New to Alienware, advice (planning on M17xR3),

Hello,

So I was planning a large rebuild of my current desktop (q6600/GTX275), however, I think I'll go for a laptop. My current HP laptop is showing it's age (Core 2 Duo, 8400m GPU, etc.).

I'll be mainly using it for Visual Studio 2010/XNA programming, 3d work, and games. Main games I like to play are Crysis, Half-Life 2, BF2 (2005), etc.

Planning on,

-Intel 2820qm CPU
-Nvidia 460 (have to have Nvidia for driver support and program compatability)
-8gm of RAM, though have considered the 16gb for particle/fluid simulations
-cheapest HDD offering for now, i do not need 256gb for the SSD, would much rather buy a smaller SSD, and i think $600 for a 256SSD is over priced,

So anyway, any advice?

I'm hoping my desktop will collect more dust once this machine is bought.

Do you think this machine will be faster than my q6600 (3ghz, G0 stepping)?

I just need Visual Studio and renders/simulations to be fast as possbile, gaming comes secondary, and an Nvidia product is a must.

As a side note, besides the peformance, I do like the look of the Alienware laptops. I know, that's not the reason to buy it, but it's a nice incentive.

 

On the ram side of things, I recommend getting the base offering from alienware then going and buying aftermarket ram from say, newegg? It can be had for much cheaper.

EDIT: Just went and configured an R3 and 8GB of ram is $250!
You can easily find 8GB of ram from newegg for under $100.

 

That's certainly an option.

 

Same thing for the hard drive - cheaper to add on more storage afterwards

 

I'm a software developer also... I'd recommend waiting for the Sata III Sandforce SSDs (SF-2000) that are coming next month. The price is supposed to be better due to the 25nm process.

 

Will be twice as fast when it comes to CPU performance. Single core probably even more

 

For the same price as that laptop you would be able to build an extreme-top-of-the-line desktop. If you are doing mostly rendering, I would strongly suggest you would go with a desktop.

[email protected] with a good GPU costs around $1500, invest in a good cooling system since it will be intensive.

 

As long as you keep the system cost below 2000 i think its still a good investment. It;s only when the system cost approaches 3000 i would suggest having a desktop to do the heavy stuff at home.

Forget the 2820qm. 2720qm is almost the same.

you could easily just upgrade the RAM+CPU+motherboard on your desktop to sandy bridge for a few hundred ($500-600?). And then get a decent M17x for around $1500-$1700USD. That would be the best option if you dont want to waste your desktop parts, the 275GTX might still be faster than the 460M.

That way you can do network renderings with the laptop and desktop. even though for smaller renderings the 2720QM will be fine. I would say a decent vray render in under 10 mins.

 

So is the consensus generally to buy the base config R3 with a 2720QM and GTX 460M for the cheapest setup? Or is the 2630QM sufficient for everything (SC2 on ultra on battlenet multiplayer)?

 

for games the 2630q should be the same as the 2720qm. For renderings the 2720 turbos to 3ghz vs 2.6ghz on all cores for the 2630 so you loose around 10-15% of performance which might be worth the $150 price difference to some people. Cinebench scores from anand saw a big dip from 2720-2630 but only a slight difference between a 2920Xm and 2720QM.

but personally i think the R3 was designed for the 100W cards such as the 6970M. so i would wait for that.

 

Any news on switchable graphics for any of the AMD/ATI gpus? That's the biggest selling point for any laptops I'm looking at. Gotta have that battery life!

 

2630QM is already outperform the 940XM (stock clock) I think it's more than sufficient with everyday gaming and rendering need.

Of course, if you want more bang for the bucks, the 2720QM is a no brainer at the moment. 2820QM only 10% faster than 2720QM.

 

Well, ATI doesnt have optimus autoswitching technology as far as i know. But i would be happy if they can be switched on and off manually.

there is a dedicated function button on the M17x for switching graphics card so im guessing that is for the ATI cards since nvidia has optimus which does it automatically.

Lets hope..........it would be stupid to not have switchable graphics with ATI cards. One of the major functions of the sandy bridge will be useless otherwise.

 

do you have any source about the 2630QM is faster than the 940XM stock?

 

Get the $1699 build and save the rest of the money for 2 things

Alienware M17x Laptop Details | Dell

1 is a SSD from this guy

http://forum.notebookreview.com/computer-components/547875-fs-trade-two-256gb-samsung-ssd.html

2nd buy my desktop bundle and update your desktop to a 5.0ghz BEAST

http://forum.notebookreview.com/com...70-asus-p8p67-pro-xfx-750w-black-edition.html

 

Yeah, I'm thinking a smaller upgrade to my desktop sometime around the same time.

As a side note, is there any data to compare these i7 2820/2720 CPUs to the q6600?

 

download cinebench 10 and do a run on your Q6600. I think it will get around 9000-10000 points. in comparison the Q2720 will get around 19000. thats multicore.

with single core the 2720 can turbo up to 3.3Ghz so it hsould beat the Q6600 handily as well

 

I agree with your CPU option but I would buy 8Gb or RAM on newegg for like $88.00 4Gb x 2 Corsair.

I would also buy a 240Gb Vertex 2 SSD for $401.00 on Amazon.com and you would have saved quite a bit of money and would have some of the best RAM and SSD out there.

 

Hope so too.