New M17X Owner

Hey all,

I just bought the system below and had a question. How much of a noticable difference would there be if I upgraded the ram to 8 GB's of 1333 and the CPU to a 920XM. I will only be using this system for playing World of Warcraft and some web surfing. If I did change out the ram, would it be as simple as swapping out the old with the new? I would have to pay for someone else to change out the CPU, I believe that upgrade is beyond my skill level, but would I notice a huge difference for my intended use? Thank you for any help you could offer.

Alienware M17x-R2: i7-720QM | 1920x1200 RGB LED | ATi 5870m Crossfire | 4 GB DDR3 1066mhz | Intel Wifi 6300 | 128 GB SSD | 3 Year Basic Service Plan

 

Only for WOW? I don't think you need those upgrades. Save your money for R3.

Did ya get that from the outlet?

 

Yes only for WOW, but I wanted to make sure I got something that would allow me to play other games in case I change my mind ever, and to also future proof me as long as possible for WOW. I bought it from an EPP website, $2562 shipped. I wanted to hold out for the R3, but my current laptop is on it's last leg and wasn't sure how far out or how much the new version would cost.

 

your laptop will be fine for WOW for a long time, if not forever. There's no way Blizzard would up the sys requirements beyond your specs. (Maybe they may add some optional graphic filters for higher end rigs, but your laptop will be fine.)

 

You'll be fine with WOW. WOW's engine isn't complex. I find it rather weak but that was their intention from the beginning. It's meant to not require the latest and greatest so they can rake in the $$$

Don't worry. As for future-proofing the machine, 4Gig should last you until you have programs that will actually use them. A CPU upgrade is ok if you have the money lying around but otherwise yours is good.

 

Thanks all for the help. I just wanted to make sure i would be able to run WOW at the highest settings with no problem. Does anyone know what kind of FPS I should get out of this system with everything set the Max settings?

 

You should get an avg. 70-80 fps with everything maxed out.

There is a noticible difference in going from a 720qm to a 920xm, but again, if it's just for WOW you wouldn't notice much. The RAM upgrade would make even less of a noticable difference since WOW is probably only paging 1-1.2GB at most.

 

I use wow on my machine, you should be just fine.

 

I will soon become the proud owner of my first alienware with a very similar build.
Alienware M17xR2: i7-740QM | 1920x1200 RGB LED | NVIDIA GTX 285M SLI | 4 GB DDR3 1066mhz | Intel Wifi 6300 | 640x2 Raid 0 | Windows 7 Home Premium 64bit

I am unsure of my use so far, but will purchase any game that seems to catch my attention at the time. Do any of you see any clear bottlenecks that should be brought to attention?

I should add that I am extremely fortunate to receive this system as it is a replacement for my m1730 xps system that kept killing components due to overheating with original specs being: Intel x9000 - WUXGA Truelife - 4GB DDR2 - 8800 GTX SLI - 640GBx2 5400rpm - Vista Ultimate

 

Awesome, just the FPS I was hopeing for. Yes this is just for WOW at the moment. Thanks guys for the replies.

CSHawkeye how many FPS are you getting with your system? Also, for your second HDD, do you just place it in the secondary slot and that it's, or is there a process for installing a second HDD?

 

I recently bought a similar system (i7-740QM, 6GB RAM, 500GB HDD instead) although it has yet to arrive. All of the reviews and gaming benchmarks I've seen so far have been on M17x-R2s with either the 920XM or 940XM, often with some degree of overclocking or TDP unlocking. I'm trying to get an idea of what level of performance to expect out of the box. I don't play Warcrack, but I invest a fair amount of time on Borderlands, the Left 4 Dead games, Fallout 3 and New Vegas, and, when feeling masochistic, the S.T.A.L.K.E.R. games. If anyone has experience running any of these with a 720/740QM with dual 5870s, would you mind posting some performance notes?

 

Wow can be a real pain if you want to play the 25 raid format. If you want a decent FPS during heavy fights, you will need to lower your level of details or get a Hardware Beast.

with a 720 QM, I had problems during heavy fights, frame-rate dropped like hell.

The crossfire wasn't (YES ! WASN'T !!!) well managed in Wow but the new patch includes an hidden option to run it with Dx11 (-d3d11), now my 5780m Crossfire is storming the place, and ATI AMD released new application profiles (Wow DX11 is included in this new version).

I have installed a 940XM this weekend, and now, Wow is perfect, in every raid situation at high settings (some on ultra). Cataclysm Beta works right too.

I'm set for December the 7th.

 

Congrats on the upgrade! How big of a difference did you see after you installed your 940XM in FPS? So your saying with a 720QM I will not be able to run the game with all of the settings on Ultra during 25 man raids while being able to maintain atleast 30 FPS?

 

The only “bottleneck” I see is using mechanical hard drives. RAID 0 may help a little but nowhere close to SSD standards. I will have the same situation (RAID 0 750’s) when I get mine due to my desire/need to have as much of my data with me without carrying around a bunch of external drives.

 

Depends a lot,

Blizz games are known to be :

1) Great.
2) CPUdiggers.
3) Xfire and Sli reluctants.

So, I'm just saying, with a 720 QM, raiding in a 1920x1200 resolution, with a heavy modified interface was "ok" (35 FPS average, but on LK 25 HM more like 17-25 FPS , and I had to drop my settings to mid-low range.)

Now, everything is working softly in DX11 mode, ATM DX9 is not a winner. I think the 940 XM unleashed my CrossfireX and Wow DX11 handles it better too. So overall, everything is perfect.

Don't forget that Wow is 6 years old, and poorly coded. It relies a lot on the CPU, like every games back in those days.

 

Thank you for response ! I was a bit worried with my 4gb ram, but maybe that will be adequate for most situations. Even for an avid multitasker

 

+1 for Dajohu,

SSD is a great solution, with an SSD in game loading belongs to the past.

 

Did you install your new CPU yourself or did you have it done by someone else? I'm just curious how difficult that is because I believe that would probably be way over my head and I would need someone else to change it out for me. I was wondering what kind of price that might run to have a new CPU installed?

 

I did it myself.

AW systems are wonderful to handle.

 

Your system is too good to WOW the W.O.W., no?

 

hahaha, classic !!!!

 

I'm a wooo woo guy XD