*NEW* M17xR3 Available for order... details and discussion here

The SSD upgrade should be no problem whatsoever, the GPU may be a different story. Until Alienware includes support for a GPU or someone tests it and ensures it's compatible there are no guarantees that anything else will actually work. And as a bit of an FYI I'd go with a 470m way before a 480m especially in the R3 as it's narrower. With a bit of tweaking I cant think of a single game the 460m shouldn't be able to run(outside of Maxxed DX11 Metro 2033 and possibly Crysis) at high res at High-Ultra. The 460m may not be a 5870 Xfire or 470/480 SLi but it's still a very capable card. I'd look to the 6970 or possibly the rumored 485m before anything else. The tech's will always tell you they know nothing even if they do know until it's released, it's their job

 

ok so since i dont know the process, lets say the 470 (or even fury 485M) support is been announced for alienware, what would be my steps then (and i have got 460 gtx M) ? should i send it to dell for an upgrade or something? i just honestly dont know how those things work in States

 

Will the 485m even run in the R3 though, its a beast with a 100w consumption....

 

You either return your notebook within the return window and re-order, or if you are brave you buy the GPU from dell and install it yourself.

 

if that dam thing doesnt get in the laptop, ill take a refrigirator, hop the GPU inside, get some additional supply from whatever sources are there n enjoy my sweet crysis running smooth
but to be honest, power consumption is not a problem at all. on the other hand - cooling is. u need more than 2 fans inside in order to controll it. i actually think u need something like water cooling system inside

 

The m15x has a 150W PSU. The M17x can go up to 240W. I'm sure they can figure out how to do 2 50-60W cards and an extreme cpu, they can do it with one 100W card...

 

im more than sure that if they ever release support for better GPUs it will happen in more than 21 days after my purchase, most likely it will happen in half a year or so

 

Yup...i thought that the cooling would be a big issue with only 2 fans....

Dont count on that....

 

im not counting on anything right now bro. Moreover, I am even thinking to get a netbook which can run up to 12 hours and a R2 for power. obviously r2 has some very strong specs... i got really confused... i mean i do not wish to have a laptop which configuration will be "improved" after whatever time passes by

 

If you want a laptop that the specs are the least likely to improve after purchase then buy the R2 If you want a laptop you can keep for longer and upgrade to make sure it can last longer get the R3.

 

True, but if its performance your after, the R2 with a 940xm and crossfire 5870's would be a good buy too....it will handily beat the R3 IMHO, even if and when the 6970 is an option.

 

No arguement at all, I think if the R3 gets the 6970 or 485m and the Extreme SB cpu then it may take the R2 out as top performer but right now you get better performance out of the R2. The point I was trying to make was there is no such thing as a laptop that doesn't get better specs along the way in the performance market, especially if you buy it at release lol. But the advantage there is that you have upgrades to do down the road to keep up, not a new computer to buy.

 

Seems like everytime i go back to the page it gets more retardeder...

Lets play the "How many things can you find wrong with this picture?" game.

I'll start, Uhm Video cards. Now you go...

http://img543.imageshack.us/i/81537878.jpg/
http://img543.imageshack.us/img543/3096/81537878.jpg

 

Hehehehe - thats funny ! - dont tell me, that option for 285's cost around $250,000???

 

I got mine to keep for about 2 yrs....sure, im well aware that every 6mths, there will be a new king on the block in some respect, be it cpu or gpu....ive had mine 6mths and already seem two lots of cpu upgrade, new SB achitecture, new gpu's so it IS an impossibility to keep up unless your loaded!

My plan was to change after 2 yrs...if something came along sooner that REALLY blew my system away, I would consider changing early. As it stands, my R2 can still kick some butt and compete with the newer stuff so i am a happy chap.....reckon it will have to be M18x to make me wanna change....other than that, I plan to upgrade things in my R2 (xm cpu/ssd etc) to improve it - this can be done at lower cost than a brand new system and will improve my system no end.

Also, too many people hold off on buying now for "tommorows tech"...and becasue tech moves so rapidly, you can get in the rut of hearing something just about as your ready to buy and then decide against it and wait again....vicious circle....you may never end up buying ANY system.

I mean look at it like this....SB has JUST been released and now its IVY BRIDGE which will be the better successor....WAIT for it??? hmmmmm

Only advice i can give is to make sure YOU are happy with YOUR chosen spec...KNOW how long you want to keep it for....and then just buy the damn thing lol

 

That is the path I have taken with my M17x R 1. Only got the 4870s over the DPC fubar. Otherwise I would still be rocking GTX 280m SLI

Is it the best? Not even close anymore but it still can more than make me happy

 

I feel the same way. R3 looks extremely cheap from the bottom. Oh well, neither of us are interested so lets just wait and see how the new R3 owners like their systems. I'll be holding out for an aluminum M18x and if Dell doesn't deliver, it's Clevo time.

 

Sorry for interaption, but what's the purpose in buying 17 coffin with only one GPU? Its giant size can fit 3 of them and r3 have only one. I don't see logic here.

Or it became smaller?

 

K guys imma be honest with u all: i can only afford... well.. say maximum is 2.3k and i still consider that price ridiculous for a laptop
as of now i wanna make that the thing i purchased at the moment is the strongest candidate for my needs because i dont wanna buy new laptop every 2-3 years ( to me it is difficult to sell it off to somebody - i have my troubles with that )
and one more thing is i dont understand how do i upgrade the r3... ok i got me one and in a year n a half there's new specs available... i can tell you i can input anything into my desktop pc but i wont touch a laptop in no way, ima need somebody who knows the stuff, that i wont have either coz then again nobodys responsible for whatever damage may be caused to a ridiculously pricey system! my god i chosen a bad time to upgrade the laptop here again i also think that even if the 6970 was available for r3 the pricing would've been still ridiculous.

 

Im with you on that one....gosh, if i had sold my R2 in favour and got an R3, im tellin you, it would have been a case of "hammer time" never mind "clevo time".....R2....u cant touch this.... lol

 

For battery life you absolutely need the gtx 460m. It's because of optimus that Dell can claim 6 hours on the R3. Also, gtx 460m > 6870m in performance. The 6870m is an underclocked 5870m.

 

to bad my DPA has a credit increase last month and is paid in full last payment sent today! but is nothing exiting about the M17X R3 o well i have to wait for the M18X R1

 

Hi all I'm new here and I just purchased my first Alienware! Below are the specs, I'm looking forward to testing it out.

Alienware M17x Soft-Touch, Stealth Black
Intel Core i7 2820QM 2.3GHz (3.4GHz Turbo Mode, 8MB Cache)
8GB Dual Channel DDR3 at 1333MHz (4DIMMS)
17.3-inch WideFHD 1920 x 1080 120Hz WLED w/3D Bundle
1.5GB GDDR5 Nvidia GeForce GTX 460M
256GB Solid State Drive Slot-Loading Dual Layer Blu-ray Reader

EDIT:

I ended up canceling my prior order and ordering again after two things happened...

1) My wife let me know she had a dell employee discount code through her company. This ended up saving me only $75 bucks but hey its something right?

2) I was informed that instead of ordering a configuration with an SSD I could easily install two SSD's that I already own in RAID 0 into my new M17xR.3 and save myself $600 bucks.

So my new configuration is:

Alienware M17x Soft-Touch, Stealth Black
Intel Core i7 2820QM 2.3GHz (3.4GHz Turbo Mode, 8MB Cache)
8GB Dual Channel DDR3 at 1333MHz (4DIMMS)
17.3-inch WideFHD 1920 x 1080 120Hz WLED w/3D Bundle
1.5GB GDDR5 Nvidia GeForce GTX 460M
320GB 7,200RPM SATA-II HDD
Slot-Loading Dual Layer Blu-ray Reader

My new Estimated Delivery Date: 2/7/2011

 

Lots of speculation Mkelliny.

In terms of the M17x R3 - you can most definately consider it an M15x with a bigger screen. It is not an upgrade to the m17x r2.

With this in mind, we are all willing to bet that a true successor to the m17x r2 will be released with dual gpu support.

The M17X R3 does not support dual gpu, so cannot be configured to be faster than the R2

Thus, all things point to an M18x or even an M19x coming.

Asus did a 19inch laptop - why cant dellienware?

-Ash

 

Nice snag JackEtienne, congrats. I bet that config set you back a pretty decent amount.

For all of the people who have ordered in here already post your EDD if you have it yet.

My EDD: No Later Than February 2, 2011

 

Lots of us drinking from the fountain of hope.

Nice config, welcome to NBR and AW. I think you're one of the first to purchase an M17x-R3 with the 3D bundle. Once you get the system, let us know what you think of it.

 

thanks for the mind up, Joker.
and, i mean, again, i do not understand how could they insert a gtx 460 when they already got it for m15x and still call it a successor?... but i think there gonna be more than enough people willing to buy it including myself.

 

@JackEtienne

Yes, please post back! I'm (and I think lots of others) curious as to how the whole 3D thing works out. Especially since you're going to be one of the first people getting their hands on that baby.

 

So did you get to touch it, handle it or see it up close? Were you able to discern if it's a plastic body, magnesium, aluminum..... with the soft touch coating?

 

Definitely want to know this^^^phas3d, I know you probably won't know what kind of metal it was but I would think you might have some insights on the whole plastic/metal case situation.

 

Just ordered mine, went with a screen upgrade 1080, no 3d, although believe me when I say I still want RGB. And went with a 460m instead of the 6870, Stealth Black, pretty much went with baseline on everything else as I'll slowly upgrade it. Soooo glad I waited, as I wasn't really happy with the current m15x, I feel as if Alienware has Answered my Prayers. I can finally move away from my Area-51 m15x.

 

You're stacking up quite the collection of generations of AW's ther darkloki! Congrats on the order! So you planning on getting rid of the Area-51 now?

 

Yeah I'll be selling it, I'm going to try to locate some less fortunate gamer pre-teen kid to sell it to cheap and help him out. I feel that the system is very much under-appreciated by the general population and I actually really loved this system (among my favorites), and I want it to be used by it's next user, lol. I know I'm treating it as if it's an Animal or Dog/Puppy, but I really wanna find a good home for it. I feel blessed and fortunate to have the PC's that I have and just wanna pass on what I have to others. Some people who know my history behind this Area-51 m15x will know exactly what I'm talking about, lol.


Earlier I went as far as to pick up a borken mis-treated one on my local craigslist, and gutted the parts for at cost to multiple users right here on this board to help out , and then started giving away even free parts.

 

Its plastic Dane, trust me.

 

so just out of curiosity: how do you people "slowly upgrade" those systems after 21 days go? manually take parts off?

 

Doesn't bother me, the system my R3 is replacing is made up of entirely plastic as well, lol.

 

Somewhere in this thread is 'soft touch (plastic) above magnesium'

 

You can fully disassemble these systems and rebuild them yourself - thats the beauty of AW, they are totally upgradeable.

You may find yourself wanting to upgrade a HDD to a SSD or maybe upgrade the cpu at some point in the future....all of these are easily done and opening up your system to do them is an extremely good way to keep your system as up to date as you want it to be.

 

I think that means that the chassis is metal but the outer case is plastic, unlike the R2 which has metal chasis and alumiium outer casing and lid...

 

+1 yea, that's why when you're picking your model you really only wanna look at 3 things, 1) Monitor/screen 2)GPU 3) CPU.

Monitor because that's probably the hardest install (that I've done at least) and the other 2 because those are costly items, although fairly easy to upgrade they cost alot and you usually don't save a whole lot when going to outside sources for them, plus you'll have often have a difficult time of reselling a CPU/GPU when they are not top of the line.

Again this is all from my personal experience, and just my personal opinion but I'm sure many others would agree with me

 

For sure I agree....

Many people simply buy the lowest base spec they can and concentrate on getting the important things right...like the screen mainly.

As for the rest, cpu can be upgraded, gpus as stated above but cost issues mean get it right at the start to save money later.. and more or less everything else you can do "after" you have bought.

Best advice when buying new is to NOT buy high priced components from Dell, get the lower ones and upgrade them yourself. You will find that things like xm cpu's can be picked up at half the cost you would pay to get them from Dell.

Same goes for Ram - the simplest thing to upgrade and , in the same context as the cpu, save money by buying it after you get the system.

You could aslo get the lowest spec HDD config, use the cash that you would save toward an ssd and sling the original HDD into the other bay....best of both worlds.

The list goes on.....but you get ma' drift 'eh?

EDIT: One thing I am not so sure about after thinking about it, regarding cpu, especially as its SB now, these chips may not be available for some time via other sources and may or may not be cheaper....so, in retrospect, If you are looking for an R3, right now, I would also say get the cpu you want at time of order....its a bit different with the R2 because the xm cpus are readily available elsehwere at lower cost - i doubt you will find this is the case with SB chips for some time to come...

 

Greetings All,
Oddly enough, this system is compatible with SLI and Crossfire configurations. However, it isn't an option when configuring the system. Maybe it will be a future addition.

Thanks,
Gabe

 

I've read in the boards that some people are saying the R3 will not support dual GPU's and I'm inclined to believe them. I say this because I just don't see the space for 2 GPUs and heatsinks, 2 HDDs, one quad core chip/heatskink, and then FOUR DIMMS OF RAM, lol.

 

is already been confirmed that it will not support crossfire nor sli

 

The system does in fact support Crossfire and SLI as per my documentation. However, it isn't an option when configuring.

Thanks,
Gabe

 

How dya get to that conclusion Gabe, I mean looking at the bottom of the R3, its a 2 fan system......where is the cooling for the secondary gpu? - considering that one of those two fans will be for the cpu.....are we suggesting that one of these components (if sli/xfire is an option) should go without its own dedicated cooling fan? - i wouldnt like to run ANY of my components without this cooling.

 

The only thing I could think here is they may have plans to do a dual gpu single mxm board setup like the 5970 or old m1730's came with. I really don't see anywhere on those pics for enough cooling(especially after thinning the fram) to stick an SB and 2 gpu's.

 

Hi Steve,
There may be an error in the official documentation. It states support for dual card configurations, but the break downs don't reflect the same. I'm currently looking them over.

Official video card Options:

Integrated
Intel HD Graphics 3000

Discrete
[Single/Dual Configuration]
AMD 6870M
AMD 6970M
nVidia GTX 460M



Thanks,
Gabe

 

No worries, let us know how you get on please if you can - that would be GREATLY appreciated for those who need to know prior to ordering.

Thanks

 

Sandy Bridge Chipset supports it, it how ever was not included in the Dell R3 Design