New buyers questions m17x R2 (sorry if this is all repeated)

Hi there all,

I was going to be getting a Sony_F13 but due to a situation with my F12 order being "lost" and being screwed around after that, Alienware is my best option for now (won't go into details). This will be to replace my 4 year old Alienware m9700a if anyone remembers that old thing 17" with a 1200p screen and the NV 7900 series cards, I was unlucky and got an AMD Turion 2.4GHz that pretty much fried itself just out of warranty and has had heat issues since, underclocked and volted to keep temps down for the last year or so.

With that out of the way, I'm looking at the m17x R2 as a replacement and have seen mentioned in posts a deal in the US for a free CF upgrade to dual 5870's but I haven't seen that on the UK site and from what I saw isn't on the US site anymore, just a similar offer on the m15x. I'm guessing from the either a model refresh or a GPU refresh is coming, so I was wondering if this is the case if I chose to play hardball with the Dell sales team would a better deal be likely, due to them wanting to shift stock?

I'm currently looking at a set up with the 1200p screen, a 5870 and i7-740 with the rest of the specs on standard with plans to upgrade to a Momentus XT 500GB (works out as £10 cheaper than their 500GB HDD and I get the 160GB HDD they send free pretty much, stick it in my PS3). I'd be getting it with EPP at 8% (the UK max) and pay over a year interest free financing, so unsure whether an EPP sales person is likely to budge much more than that, such as upgrading to CF for free or for relatively cheap!

I am also questioning whether the i7-740 will be a big time bottleneck in the system, as I just don't seem to have the budget to justify the specs an m17x deserves. Specced as it is with the discount it comes to a whopping £500 less than I paid for my m9700a 4 years ago lol :/ and that's cutting it tight atm. Fact is I need a replacement very soon and the build time for Alienware from ordering I figure I'd get it somewhere 2-3 weeks after ordering which should be ok (the m9700a is on it's last legs). If anyone had any buying advice on what I should be able to try eek out in a deal it'd be very helpful, wish I was in the position to spec the Alienware properly but as a student should be happy to get one in the first place!

As an aside to the advice I was asking for, coming from the Sony_F series owner lounge I've been used to a slightly more ordered forum lol, the great advice and guides on the m17x are all over the place. I was wondering if there was a proper unification post anywhere or if anyone would put one together as a sticky, nothing new just a post with links to the most useful threads/posts users have made such as the great Sept 2010 latest drivers + vbios guide thread, and the thread laying out clean installs for those that didn't know. Pretty much a one stop thread to get to the really helpful ones that might be buried in the pages on threads and may not show up with proper search terms when searching the forum.

I was also wondering if a clean install was even that necessary, do Alienware bundle much with the m17x to justify the clean install (from what I've read it may be worth it just to have the latest vbios and ATI drivers on cleanly). From my understanding since the updates the 5870's have been going a lot better and for me, any upgrade Alienware came with would be above my needs compared to the 5870's anyway apart from the fact I generally prefer NV but looking at the 4xxm series I'm not quite sure I'd want them.. 480 looks to be meltbook.. and the 470 and 460 look ok but apart from physX support I don't see it being a huge upgrade and possibly more heat. Maybe come the time of a new screen 120Hz 3D (hate 3D atm so wouldn't want it), sandy bridge, lightpeak/USB 3.0 and new GPU's 6xxx/4xx cards, all in one package the R2 with 5870's should still look great until then, or am I being simple? Anywho considering my budget all the "new" talk is futile anyway, whatever I get will be good enough for me.

Thanks to anyone who put up with reading it all, all comments would be helpful. The screen looks great by the way, but has anyone put up some calibrated screen profiles? So you could switch from the standard colours to more accurate colours? I saw someone discussing that for accuracy there should be software with a different mapping for sRGB but from what I saw with the matte EU Sony_F screen in the Adobe RGB colour space you could calibrate for accurate colour representation well with just a calibrated profile, no switching of colour spaces. Maybe I'm confused .
Thanks again.

 

Well, I'll give your questions a shot, however being that I live in the "colonies," YMMV. When ordering in the states, it NEVER hurts to call up a Dell rep and haggle prices. Most people on this forum that call up have received as much as 24% off of the retail price of the config. they are looking for. Not sure what it's like in the UK but the WORST they will say is "NO." Set a reasonable goal for yourself (15%?) and keep calling in trying to get friendlier reps. But since you already have 8% through EPP, that's better than nothing.

Your config sounds like it won't be bottlenecked by anything but the HDD. The i7 740QM plus a 5870 is a great match. You really won't see any huge difference between the other processors unless you like benchmarking or do CPU intensive tasks. You can always upgrade the CPU later with an ES CPU from ebay when your budget allows.

As for these forums, I agree that information is scattered all over, but BatBoy tries his best to keep things in place. My advice is to just use the "Search" functions and you should be fine. Actually that's just plain common sense to me...lol

Clean install isn't necessary unless you plan on installing your own SSD's. Dell's Windows 7 image is quite clean. However, I personally re-install my OS on any machine because I am a control freak and like things a certain way on my machines. It's really up to you.

As for the GTX 480M...I really don't understand why people think it will melt your laptop. Any review will state that with proper laptop cooling, these cards stay well within normal temp. ranges. This kind of hearsay and perpetuating of false info really bugs me. Now let me remind you that I'm not a fanboy and have both Nvidia and AMD cards in my home. I don't discriminate, I am just the happy consumer that enjoys 2 companies fighting for my money.

I have a Sony Z750D and must say that is probably a better screen than the RGBLED on my AW. Mainly because it's a matte screen, but the colors and brightness are just great on high-end Sony products.

Here are some other helpful links in this forum:

AW/Dell Ordering Advice.

 

Thanks for your reply .

That's good advice to try recalling for a friendlier rep, I'll definitely be doing that if needed! It's good to know that the i7 740 and the 5870 will be well matched, as far as the HDD goes it's as far as I can stretch but at least for day to day the hybrid drive will make a slight improvement.

The search function in the forum tends to miss quite a lot, so using google for NBR actually works a bit better but can be tedious especially when the information is in threads that have been around for a while as they could be well organised into one compilation or unification thread.

The info about clean installs is good, I wont bother then. With the_Sony F_series the bloatware made a clean install highly advisable, I'm glad I wont have to really bother with the m17x and I'll just put the Dell_image onto the Momentus XT.

To me, the power requirements of those cards when coupled with their heat means if you try to use a current chassis and don't improve the cooling then you'll have problems. That's not hearsay it's my own logic, to me if you have something running at 68c normally and then swap out a higher powered unit without changing the cooling then issues will come, that is assuming that Alienware would use the same cooling as the R2. When a company uses a new chassis to provide enough power and properly cool them, then ofc they are fine but that's not what I meant, my problem is when a company throws new hardware into an existing model line without properly solving any problems, like those that just throw a desktop CPU as a choice in a laptop that can't handle it when yes there are others out there that can. I don't know if you missed it but I stated I prefer Nvidia, I just see how many times companies can't be bothered with the costs of a slight redesign to allow for the new hardware. The GPU fight is very good for us all!

Very true, high end_Sony products do tend to have very nice screens, I loved the F_series screen despite the midrange GPU's they put in I did like the laptop. Getting an Alienware on the other hand I feel that I will still enjoy the screen and the performance difference will be very nice .

Thanks for the link, I've got it bookmarked now some good saving stories there for sure. I guess what's left is to get going on trying to get a good deal and see from there, explore the thread here more etc. Getting up to CF 5870 for a similar price to what I'd have now would be awesome whether that be through getting the price down and adding it or by getting it offered straight up . Thanks for your time .

 

Hey, no problem.

As for the 480M, I'll just say this. The laptops that "currently" offer this video card are capable of running it within normal ranges. I'm talking about Clevo laptops. Obviously the AW really doesn't have what it takes to run it. We'll have to wait for the R3's to arrive before we can think of the new Nvidia cards.

 

i7 740Qm bottleneck? For what, running simulations of complex models 24/7?

Heat is fine, neither the graphic cards or the CPU ever goes above 80 C on mine. They are usually in mid 70ies when gaming.

I tried several color profiles for RGB screen and neither looked good so I reverted back to the default (which looks really good, except for red color 'bleed').

I didn't do Win7 reinstall, I think I maybe just remove some crap like McAfee and it was fine. If you want a real speed boost and are on the budget, just get an extra small (~60GB or so) SSD as your other drive.

Btw, if you already own m17x-r2 (your sig) why are you asking all this?

 

Uhm, are you asking me? Or the OP. I'm confused. OP hasn't purchased his machine yet.

 

@iclicku: I agree with you on both points, that is assuming the R3 is properly changed to handle them.

@unreal25: Thanks for the info on temps and the display, seems like default it may be . An SSD will likely come in time, larger than 60GB and will be the boot drive demoting the Momentus XT to storage drive, but that's down the line. About my sig, I have none.. and so I guess you thought iclicku was the OP? I the OP plan to order an m17x in the next few days hence the questions .

 

When I was wondering about a unification post I meant what is pretty much provided here link. .

 

Hello there, this is my first post and I have an alienware M17x R2 for 8 days now

I am in the UK and did the deal over the phone which took a few days to iron out, them ringing me back trying to get the deal etc.

I got around 20% off, not the best but something i was happy with.