Purchasing m17, little help please

Hey all, I'm new here and new to the performance laptop world in general. I was initially interested in a sager, however after looking at both I have decided on the Alienware for a few reasons. Anyway now for my qurstions

1. Is the dell site the main place to
Purchase or are there vendors that can get my configuration for less money?
Are there any rebates, promos, ect out there? ( be nice, I'm new and my Method of web surfing is currently my phoneh

2. I'm a little confused on the hard drive options. I was looking at the 500 fb with 64 gig msata ssd. Is this a hybrid
Drive or will this show up as 2 separate drives. Will this perform better than 2 drives in raid 0?

3. I'm having
Internet hooked up tomorrow and need to purchase a router. I also work in the same Building I live in. I was planning on going with the upgraded wireless card. Does it pay to get the best router or will some be overkill? I will be roughly 1 floor down at a distance of about 80 feet from router.

4. I went with the least amount of memory because it seems way cheaper to purchase on your own and install yourself. Now if I get to 4 gig sticks can they go in with the 2 3 gig sticks that are already there provided they are the same speed?

Thanks in advance for the help and please feel free to add any criticisms or suggestions
Mike

 

The message you have entered is too short. Please lengthen your message to at least 10 characters. <== this is the error message i got after spending 15 minutes answering each and every questions haha...

 

It is also a good idea for you to post your configuration here so that we can give you further advice on which upgrades to select and which upgrades to leave.

Quick notes, if you are going to get the Alienware M17x:
- Your configuration should include the 1920x1080 display. Don't buy an Alienware M17x in any configuration that has the stock 1600x900 display unless you require large text for eyesight-related reasons. 17.3" 1600x900 displays limit multitasking and productivity by making things onscreen large, and tend to have terrible image quality due to low contrast.
- The AMD Radeon 7970M is the best value out of the three GPUs available. The GTX 660M will be available in the much cheaper ($899) Lenovo Y580, and the GTX 675M is less powerful than the 7970M even though it is more expensive.

 

Yeah, I know what I want with everything else. (1080 screen, graphics CPU, etc) I wanted help with the specific questions I posted. I don't think the whole config thing is necessary for that. Not to sound like a jerk, but this forum is not very friendly to us noobs

 

oh come on bud! it is daytime and people are working, it is really helpful on the contrary! if noone answers you by evening (highly doubt it ) I will as soon as I am home

ALWAYS ORDER FROM PHONE!

mSATA and hybrid is something you will replace soon, get the base HDD and add an SSD as soon as possible aftermarket

basic wireless is just fine, I game a ton on it and NEVER experience lag...

perfection with least mem, add RAM aftermarket (HyperX 1600mhz 2x4gig)

you are good to go!

welcome bro!

 

Thanks for all the help! I very anxious to see how fast these laptops are. This hp I have for the moment is anemic lol

 

oh you will be pleasantly surprised, even a 580m/6990m can still max all games with decent frame rates, a 7970m is craziness alive, you will marvel at its performance

 

this is a guide on how to save money: http://forum.notebookreview.com/alienware/456885-aw-dell-ordering-advice-how-save.html