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

sorry then my bad LOL

i guess i'm a bit tired

 

They were posted a few pages back if you read through the thread.

 

oh, my bad. must have skipped over the post.

 

I have a real question I have a m17 r1 and its in my sig. From what I have read the new r3 would not be much of a jump for me and sounds like I would rather wait for the 18 inch if they come out with one

 

What exactly are you using the laptop for? Heavy gaming?

 

Actually, it's the M17. Never had the Area-51 tag.

As for cooling, it's not the best system out there but it certainly does the job. My GPUs don't peak above 83C on max load, with no cooling mods and stock paste.

But as a couple of people have pointed out, the 3870s are significantly lower power than the cards we're talking about in the R3. Even if two cards could fit in there, unless it was some kind of super-fan and massive heatsink, no way could one fan cool them.

When I look at it, that makes perfect sense. It actually seems like that HDD bay is perfectly positioned to be removed if needed.

Shame, though. I was hoping I could stick both my HDDs in with a 6970. Looks like I'll have to do with all my movies on an external, then.

 

just to watch movies and do movie editing or surfing the web I am currently running 3.1 GHZ 24/7 I dont game on mine I know not being a hard gamer I dont use it like most but for my movies it runs great

 

What movie editing suite do you use?i dont think Premiere and Vegas support multi GPU's. CPU is more important and in that case the R3 is a major upgrade. I think it best to get a laptop with a single powerful GPU and the most powerful CPU you can afford.

 

Out of curiosity. What would be put on the extended portion of the card? RAM modules because its a 2GB card?

 

No idea. I'm not exactly fully knowledgeable on the circuitry of a graphics card.

 

just dont understand why the card needs to be twice as long unless its a dual GPU card. But we are pretty certain thats not the case right? since there is only one fan too cool it.

Looking at the bottom cover i wonder why they didnt make the space between the two fans from a mesh material or at least perforated. that would have helped with cooling a lot since you could blow air directly onto the GPU/CPU using a laptop cooler. I can see that as an easy at home modification though.

 

I use nero and dvdx and so far all mine run fine on here just not sure if I need to jump yet may wait to see what problems they have

 

Ram modules, power circuitry, etc.

Im guessing it could need more power circuitry for the extra shaders, perhaps even to allow overclocking.

Hell, the extra power could be for some kind of gpu turbo boost?

Still, it would mean that dellienware have built their own new MXM form factor like asus once did, whilst being backward compatible with MXM3.0

-Ash

 

Outlaw:

ah i see. in that case definitely no dual GPU is necessary. I think in the future intel's quick sync in SB will make GPU accelerated video editing obsolete, looking at the initial benchmarks.

If everything runs fine then i would spend a few hundred bucks now for a SSD and wait for the 18incher. not that you really need it but the 18inch screen might be a nice upgrade and the CPU will help with your programs.

Ash:

I see. Looking forward to finding that out. although the 485M seem to fit fine on a regular MXM and that has 2GB as well right?

 

No unlocked CPU? major bummer.

 

I would get the R3 since you are not gaming. It has a very decent price tag and has the latest CPU. Since you are CPU limited, the M18x is not going to be a major upgrade. The only other reason I can see to wait is the RGB screen or waiting on ivy.

 

Check out how much I can get the M17x-R3 for (and no I can't disclose the coupon):

 

...Wow. THAT's what I'd call a good price. How the hell did you get a coupon for that much off?

 

1GB GDDR5 AMD Radeon™ HD 6870M [Included in Price]
1.5GB GDDR5 NVIDIA GeForce GTX 460M [add $307.09 or $26/month-1]

how on earth can the 460 be 300 bucks more then the 6870??? is the 6870 that much worse in performance? or is the 300bucks just for the nvidia branding?

 

Yeah that price is very nice (tempting). This system makes for a very attractive mobile gaming rig. If I didn't have the R2 this would be on my short list.

 

you could make a decent living buying then shipping those to australia and the UK. haha

 

I'd be willing to do it if a few people from a certain country (e.g. UK or AUS) bought it as a group.

 

LOL unlucky people in Singapore. the US website's difference b/w cards is $50
i still think its inhumanic what they do to those who are out of States. But then again... $250 for additional 4gb memory? -.- wow...

 

A. Does the r3 have nvidia optimus

B. Can you use the integrated combined with the discrete to increase performance or is it only 1 or the other

 

A. Yes, it does have Optimus, or at least Dell advertises it. Obviously, don't expect it to work with the ATi card, but it should work with the 460M.

B. No. The dedicated card is far too powerful; it wouldn't boost performance working with the IGP.

 

ATI have switchable graphics but its strange only the 6500m and 6300m are supported in the 6xxx generation. since 58xx series is supported and that was the previous generation top card. So maybe the 6970 and 6870 will support switchable graphics later.

AMD Switchable Graphics Technology

 

looking at that picture do you guys think it means the M17x also sucks air from underneath the keyboard? That seems to be the case with the asus g73. this would come in handy when im just watching a dvd or something with the laptop on my legs.

 

Yeah, but what I was saying was that the 460M is the only confirmed GPU at this point to have switchable graphics (via Optimus). We won't know about the ATi cards until someone gets their hands on one.

I hope it's supported, it should be.

That definitely looks like it sucks air in through the keyboard.

I'd still be careful using it while on your lap. The likelihood is the air coming in through the keyboard supplements the bottom vents, and isn't meant to replace them. But provided you aren't stressing the hardware (not likely while watching a DVD) then it shouldn't heat up much anyway.

 

Out of curiosity (and partly laziness on my behalf as i havent checked thoroughly) , has ANY country had the 6970m released as an option as yet?

 

5KG+

1 GPU

Looks pretty hefty. :/

 

Still waiting for this to appear on the Dell Canada site

 

For those wondering about how the M17x-R3 stacks up against the Asus G73SW (sandy bridge version) I made a quick excel sheet this morning comparing the prices from Dell.com (before discounts) to XoticPC.com. Looks like the M17x-R3 despite being slightly more expensive is easily the better choice for US customers.

 

I notice that it wont let you select R3 on the canada site BUT it says that its available with the 485m! http://search.dell.com/results.aspx?s=dhs&c=ca&l=en&cs=cadhs1&k=m17x+r3&cat=all now if thats true, it mkes quite a bit of difference to the overall scheme of things eh? - seems like a better gpu option to me....

 

i dont understand why the G73 raised its price by close to 400USD. everything is the same as the JW except the CPU and if anything the 2630qm should be cheaper than the 740qm.

the new clevo with the 485m is only $2088 from xotic and for that you get 2x4GB ram and 2720qm standard.

 

For pure single GPU performance and dollar value, the Sager beats them all. However, the problem with Sager is that most people are turned off by their design, lack of backlit keyboard (coming this year) and mail in depot warranty to Sager. Right now I'd have a hard time choosing between the new Sager and Alienware due to some key differences. But if I was looking for solid gaming performance, I'd go with Sager/Clevo. But if you live in the US and have to decide between an M17x-R3 or G73SW, it's no contest that the M17x-R3 is the better buy.

I think we're going to see the 485M and 6970M in the M17x-R3 quite soon (maybe by CeBit). Who knows, could be before then with the 485m. Both of these GPU's would make the M17x-R3 a nice alternative to the M17x-R2 for sheer performance though you'd still lose out on build quality and rgb led.

 

If pricing strategy is anything like Dell UK, they probably upped the price for the heck of it....i mean, c'mon, base spec R3 cost £1799 in the uk as opposed to $1499 in the us....thats $1300 more....for what exactly?

Agreed. 485m or 6970 would make a sweet little system but without those other attributes, its just not a solid AW system like the outgoing R2.

 

Totalmente, I egree with you on that

 

Dell.ca might reveal something interesting. The video card options are usually different from the us site. Last month the r2 could not be had with the 285s like in the u.s. I highly doubt that the Canadian site would release a 485 first. If anything it may be 6870 only.

I ended up ordering mine from .com . I called back yesterday to change the order to a 120hz screen which wasn't up the first day. The 3d kit will probably go for sale bnib assuming I decide to keep the r3 over the 940xm r2 I ordered at the same time.

 

Did anyone managed to get any kind of discount buying the m17x R3? I'm trying but not being able to.

If anyone got any kind of discount, please post here or PM me. Even the $50 discount i'm not managing to get.

Thanks.

 

So what Dell had listed as a P67 chipset at CES turned out to really be an HM67 chipset according to the manual.

Now I'm back to wondering if/when Intel will have a mobile chipset that supports dual discrete GPU.

 

Did someone post a pic for the bottom of this system?....I can't find it.

 

Mandrake, the only pic I saw was the bottom of M17 or something on page 32. http://forum.notebookreview.com/ali...ailable-order-details-discussion-here-32.html I haven't seen bottom of the R3 anywhere in the thread.

It's not really surprising as the system was just released. Many people are going to buy it even without a discount, so there's no incentive for Dell to give away any. You can probably get a discount on R2, which I'd even take over R3 due to the RGB LED screen alone.

 

You can see the bottom/internals in the manuals.

 

there is one picture in the forum of the bottom of it, posted yesterday (flat, only 2 grills, one for cpu one for the single gpu) but i'm unable to find it...

 

I remember it being posted but I can't find it either.

If memory serves, it looks similar to the bottom of the current M15x. As CptXabaras said, there's two vents either side for two fans. I think the nameplate is in the middle, and battery right at the front. Apart from that, I believe it's rather featureless.

 

Thanks, I was going to say that looks like the bottom of the M17 but a few people in that thread already identified it is a M17.

 

I take it that is this...
http://forum.notebookreview.com/att...able-order-details-discussion-here-m17xr3.jpg

Edit: I like it. Less issues without the second card. It's an M15x with a second hdd and more powerful CPU/GPU/USB/3D/HDMI in......all good stuff.

 

Obviously, that's not the actual base of the laptop. Last time I checked, they do give you the cover for free.

Being serious, that's not the picture that was posted. I believe the posted picture was from the CES event. Not sure if you can find what the base looks like in the manuals, I haven't looked myself.

 

That's a picture of the bottom from the manual, if you want to see what the bottom looks like with the panel, battery, etc it's here:
4Gamer.net ? ???????????PR?Alienware?????????????M17x??????????HD?120Hz?????????PS3?Xbox 360?????????????
I like it for a lot of reasons hence the order

 

Congrats on the purchase. "She-who-me-must-obey" said I have to sell the M15x if I get it. I haven't warmed up to that idea yet. Plus the fact there is no extreme proc. That matters more to me than the gpu.