Preformace questions.

Just ordered my m17x andam curious on the preformace i should be expecting with and without overclocking stats are as follows
Intel Core i7 2720QM 2.2GHz (3.3GHz Turbo Mode, 6MB Cache)
17.3-inch WideFHD1920 x 1080 60Hz WLED
2GB GDDR5 AMD Radeon HD 6970M
320GB 7,200RPM SATA-II HDD
i will be primarily gaming, shogun 2, homefront etc, anything that interest me really. Also newb question does r1 r2 r3 mean....i read it here constantly but truly have no idea

 

What i want to ensure is that this build will be able to handle these games and future games easily. Im not familiar with overclocking so i am curious about preformance with and without. if anyone can help it will be greatly appreciated

 

anyone? really want to make sure my machine can handle games i throw at it well before i recieve it.

 

Yes it's powerful. Although graphics wise not as strong as the R2, but the CPU and other parts are better.

R1,R2 and R3 rever to the Revision Models of the M17X, general rule of thumb is the later the revision the better it is overall.

 

Your system will handle gaming fine. If you want to review benchmarks, check out the benchmarks thread here in the 17x forum. Review the following threads -
http://forum.notebookreview.com/alienware-m17x/560044-m17x-r3-overclocking-sort.html
http://forum.notebookreview.com/ali...alienware-m17x-benchmark-thread-part-4-a.html
http://forum.notebookreview.com/ali...ntly-asked-questions-read-before-posting.html

As for R x... Think of it as 'Release'.

R1 had a Core 2 Duo CPU along with SLI or Crossfire.
R2 had the i-series CPU with single or dual GPU.
R3 is the Sandybridge with a single GPU.

Dont worry - your system will be fine for gaming.

 

As BatBoy said you're just fine for gaming, honestly the only 2 things this rig can't handle even at stock settings is Crysis and Metro 2033 on absolute maximum settings. A lot of the games I play are playable at Medium settings with the IGP and the 6970m blows the IGP out of the water. You'll be good for quite some time especially with the way PC games are going.

 

Hey Dane, since you have had both the 460 and 6970, is there a noticible difference practically?

 

And this is most likely because of the need for slightly more graphics horse power.

 

There is a huge difference between 460m and 6970m, around 70% increase in performance overall.

Benchmarks for 6970m: AMD Radeon HD 6970M - Notebookcheck.net Tech
Benchmarks for 460m: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 460M - Notebookcheck.net Tech

In some of the charts, you will see how they rank in performance.

 

Yea, OK, bit disssapointing that there is such a large difference, but i sorta knew that when i went down the 460 route.

On the plus side, there is always the 485 when the 3d issues are sorted out, on the downside, the cost is gonna hurt......

EDIT: Was also keen to see what the REAL world difference is, charts and benchmarks dont always tell the full picture.

 

Depends on what you mean by practically. As long as you're not trying to run heavy games in 3D, not after huge benchmark numbers, and not trying to max out Crysis/Metro 2033/Etc then the 460m is still an awesome card. The 460m, especially when properly overclocked, is an amazing card for normal daily usage and gaming even at native res and high to max settings.

Sorry dude but gonna have to call it as I see it, those results are pure crap. There is a large difference between the two cards but no where near 70% in anything. At best even in synthetic benchmarks there's about a 50% difference and in real life games in terms of FPS and how they run there's maybe 30-40%. If you don't believe me compare the two cards at top max clocks in benchmarks. 9k Vantage GPU for the 460m, 14k Vantage GPU for the 6970m.

 

Yea, thanks, thats pretty much what i was after.

With all the hype about the 6970, and all the flamers for the 460m, i was sorta feeling that the 460 was no better than my second hand 9800gtx!

As long as its not a slug, im happy

 

LOL, the 460m hate comes from the fact that most M17x owners want the ABSOLUTE most power they can get and the 460m isn't that the 6970m in the R3 is that. There's a lot of reasons I can think of but most of them lie in the fact that a lot of the forum members pay attention to and believe places like notebookcheck when the numbers are heavily skewed to what actually happens in daily usage. If you were looking at a realistic 70% increase in power for $175 or whatever the upgrade cost from 460m->6970m is then yes the 460m would be a peice but that's not the case, basically you get what you pay for, good daily usage for a slight premium or highest performance for even more of a premium. The really tough part with Nvidia is you can't get the best of multiple worlds like with AMD in this rig, Nvidia gives you:

1)3D and no Optimess driver issues but at the cost of battery life.

2)Slightly better battery life but with no 3D and problematic drivers unless Nvidia decides to actually put out good drivers on a regular basis.

With AMD you get battery life, power, and decent drivers all in 1 rig. The downside is with AMD you can't get 120hz, let alone 3D. The other issue that a lot of the Nvidia owners have been having is driver issues that cause the system to BSOD on anything other than modded drivers, none of the official drivers would work for me and technically a modded driver can void your warranty so Dell agreed to swap my components. As long as you don't want massive benchmarks, maxxed settings in 3D, and don't get a machine with BSOD issues you'll love it. I know I miss my 120hz panel that's for sure.

 

Ok, Case closed, that is he BEST summary of this topic i have seen to date, +1 Rep from me, thanks mate

Lets just hope i dont have any of those driver issues........

 

I have same specs. It does everything I want it to and more. Read my sig links for more info. Also, congrats on the hole in your wallet

 

i have the Optimus version and how do i know if i have the latest drivers available? Another question i had was how do u overclock the Gfx card?

 

MSI afterburner

 

Honestly unless you're really good at modding drivers all you can do is install the latest Dell has to offer as the card is modded from standard Nvidia id's and Optimus makes the drivers much more difficult to mod. As dookie said you can check in MSI Afterburner, if you don't want to install a program you can also just open GPU-z.

 

Does GPU-Z allow OCing??? I didnt know that!

 

No my bad, Afterburner is probably best as it reports drive+overclocks, just saw the driver question.

 

alright thanks ill look into it . I'm not exactly familiar with overclocking so how do you do it safely? I do not want to screw up the card by accident.