*OFFICIAL* "All Powerful" M17x-R2 Edition Owner's Lounge - Part 2

By Fermi, I think you mean Quadro. And yes, they are often the exact same hardware (in mobile space, in desktop world the frame buffers are always larger on quadros)

The vbios is not less optimized, just a different device ID really....the main difference is the drivers. The drivers are insanely well optimized for Quadros for professional applications and the support is literally 1-2 day turnaround for driver fixes with a personal rep assigned to help you (not an idiot).

For gaming, there is no point in messing with it - geforce has more optimizations than quadro. If you do professional apps and want to save about $1-2k, then you may consider flashing the vbios to allow the installing of the quadro drivers.

 

Yea sorry i'm multitasking here doing some programming for school, and checking up on the forums (its like an addiction sometimes...lol) and got Quadro n fermi mixed up :s. My badd

Ok so its the drivers that are insanely optimized for pro apps... gotcha.

SO basically if you're not using those pro apps... will a quadro card ORR a geforce card with the same hardware specs preform better while playing a game?

If i understood what you wrote correctly, geforce would still perform better on games? and poorly on those professional apps?

Thanks for clearing that up bro... i've always wondered about Quadro cards... but man oh man do you pay a premium for those drivers... Sheesh... some Quadro cards go up to 5K ++

 

I think the geforce drivers are included in the quadro drivers, so gaming with them works just fine - I would not say better though. Often quadro cards are clocked lower than comparable desktop cards (they will have the same physical GPU). One place where geforce and quadro may differ significantly for games is SLI support.

You can use the geforce cards in professional apps and they will run decently but they will give you more glitches/artifacts in your image as they lack the optimizations. The quadro card will also be faster. More than the drivers, you pay for the support - like if a program is not working right, you call them and the next day you have a customized driver for that program.

 

Thats awesome. I finally understand the difference between Quadro n Geforce FULLY. Thanks bro... ill be sure to rep you again when i can

 

The long and short of it is, if you don't know if you need a quadro card, you don't haha

The price should be indicative of that

Although you can often find MXM quadro cards at decent prices compared to the geforce equivalent (at least was the case for MXM 2, with MXM 3 they are expensive again)

 

Yea i don't plan on doing any 3d modeling/rendering anytime soon LOL...

Can't wait to get my M17x ... i'm supposedly getting it tomorrow (can't go too much in detail... that should be done in another thread )

 

Update your sig? What's the surprise?

 

only time will tell (nothin too fancy, but an upgrade none-the-less )

 

He is getting his M15x swapped for an M17x by Dell. He can say that, he is just not supposed to talk about how/why it happened.

 

Ye, I know.

Let me guess. CF X870? Anyways, gratz.

 

Poor him....will have to pay for the 2nd card lol

 

Lmao... hey i'm a university student ok! loll...paying my own schooling+car+all the other crap i got to pay for! Working only 2 nights a week.. some would say it's a miracle i can even afford a laptop like this . Good thing my job pays well

So yea, poor me

lolll... but in all seriousness...i doubt you all care about my bills/issues...

point is... yes i will have to purchase the 2nd card (i'm not THATT good lol)

but im still debating...what would you guys do:

a 2nd 5870m.... OR a 920 .... same price (give or take 20$).. i can only afford one of them right now...

 

definitely the second 5870m

just wait on the 920 since the 940 will come down in price too, might as well get the faster chip

and I got my monster as well as my desktop while in college (although my income was all disposable - and I worked at MiroCenter haha)

 

scook9, you and I have almost identical desktops, lol

 

It is nice aint it?!

I finally got mine to a point where I can leave it alone and stop throwing money at it lol........(the ssd and the 2nd 5870 were the finishing touches)

Playing games on it also kind of made me realize that I have NO need for my laptop really. That has helped to keep me in control though because I am now perfectly happy with my laptop as well. So...for the first time in about 2 years......I have no desire to buy new computer parts!

lol

 

Jstarnino: GET the 5870m trust me i should have like 4-5 of those 920xm chips here within couple weeks that we talked about at a solid price. Dell is giving a pretty fair deal on that setup for you and get it since you will need heatsink, cable, fan, and card. The 920xm is $380-$400 all day long and plenty of stock available. The 5870m on the other hand ordering aftermarket from tech support i heard is back ordered forever lolz. JUST DO IT...INAP

 

lol....

I just realized I am not there, yet. I still want a power system, yet one that isn't noisey during normal use... all signs point at the m17x!

I think the 3 GentleTyphoons in my desktop are noisey, and that's been really bothering me since I got my m11x... (second one is on it's way). If I turn the fans down to about 80%, the system is "less" of a windtunnel. Unfortuneately, the brilliance of ASUS allowed the NB HSF to be a teeny contraption, which doesn't work well with a hot X58 under it Once I turn the fans down, the thing will spike to about 70C-80C under gaming (two GPUs require a lot of PCIe lanes to drive, ), and I just don't feel safe with that.


/end before I start spilling my life into NBR.

 

My x58 gets plenty hot as well. I replaced the dinky fins heatsink with a swiftech block that has the same mounts but the bottom part with the heatpipe is still there (did not want to abandon the mosfets up by the cpu after all) so my northbridge is not optimally cooled but acceptable

I have 5 GTs but control the front 4 (Push pull on each 120mm rad) with the Asus QFAN stuff. I just set it to standard and it is ALOT quieter than full speed. My front rads are much tighter fin spacing than the 3rd 120mm rad in the back (thus it only has 1 GT on it) and that makes more noise as air passes through

If you want some loud fans, get scythe s-flex g fans lol (had 5 of them before I watercooled) they are LOUD (despite the ads saying otherwise)

 

Okay

Thank you very much!

 

I want to overclock my 920xm for more overall performance in the bios there are 3 areas for change I know I can go 5% but what about the other 2 setting

 

Just got an alienware TactX keyboard today and it is surprisingly easy to type on. The space bar is so loud though

 

Any deal on those? I sold mine a while ago along with my desktop and I've been wanting it again. $100 is kind of steep for a non-mechanical keyboard.

 

I got it %10 off with some random dell coupon on accessories

That was good enough for me haha

 

May be one of their salesman can help, although I doubt they'd work with me for a keyboard, lol.

 

I just wanted something wired and backlit. It feels smaller than my MX 5500 but is the same as all of the logitech G keyboards so guess it is acceptable

 

New issue for me during the latest three days. Random blue screens appear under heavy load (like when playing games) when i use any of my two OCZ vertex ssds. Also after new win7 installation when i install the intel rapid storage then windows never start.

Nothing of the above occurs when i installed win7 on the default hdd (WD scorpio) with or without intel rapid storage.

It looks like my ssds are mulfuctioning right?

 

Regarding the Quadros, I think I remember they're actually NOT identical this time. Like they have more hardware that can do full 64-bit precision than the normal cards can. At least on the redesigned normal ones, only 1/3 the cores can do 64-bit precision if I'm remembering right-basically they traded precision for more execution hardware on the consumer refresh. And then they artificially halve the performance on the remaining 1/3? So I don't know, maybe the Quadros could be 6x faster with the same number of cores? (With double precision math that is.)

I want a GTX 460 or better offered in an M15/17x! And no weird throttling Dell! If they were offering that, or I had a firm date on when they would, I'd for sure not accept delivery on my new G73jw...

 

For reference, I called 1-800-ALIENWARE to get a replacement 4870 sent out and was properly routed so it looks like that works for us now

 

any opinions for my issue please?

 

Try the ssds in another computer to establish that they are working. It is most likely software related though

 

this configuration (+ software), especially the intel rapid storage was working for months. Didnt install something new! Thus i install exactly the same stuff on the hdd. Now no matter the around 5 new win7 installations i get no boot (when installing IRS) and random blue screens when i dont (under heavy load)

the blue screen has different errors each time.

Looks like intel rapid storage controller destroyed the Ocz vertex ssds

scook how do explain that after fresh format when i install the IRS (i have installed only the chipset driver) i get no boot every time? solution in this case is only a new format. if i do the same thing i get no boot again.

This never happened before till now.

 

Well there is a reason I said to try them in a different machine...

 

ok i have a powerless netbook and a desktop ( i wont open this thing to instal the ssd).

so what if it works or not?

I believe it has bad flash parts on it.

 

make sure you have the latest firmware, perform a secure erase on the SSD using the desktop or laptop but need to do a hotswap on the laptop for it to work and while you are at it partition the drive and read up on how to setup the partition for alignment. THis will restore all drive performance and then use windows 7 disc to reinstall as this will keep the drive in alignment.

 

i have the latest firmware for OCZ vertex which is the version 1.6. thus i run sanitary eraser (a tool for ocz vertex) which cleans everything on the drive.

the only thing i could try is to reinstall the firmware but this is really a pain and have to reformat after that.

well i have seen many issues with ocz vertex series on the web as well.

google + keyword: ocz vertex random blue screen


Finally as i said they always worked and its not a matter of the firmware. Anyway thank you for the advice.

 

Hey guys, i got another quick question to spark things up in here

Ok so my M17x is going to come with 1 5870m in it, and i'm 90% sure i will be ordering a second 5870m right after i receive it.

Now my question is, as i never had a CF or SLI gaming system...

I know i gotta set up them up to run in CF, and i'm sure it's nothing difficult... but as i said i never did this before so is there anything special to do or look out for?

I know from my overclocking days that two cards running in CF have diffrent vbios' flashed... and are not identical... but will Dell take care of this for me, or do i got to set this up? I'm completely new to this whole Cf set-up thing.

 

You are going to order it from Dell right? It'll come with a slave bios and the CF cable. All you'll need to do is install it in, connect the CF cable and you're good to go.

 

sweet thanks.

 

ok i installed the ssd firmware again. I managed to make it work with intel rapid storage technology driver.

I still get random blue screens with different errors each time and i still get slow downs in games till i get blue screen.

The ssd is probably the fault. Even some faults regarding ati must be due to disk errors.

 

then get it rma'd

 

ok i found the reason for the blue screens and it was not the ssds. It was the ram setting in bios. I my case and hyperx it must be set to 1.6V in bios to run smootly otherwise the machine doesnt have enough power or something resulting in the really hard situation i was for three days now.

Of course i knew it should be there but i cant remember how it was set to default (1.5V). Maybe i ve done it and i cant remember when. And finally i saw this by luck trying to see something else in bios. Otherwise i would still trying to find the reason for all this.

Finally so far so good. The fact is i sent one of my ssds for replacement. Even they are going to send it back as fully working or they will put the money on my account to buy another one.

 

Glad you got it figured out. Odd though, my HyperX is at 1.5V and happy as could be

 

dont know! it was like that since i got them. Even though the specs actually say they run at 1.5V as i can see from the official manufacturer datasheet below
http://www.valueram.com/datasheets/KHX1333C7S3K2_4G.pdf

it can range ± 0.0075 V. maybe mine is just over 1.5 then because (when set at 1.5V) i can use the machine under normal conditions (browsing etc) but getting bsod when doing intensive work like gaming (after playing for a while).

 

Hey Aristotelhs2060 PM me please!

 

pm you about what?

 

Maybe wants to take you out for dinner

 

^^^^^ ahahahah ... Nice

So my order just shipped. Can wait to get it

 

What you getting a M17x R2 ?.

 

Yup Should be fun

 

congratz mate, you'll enjoy it immensely