttering on 2x0's on Intel chipsets. Nvidia chipsets have always been a no go

Dell's 5870 can't use AMD drivers. So how long do you think Dell is going to be in the business of giving you a driver for your 5870's? There is a REASON the 5870's are cheaper...

 

at first my 4850 had not driver suport then they had issues then they started working

and no it was proven that the r1's issue was not the chipset but the 260 and 280 since they had no issue with the version with the 4870

 

What exactly was the problem with 260s and 280s?

 

I'm running CF 5870s with AMD 10.8s from the AMD website without the slightest issue.

 

nothing as far as I am concerned.

the only issue (now fixed) with the R1 was the DPC latency.

I have no issueswith the 280m cards.

The only draw back is they are not DX10 cards

 

^Did you used this to fix the issue? As I still have this problem and want to get rid of.
http://en.community.dell.com/dell-b...dpc-latency-for-alienware-m17x-customers.aspx

 

running the lastest Dell chipset drivers, and NVIDIA GPU driver should fix it.

You may need to do a clean install

 

Lol I sorta wanna ask if dell would swap my recently bought (Received Aug 9/2010) M17xR2 with Dual 1GB 5870's in CrossfireX for the new Nvidia GTX 470m SLI (when they release with dell). I wonder what they'd say

 

And using 260M's and 280M's with Intel chipsets generates no stutter either. So clearly there is more to it than the 4870 tidbit.

Using drivers straight off the AMD site or issued by Dell? A year from now do you think Dell is going to issue you drivers? Go have a look at what Win 7 drivers are available for the M1730 to get your answer on that one.

 

would a gtx 460m sli config be easier than 470s?

 

dell wil release driver until AMD can provide driver suport that's what hapened with the 4850

amd began suport for the 4850 4-6 month after release of them

 

what do you mean by easier ?

 

I would buy a SLI configuration for the new 400 series cards in a heartbeat if they were released today.

However, something tells me that Dell will need to come out with a M17x R3 first before they could pull that off. To be honest, I don't see Dell attempting this until early next year after Sandy Bridge is released.

 

i mean performance/scalability/power/heat?

 

I'm pretty sure my statement of "AMD 10.8s from the AMD website" was fairly clear and means exactly what it sounds like it means.

I'm running AMD reference drivers and have been since I loaded the Alienware Beta Vbios without a single issue.

Runes games fine. Sleeps and wakes fine. Boots and runs on battery fine. Etc. Etc. Etc.

EDIT: Been running the Beta VBIOS with 10.8 reference drivers for about 2 weeks now.

 

Ok Phifer, you represent 1 in very few who have a currently seamless experience. Talk to me in a year, say the same things and you might be in business.

 

I posted already earlier in this thread and no one responded or seemed to find it interesting that
in the M17x R2 BIOS A05 release it supports the Nvidia N11E.

2.Support NV N11E to work on CFD(Clarksfield) and ARD(Arrandale) CPU platform.
there is a screen shot of an actual 480M


Uploaded with ImageShack.us

Just as a comparison and to rule out the 200 series GPU's here are screen shots of the :

280M
http://media.photobucket.com/image/GTX%20280M/DDerek20/IMG_0043.jpg

260M


Uploaded with ImageShack.us

So the M17xR2 already supports the 4xx GPU's. Unless I missed something.

 

Thats all well and good. But unless its a dell manufactured and recognised HWID in the master slot it isnt going to post.

We will only be able to use Dell Branded/Flashed 480m cards due to... well... I can only describe as 'spite' on the bios engineer's end.

-Ash

 

OK, in your first post, you did not mention you had the beta AW vbios. Therefore people assumed you were using the original vbios, which is why many of us found incredulous that your machine is running flawlessly on AMD's 10.8, since the original vbios makes that kinda hard to do.

Now, with the beta vbios it may indeed be possible run AMD drivers without problems. Haven't tried myself, but just seeing how they make things better with Dell drivers, I can believe that.

 

I believe that the N11E core is used in the nVidia GTS 360M and 350M GPUs. The nVidia 460M is based on the GF106 core, and the 470M and 480M will also be GF10x cores.

The nVidia 3xxM series of GPUs are still DX 10.1 cards, and nowhere near as fast as the GTX 280Ms that were available in the R1. It'd definitely be a step backwards to use these. I'll stick with my 5870s .

 

look at that screen shot of the 480M it has n11e stamped on it. Anyway, I seen that for the 300 series are just rebrnded 200 series as well(G92 core).

@ashtefere

This is not always true just ask the M15x users using a clevo 5870 in there laptops.


Ultimately, I guess if one can be found it might not hurt to test it. If one is found I will give it a try.

 

They sell some over here. Will be very pricey I'm assuming.

MXM Upgrade Home Page

MXM notebooks 3.0 and up

Cheers.

 

Sent an Email to them hopefully I can get a response soon.

 

Cool!!! :cool :

Would be interesting to see their response.
Gee I wouldn't mind a couple of bad boy 480m SLi's in this rig LOL!!! ehehehehe

Awesome stuffs.

Cheers.

 

I don't think nVidia could get any more confusing here. Your picture indicates that N11E-GTX is indeed a codename for the 480M. I've also found some anecdotal evidence to back this up.

However, there is also a lot of evidence to say that N11E has been used for other older GPUs, notably the 285M, 360M and 380M. Take, for example, this list from Eurocom:

So now we have N11E-GTX1 (285M), N11E-GTX (380M) and N11E-GTX-A3 (480M) as part numbers, all of them being N11E, but across 3 generations of GPUs. And these are only the GTX parts - there are also GS parts to consider (360M, maybe also 460M).

The R2 BIOS could support any (or even all!) of these, but only Dell's engineers know exactly what is and isn't supported. Aaaaaargh!

 

I see I hope it is the 480M, as I am going out on a limb and going to purchase one through the seller above. I will keep posted about the journey.

 

Please do, cos if the 480m works, chances are the 470m sli will also work, which by my math would be... what? Looks like the 470m could actually outperform the 480m in some games.

Woot.

-Ash

 

Oh Mkelliny you purchased one already?

Did the seller get back to your email already? What did they say? I just sent them one myself.
This should be an interesting Journey!!!

Cheers.

 

If this is a wishlist for Dell, I'd like to add my $0.02...

I'd put USB 3.0 at the top, as I/O is important to me. But since this is a gaming rig, let's start with something more appropriate...

Dell, listen up! Ditch the wide-gamut RGB display, unless you're going to provide proper support for it. By that, I mean your M6500 Covet has monitor profiles for all different color spaces (hint: 99% of Windows operates in sRGB). Granted, it's cool, at first, to see ridiculously blown out primaries. I read about a lot of guys saying, "Look at these test shots and you'll know if you have the RGB LED display." They're saying that b/c they see these nutty colors and think it's cool. I'm all for that. But none of it is accurate. Give us, at least, a panel that works the way it should. And to all my brothers on this forum, please educate everyone on this issue... Dell, if you want to sell us wide-gamut displays, let us work and game in a normal color space and then switch to wide-gamut/Adobe RGB, when we have apps that support it.

Secondly, 3D gaming is here! But it's stupid. What would be AWESOME (and maybe make me consider buying another laptop, instead of the R2 I just returned because of the above issue) is a full 1920x1200 panel that supports 120Hz refresh rate. Being able to see our games DISPLAY at a true 120fps would be VISUAL NIRVANA. Help us to break loose of the 60fps chains and move into the next world of real fluidity!!!

Tack on USB 3.0 and we'll be set for the next couple of years. Improve on that and you'll see more sales.

Cheers!!!

 

The wide gamut display makes a very noticeable difference in games and photos using stock settings. It may not be calibrated out of box but that can be remedied. The point is it has a far larger color palette and less gradation. I've seen remarkable differences in some games I play. I don't do work on photos for a living so I don't care if it's not 100% accurate. It looks MUCH nicer than standard WLEDs and that's what counts.

 

I saw one guy instal GTX 260Ms in SLi on his M17x-r2 (i7 motherboard) and got SLi to work (though he mentioned something about having to manually enable it after every restart). So, Sli compatibilty wouldn't even be an issue if one decides to purchase Dual GTX 460m or 470m cards and try them on the R2s. I'm sure some of you (myself included) would try that if the price is right.

And for those hungering for USB, just pray that they make an M17x-R3 with USB 3.0 ports on the right side (seeing as it's a separate board that control those ports and the USB 3.0 controller would be on that board).

USB 3.0 and SLi support for the newer nVidia GPUs would probably be the two things most are banking on Dell/Alienware to deliver on. Sandy Bridge is basically Clarksfield manufactured via the 32nm process + the onboard GPU. It won't be that big of an upgrade gaming wise, but it's a significant upgrade over Clarksfield if one really cares about battery life (if SLk/CfX SB board allow GPU switching) and certain CPU intensive tasks.

 

the guy had to mod his bios manyaly for his personal use how he did it no idea but i read that to about hum putting sli in a m17x-r2

 

I know, but my point was that SLi worked. Don't the new M17x-r2 BIOS revisions add support to nVidia GPUs now?

 

I think R3 should also implement a better sound card. Internal X-FI don't sound so bad.

 

^ Ya, agree, I am tired of getting offered the software enabled X-fi most of the time. I had a copy which came with my old system which had vista and now its uselesss since it doesnot work on 7.

 

It's hard to explain the difference, if you don't do work in the color field (or aren't apt to color management in the least). But even for the average gamer, anyone could realize that the 'red in the guy's uniform' isn't supposed to be THAT red. And the leaves aren't supposed to be THAT green

I'm trying to think of how best to lay it out... Putting a little league baseball diamond inside a major league diamond comes close... Obviously, the bases, in the major league field, will be much further away than the little league bases. So replace the bases with primary colors; red, blue and green... Your video card will send the signal for, say, 100% red. And the red should land right on the little league 3rd base. But because you have a wide-gamut display (the major league diamond), it only knows how to display 100% red on (its) 3rd base. Wasn't the base (or shade of red) you were hoping for.

If the monitor had the profile for sRGB (think: a map for the little league bases), it could land 100% red on the right base (showing you the right color). The Covet and HP Dreamcolor have these profiles (it's JUST software). The RGB LED does not. That's the dig.

I think you meant to say 'more' gradation. Not less. The RGB LED panel is 8-bit which is nice. Most TN laptop panels are 6-bit. The extra 2 bits will offer a heap more gradations (which is what you want). More gradations = less dithering = more natural images.

Calibration will not solve this problem. It's the mapping (called LUTs; Look Up Table) that are at issue. It's a simple fix. Just don't know why Dell won't act on it.

RGB backlighting is marketing hype. The absolute best, most expensive, most accurate monitors you can buy use CCFL backlighting. The whole point in backlighting is to provide a pure white (D65) light source for the LCD to filter color (and that's all). In RGB backlighting, turning on only the blue LED might make for easier blue on the LCD. But it comes at the expense of all the surrounding hues. Now, in theory, you can get just about every color in the visible spectrum out of these. But if Dell isn't even providing a basic sRGB LUT, I seriously doubt if they (or Samsung) have put the effort into the required math for that... The real answer will come with OLED... FWIW, LED backlighting is being driven by the government's energy standards. It is more efficient, in the power-sense. But it's not necessarily better.

Cheers!