New member, new purchase! (m17x howd I do?)

Hows it going guys. First off the introduction: Name is Kenny Ladd, 25 years old, and Male(you didnt expect a female on here, really did you? ).

Little tech background about me I have been building my own desktops for awhile now (since I was 11 my dad helped me build my first). And have always been partial to desktops and thought gaming laptops were simply "a joke". Well I guess as I matured I realised the benefit to them (like sitting next to the GF watching TV on the couch while still playing games ). Anyways, that pushed me into my first Gaming laptop a Asus G71 RX-05 with a 260m GTX.

Well I sold that and made my first alienware purchase. Despite my abillity to build my own things and always known to stay away from the pre-built boxes due to the cost benefit of building your own I've always wanted an Alienware laptop.. And finally got one!

Alienware M17x - R3 Nebula Red
i7 2630qm
4gb ram (will be buying my own and installing it. Undecided which to get though but will be an 8gb amount)
1920x1080 WLED screen
AMD 6970m (how is this guy performing so far? seems like a beast on the spec sheets)
Everything else I did standard.

Looking forward to it. Ordered it yesterday but the estimated delivery is the 24th =( even with next day shipping! Does it always take so long?

Anyways looking forward to staying active on this forum!

 

nice set up it'll be plenty for gaming and like you said you can always upgrade down the road

 

How does your 6970m do? Anyone have expierence with it in Rift?

 

sadly i havent received it yet edd: 5/18 ill definitely be putting it through it's paces though

 

To save yourself the headache always Google DESKTOP GTX 460 performance in any game you want, since GTX460 benchmarks are very easy to find and it's Equal to 6970m performance

 

The 6970m is a pretty great card (especially when you consider how it matches up with the GTX 485m with cost in mind).

It doesn't have quite the power of the R2s 5870s, but it more than makes up for that with not having to deal with crossfire/sli issues. It's also one less GPU that can potentially give you problems.

I'm sure you will enjoy your purchase, and it's well worth the wait!

 

Really? Benchs on this sight show it rated much higher than the 460, hence why I went with the upgrade.

 

yea isnt the 6970 supposedly 50% faster than a 460

 

It should be able to run Rift on the max settings with no problems.

 

You're confusing it with the 460m. The GTX460 desktop GPU is what he's referring to.

 

He's referring to the desktop 460

 

Oh that makes sense. Thanks!

 

An even more accurate comparison is that the 6970m = downclocked desktop 6850. And you can easily overclock it to the desktop 6850 speeds.

And as a do-it-yourselfer, I am sure you will enjoy adding in more RAM ( I added 4gb of GSkill and it works fine alongside the stock), HD's, and the wireless card (if you choose to upgrade it). That allowed me to feel like I at least had a little part in my machine's birth Will you be buying a SSD?

So far, I have read reports of people playing Rift maxed at 40fps. It runs Crysis 2 maxed pretty well, Fallout New Vegas maxed as if it's a 10 year old game, BFBC2, SC2, Bulletstorm, and Mass Effect 2 all maxed. It gets 14,000ish in 3dmark Vantage.

You made a great choice. You should call in after a week or so and complain to see if you can get it expedited.

 

Already did lol and they bumped it to expedited. But still EDD is 5/20

 

I have a 6970, specs in my sig. I can run Crysis at native res 1080p no AA all settings on high with 40 to 50 FPS. If I set everything to very high, it drops to between 27 and 30. Borderlands maxed out is smooth as butter.

It is a really powerful card, and what is fabulous about it is being able to switch to IGP and get around five hours battery life. One minute pwning online, the next on battery typing an essay. Best of both worlds if you ask me.

 

@OP, your specs are plenty for anything, and I mean it. Only thing you really have to shop for now is a bag/case/sleeve/backpack for it

Other than that, enjoy, and hopefully you get a flawless 1st machine

 

First off, welcome to NBR. Great place for info and hope you stick around. I think you did well and will be pleasantly suprised at how well the 17x R3 performs. Even coming from a desktop background.

6970 definately smokes the 460M. I think you did well on your purchase. The important thing is that your happy with it. If not, it can always be returned within 21 days of the invoice date.