New owner, Impressed so far.

So i just bought an M17x-r2. Stats are:
i7 620m
4GB DDR3
5870 CF
250 HDD (7200 RMP)
1440x900 screen.

Had to keep the cost low, but knew I at least needed the CF. So far I'm impressed with the machine. Small package, but it's performing as well as my 1.5 year old desktop that I built for gaming.

It's kind of funny actually, this machine is almost the exact equivalent(actually a little faster in some respects) of my desktop with these specs:
E8500 Core 2 duo at 3.16
GTX275 x 2 in SLI
4GB DDR2 RAM

So for anyone that is wondering how well these do, there is a good comparison. Granted that E8500 is easily overclockable and gives me better scores and frames if I do overclock it, but stock vs stock they are very near identical. That is a pretty damn amazing Laptop.

So far so good. If Dell gets on the drivers like they say they are going to, it will be a happy relationship.

In closing, hello everyone. This board is pretty awesome, btw.

 

something is wrong if your M17x is almost exactly equivalent to two 275s and a E8500. it's a Capable computer for sure, but your Desktop has twice the hardware power.

 

Nope, nothing is wrong with my desktop. I am a hardware/network tech for a living. I know how to set up a computer. As a matter of fact, my setup runs faster than my friends' setup which is exactly the same parts, down to the manufacturers.

The comparison is sound. I bench 15-28k in 3dmark 06 depending on the clocks I set for my CPU and video cards. I did this comparison on all stock clocks for both:
Desktop:
3.16 @ 9.0X1333
Video cards:
648 GPU
1440 Memory

Windows is also all kinds of tweaked on my desktop. Also on my M17x now, so it is benching 16k stock with just windows tweaks.

 

I'm probally just not familiar with the performance of an E8500 enough then.. because a single 275 should be matching what CF 5870s do, and SLI 275s should be significantly better after looking at benchmarks with those cards on i920 processors, and those were from a year ago, so I couldn't say how much driver improvements have added. From a Hardware standpoint, your desktop has twice the number of shader core power.

 

One reason the benches on the M7x are so high is probably because of the resolution. Default resolution on 3DMark06 is 1280x1024 and your M17x screen is 900. Glad your enjoying it thus far. M17x is a great laptop.

 

I didn't even notice that, I forget what the 620 clocks up to when more both cores are active, but I would assume it's lower than 3.16ghz

 

Yep, you hit the nail on the head. My e8500 is the bottleneck on my desktop. I would have to replace my MBD, CPU and RAM to upgrade though, and i wanted something more portable. That is why i went with the m17x, because in all honesty, it plays everything on high just fine anyway, just like my desktop.

One GTX275 won't preform quite as well as the Crossfire 5870 M though. The 5870 M CF is *almost*" as good as a single 5870 Desktop card. The 5870 Desktop card pretty much blows away the GTX275 desktop card.

I just figured I would give people a good comparison, because it was funny to me that it was so close. Even in Age of Conan, with full settings, full DX10 at 1920x1080 I was getting the same FPS on both machines.

 

Both benches were done running off my monitor which is 1920x1080. So both benches ran at 1280x1024 .

If i remember right when they are both active they clock up to 3.2. Whatever the case though the i7 beat the e8500 in benchmark scores by roughly 800 points. I can't remember exact numbers and I'm at work.

 

oh yes, when its working, it's definitally fun to play on.

 

Yeah, sorry to hear you are having issues. Hope you get them taken care of.