*OFFICIAL* Alienware M17x Owners Lounge - Part 2

I rarely use hybrid myself. Can't speak for others.

 

^^^Ok so im not assuming things. The machine will still run with the 9400 when its unplugged correct? I thought Hybrid was being able to use both cards at different times? What will the ATI version not being able to do?

 

Hybrid means, it should be one or the other, not both at the same time. I don't know if you can run both cards at the same time. It's like saying the PRIUS is using gas and electric at the same time? I think he is confusing everyone. I think i'm confuse too.

From my knowledge 9400 is for simple tasking that does not require a powerful GPU. And using the Crossfire for those intense games. I'm i missing anything?

 

Yes Hybrid means all GPUs are active. You can even see it in device manager

from nVidia

Turning off hybrid in the bios and keeping integrated enabled will only use the 9400M. Disabling hybrid and integrated means you are running only the 280/260s.

 

Thanks fior the clarification guys. Obviously it would be better to not have them all running at the same time. So with the ATIs this wouldnt be possible is what you're saying? Thats a lot of heat right?

 

Alright so i have two questions.
First, what is a good laptop cooler for this laptop and yes i knwo id doesnt need a cooler but i mostly want it to slant it up abit.

Second if anyone has played aion have you noticed split second stuttering even though u run at high fps. i looked online and people said it could be the drivers are new, there was the same probs with some others using diff gpu's

 

We'll find out exactly what it's capable of when we get it.

 

Zalman ZM-NC2000

Good quality.

 

Mandrake, yours should be arriving tomorrow right?

 

Bad news, the delay is real. I received and email last night from Dell moving my EDD from today until the 22nd. I hope Dell can start fulfilling these orders soon. Has anyone received theirs with the 4870's?

 

Any harm in enabling VT-x on the Bios? I'm wondering why it doesn't come on by default.

 

I just recently bought a new M17x, it has a small 160GB HDD and I was going to see what everyone thought. Should I put a second 160 in and do a RAID 0 or just get a larger HDD and now worry about the raid. Do you really see a difference with raid?

 

No I'm still in build

 

You would need it if you did 64bit vm

 

Which is what I thought, but apparently you also need it even for 32-bit VM if you want multi-core support. Anyway, all is enabled and now I'm enjoying all my cores on my Ubuntu and Solaris

 

So there is somewhat of a delay then. Btw, there is someone on youtube who claims to have one with a single 4870. People (including myself) are asking him to put up benches if possible.

 

@ Matt4541: where did you find one with a 160 gig harddrive? I thought the lowest you could go stock, non-ssd, non-10K spin was 250? I would get another 160 for sure and Raid 0 them. The performance boost is supposed to be quite noticable for file operations and picking up a second 160 will be cheap.

 

It was on eBay new still in the box. I was also wondering about the same thing about the HDD size. The guy basically just did a look up on the service tag and wrote the ebay listing. I should be getting it in the next couple of days so ill see if it was a typo. I thought the smallest was a 250 as well. Yea I already looked at tiger direct and a 160 is around $50 so thats what ill prolly end up doing. I just didnt know if anyone had trouble with them overheating or crashing.

 

Is it the old 4870s from asus or the new 4870s?

 

I cant say for certain, on his description he claims to have bought the system on 9/15/09.

 

Question for you all,

I've been trying to contact Dell for an status update "but all of their systems are down", it's been like this for 2 days. I'm up in Canada, is there a "back door order status" phone number like what was posted previously in this post? (I've tried my order number on that line, but it doesn't work).

Thanks!

 

Hey guys just a query (yes its me again =P) When I try and open Alienware FX and go to touch I get a message saying "value does not fall within the expected range" and then it closes the program. Not only that but when I plug in my mouse now it doesnt shut off my touchpad I have to do that automatically, anyone else having the same issue?

 

That date wont fly. Cause I ordered my previous m17x on that day which did not have the ATi option. The Ati's were present the day of or after the Tokyo Game Show announcement of the new alienware systems.. Which i end up sendind back the m17x for the new ATi config, which now i am waiting for.

 

Nvm, finally got ahold of Dell, their saying estimated ship date is Oct 27, order was placed on Sept 25. Balls!. The shipping delay combined with a two month stint with my m1730 means I've been without for 3 months..

That ATI card better be worth the friggen wait.

 

The delay was in the beginning as you know. I just went into build 3 days ago so this should be moving now.

 

Right, but werent they suppose to ship out your system today? Thats what I was refering to.

 

Go to start, run, "msconfig", startup, make sure that the synaptics driver is loading at startup, it is needed for Alien Touch to work

 

Actually tomorrow but the early delay just pushes everything back. I'm not worried since it has moved.

 

can't wait.

i'm icthing for both of us.


thanks QUADZILLA

 

about dam time Donda haha, time to bench the bejesus out of it now

 

I'll ask it again since it caused confusion the first time around: what is your guys' stance on the ATI cards and the discrete 9400? You recall the article posted several pages back about nVidia coding the 9400 to not work if ATI products are present on the circuit, so that means Hybrid graphics are a no-go.

My question is this: you are banking on the 4870's being so much better than the 280's that you needn't worry about using the 9400's while they're on?

 

you don.'t need to tell me that. Lol

 

I sense some heavy competition soon.

Hybrid SLI gives very little benefit IMO. The added heat is a huge negative for me not to mention the mass confusion it causes for people not used to it. As long as we can run one or the other I think people won't care. What big advantage do you see with Hybrid SLI?

 

The 9400m adds 0 performance to the GTX 280m's really....it is just there so that you can switch them off and run on just the 9400m for battery.

But yes, the 4870's should soundly outperform the GTX 280m's with little trouble in doing so. If overclocked, there is really nothing keeping the 4870's in the M17x from approaching the performance of a desktop 4870x2.

At stock speeds the speed of the GTX 280m SLI is about on par with a desktop 4890/GTX 275

 

we'll see. You and scook9 are pretty good.


scook run some benchmarks with your desktop single card and hyperthreading disabled to get some real results.

 

I like to keep it real

 

I just bought the HTC Hero. I'll put it up against your pre.

 

The only advantage I see is going to remote mode or just doing 2d work, so you have the 9400 there just in case. But, it's obviously not necessary. I thought it was important to remind people that the two brand products won't work in synch. I'm not biased one way or the other, I'm honestly just hesitant about going ATI as I've been a loyal nVidia fan for 10 years, and thus far in the mobile computing world been given nothing but crap performance. So, I'm really trying to find out from more experienced users here if they think jumping on the ATI cards this time around is worth it in leaps and bounds - that's all the conviction I need. nVidia's blatant lying to proprietary brands (HP, Dell) about cards and core fiascos (g84,g86,g92) really don't make me wanna' stay nVidia, so I'm merely looking for that last extra push in ATi's direction is all

 

I thought you were pushing Hybrid SLI as a necessity. ALL my gaming systems have been nVidia. The only ATI systems I've owned are my Thinkpads. I'm not worried one bit. If I don't like it then return it or sell it.

 

done what you got?

I overclocked my CPU from 500 to 550mhz

 

lol! I haven't even setup my voice mail yet. I've been looking for an Android app for Sirius and Etrade.

On topic: How long before you take apart your system and start analyzing ways to get it cooler? Would be nice if the chipset dropped 10-15 degrees.

 

I expect the ATI GPUs to push 15k vantage scores

This will be a new level of performance I think for notebooks, and Nvidia is going to get left in the dust

 

I'd guess closer to 13K. 15K is too big of a jump.

 

is it?! What does a desktop 4870x2 get? That is what you should be able to match (only need Mem clocked at 1000 MHz and Core at 750 MHz)

 

Ah yes this could be it! Cheers mate and thanks for letting me know.

 

Oh god I hope so!

 

if it can OC to the desktop 4870 speeds, it will hands down crush the GTX 280m's

 

Fixed it mate. Cheers for that

 

lol I would try to see what's up. I hope it will be easy.

I will talk about the 9400m I am just waiting to get home.

 

it is pretty hard to get to Don, you may have to just settle with good thermal paste, you know I already looked into it haha