Performance Gains in R1

I'm currently debating my next move in terms of what I want for my m17x. I was considering over the last week (pre recall) that I might sell my R1, and use it along with some cash to buy an R3, but don't know if that's going to be the best use of money.

My question to everyone is, what would you do in my situation? I want to get the biggest upgrade for the lowest price. I understand that this might be a lofty question, but I'm looking to stick with Alienware - if I found the right computer for the right price via another vendor, I could consider.

I am currently on the go a lot, and need a desktop replacement as a result. Would my money be better spent upgrading my processor to a QX9200 (ES, trying to be frugal), upgrade my video card (perhaps SLI 260s, or another card all together), or research another system (icore m15x?). I might be interested in an R2 as well, if I could get one for a reasonable price after selling my R1.

I will be using this as my sole computer until at least summer, so I'd like to get the most out of it. I play Source engine games regularly, but also want to future proof myself a bit (Dead Space 2 makes my computer a bit unhappy fully maxed out).

 

Go to the dell outlet and look at m17x r-2 they are very cheap

 

I've looked every single day, but today seems to be the first time that there's been an icore m17x in the store. Wonder if I've just been blindly clicking..

 

M17x-R2

Make sure you've got the i core and M17x-R2 boxes checked. Buy an ES 920XM and another 5870 and you're rockin'! Or they've got 285M SLI for $1,900-ish.

 

Based on your sig you could do with a few good upgrades to your existing system. First start with a QX9300 @ 2.53ghz on all four cores, dual GTX 280/285m's, 8gb RAM, a couple SSD's, and 6300 Ult.wifi. You have a beast right in front of you and you don't even know it

Not only will this maxx out your system but it will improve it's overall resale value, just my .02

 

I was gonna say that too, but then I checked the price of the QX9300s on eBay. Are the 280Ms better than a pair of 4870s?

 

The QX9300 is a beast, I miss mine The 280's no, but the 285m's are a bit better than the 4870's.

I only mentioned the 280/285's seeing that he already had a single 260, but even a pair of 4870's would be a drastic improvement in graphics quality. dual 280/85's or 4870's over a single 260 lol!

 

Just a thought but the 285m's would fit in an R1 or you can flash the 280m's bios to achieve 285m's performance.

 

I'm not willing to spend 500 dollars on a QX9300 - that's probably what I'd be willing to put into my R1 total. Seems more logical to me. A 9200 would be a more likely purchase, and maybe an additional GPU.

Also after thinking about it, I'm looking for DX11 support. So, it may just be more prudent to pony up the money for an R2. For example, this m17x has a 5870, a 1900x1200 display, and an i5. I could slowly upgrade components (920XM, additional 5870), or I could even just spend a bit more on a system that already has the graphics cards. Seems like a bigger hassle trying to find a slave card/heatsink/fan on ebay versus a processor (which is just a swap). Does the GDDR3 GTX285m support DX11?

The other option that I thought about which might be cheaper would be an m15x with an i3, then upgrade it to an i7 - but, I'm not sure if the socket is even compatible.

 

i was just merely offering some insight into the beast that you currently own.

Yea $500 is alot of money, but the QX9300 is no slouch of a CPU take it from me (sig). I only mentioned it as a final CPU upgrade for your existing R1, which is "logical".

DX11 is a nice option but how many games are DX11?

My point is, to encourage you to fully maximize what you have (as you have clearly not done that yet!) and save yourself some bread (R2 $1400 est.).

you can also fully max out the system and sell it

 

The Q9200 that the OP wants will overclock past 3ghz with throttlestop, there wont be much of a difference between that and the QX9300 unless you're a bencher. As long as you get a CPU with the same stepping as the QX9300, it should be great.


BTW why is your QX9300 running at 2.53ghz? If I had one I would overclock it...

 

My advice... if you want to save all the money you can, then go for a Q9200, I saw in TS thread that CPU can overclock as high as a QX9300 so there will be a huge performance jump coming from your actual CPU. And later get another GTX 260M and a SLI cable. And thats it, you have a 2 years prove machine due to thats the time current consoles generation are going to last (Xbox360, PS3).

Then I think the M18X is going to be best choice. The R2 is just what it is... R2 is not going to become better, there will probably no be more CPU/GPU upgrades avaliable for the R2. Always get the new stuff. M18X will have the new intel's CPUs and who knows SLI 485M/580M?.

So save your money for it.

 

I can vouch for the Q9200, It can run at 3.33 all day and never break 80c (BFBC2 has been the only exception so far) . I've had it as high as 3.733 for benchmarking (it might even go higher, I was too afraid to try). It's a little more vcore hungry than the QX9300, but other than that, it's an awesome CPU.

here is proof of my claims.


By null at 2010-12-27

 

QX9200 is looking more and more attractive given what I have to work with. I will have to read up further on Throttlestop in the meantime, as I haven't really looked into it.

Is there a GTX260M slave, or is the same card usable in both slots? In terms of DX11 though, I'd make use of it in Civ 5, LP2, and Stalker. Would be nice to future proof myself though - but, I realize I'm contradicting myself given that I'd like this computer only to last me until summer.

 

TS is a pretty simple tool to use. It has some advanced features for the I7 cpu's, but it's pretty straight foward for the core 2's. Also, if you do get a Q9200, make sure you buy it from laptopmonkey on ebay. The ones he has are legit. All of them are rev. E0. here's a link.

INTEL CORE QUAD Q9200 2.40GHZ- QAVR - better than Q9100 - eBay (item 130473511452 end time Feb-08-11 09:50:07 PST)

 

Yep, was already planning on laptopmonkey. Everyone on NBR has been using his chips, so no need to look elsewhere.

 

Are you using some extra cooler for your laptop? to get 3.7 GHz?

 

no. it will run at that speed with stock cooling and the back lifted up about an inch, but the temps get really high and i have to push the vcore well beyond what's considered safe. I only did it that one time just to see what kind of vantage score I could get. For 24/7 use, [email protected] seems to be ok. 3.5 might even be ok as well, but mine requires 1.4v to do it and that's right at the limit of the highest recommended vcore for 45nm chips.

upping the vcore can reduce the life of the CPU, but as long as you're keeping it under 1.4v and your temps dont get bad (low-mid 80's tops) I think you can generally expect them to last a bit longer than you'll have your computer (5+ years).

Also, with TS you can set profiles with different multi/vcore. I run mine at [email protected] for just about anything other than games and with just one button click I can have it running at 3.33ghz

 

How are you testing stability? I think you are using a bit too high VID thats not even required. For example I get totally stable 3.33 GHz @ 1.2375 V.. But if I test stability using Prime95, it detects error... but I really don't care about prime95, so I test my clocks stability usin the PS2 emulator PCSX2, if the VID is too low, than PCSX2 just crash, and if PCSX2 doesn't crash than any other app. will work, thas my experience.

 

From what i've read on here, it seems as though the qx9300 isn't near as vcore hungry. If i attempt to set the vcore below [email protected] i immediately blue-screen. I thought i was good at 1.325 for a while, but i discovered that BFBC2 would eventually make it BSOD. I'm fine with running it at 1.3375, my temps aren't bad, SC2 and Wow only get one core into the 70's. Plus, i only run at that speed when im gaming. The rest of the time, i have it undervolted. If i ever start to notice any degradation, I'll back off a bit.

 

Out of curiosity, how high are you able to get before breaking 1.4v? (assuming you've tried)

 

Still looking for some clarification this if anyone has information !

 

it's the heatsink and SLi cable you'll be more interested in!
I'll advise you if you come to buy a second one try your best to buy it with both heatsink and SLi cable as they are pretty rare,people have been spending weeks if not months to try and find a SLi cable for the m17x.Dell won't sell you one without the card!

cheers

 

Naturally. Just curious if it's a master/slave, or if that's exclusive to AMD cards. I've seen many more sets of 4870s with heatsinks and crossfire cables, so that might be a better route if I can't find a secondary 260m and cable.

 

for the 260Ms you can put whichever card in the second slot it will work just fine. there are a few on eBay with both heatsink and cable but if i were you i'd go for eighter the 280Ms or the 4870s.

 

I might check on NBR for either. Could probably swing a good deal - thanks for the info!

 

I'd suggest trying to find another GTX 260m for SLI. YOu'd see the most performance boost out of that.

 

Even over an overclocked QX9200?

 

I haven't tried yet... 3.33 @ 1.2375 V is the highest I tried. I will try one of these days and I will let you know.

 

Depends about the game. Some games which are CPU intensive will take advantage from the overclocked Q9200 and some other games which are GPU intensive and are optimized for SLI are going to take advange from the other GTX 260M.

 

Naturally. I'll have to weigh the options - not all the games I play can take advantage of SLI, and not all will take advantage of the overclocked CPU. I appreciate the insight!

 

Luminair,

CPU speed will help your SLi configuration scale better. I mean, aside from 3dMark06, in these benchmarks, the difference isn't too evident, but you'll notice the dual cards working more fluently with a fast CPU. This benefit will become even more prominent if you switch to ATi cards as they scale even better with a faster CPU. Refer to the FarCry 2 benchmarks done by Don in the M17X benchmark thread to get an even better idea of what I'm talking about.

I think for starters, you could use another GPU as that will give you the largest performance gain. I'd personally up the configuration with a pair of 280s or 4870s just for the extra edge. Secondly, I would go for a QX9300 or 9200 for the double-benefit of faster clock speed for the dual-GPU scaling and a quad-core architecture for those few CPU-intensive titles.

DX11 with these rigs -- R2 included -- is a pointless gimmick at this time. You might as well just wait and go for something like the much speculated M18X, which'll most likely have the kind of cards that'll match desktop DX11 potential.

 

Tried 280m's vs. 260m's: 260's oc'd & performed better. Resold the 280's. Now the 285's are another deal...

 

The only game I'm really playing often at this point with DX11 is Lost Planet 2. I'm in talks with someone to get a second GTX260M, and Laptopmonkey has a couple Q9200's that he offered me at 258. Probably going to get all of the above!

 

Actually, the 285m is exactly the same card as the 280m, but with a slightly higher clock and an extra 0.1v. The only reason the 260s overclock slightly higher is due to the lower sader count and power requirement. Any shader-intensive game will show a very small edge going in favour of the 280m.

 

Thanks Kade...good info. I got noticeably better OCing out of a 285m I tested..prob due to the higher voltage.

 

That's true more juice = better stability!

 

Of course, I could OC my 280s to hell and back with a decent voltage bump. Also, do keep in mind that all cards aren't created equally. My original 280s weren't great for overclocking, but my replacement units actually overclock slightly better with an undervolt.