Questions Before Purchasing M17x

Heya guys!

I have a M11x R2 and I absolutely love it, especially the portability aspect but now I want something more powerful when I'm at home.

I was looking at the M17x R3 and it looks perfect as a desktop replacement, but I would like to get your opinions on which specs I should get including if the money is worth it factor.

I'm going to be using this laptop to game a bit but to mostly encode and edit 1980 x 1080HD videos.


So I think it's worth getting the i7 2760QM 2.4GHz over the i7 2670QM 2.2GHz because you can get a 3.5GHz boost over a 3.1GHz boost for 200$
But is it worth to spend another 450$ for a 7 2860QM 2.5GHz that cab boost only up to 3.6GHz? Does the 8MB Cache have a huge advantage over the 6MG Cache the 2760QM and 2670 both have?

When I game I want to be able to play things mostly at maxed settings without having to worry about FPS. Is the default provided as a video card AMD Radeon™ HD 6870M good enough? Or is it worth it to upgrade to the AMD Radeon HD 6990M for 200$? It also gets 2GB worth of memory compared to 1GB if that makes a difference. Or is it worth getting the NVIDIA® GeForce® GTX 580M for an extra 600$? Or does it have no difference against the 6990M? I don't really care about the 3D aspect.

I'm going to be getting the screen size as 1920x1080 60Hz, but is it worth it to spend another 150$ for the 1920 x 1080 120Hz? I don't really care about the 3D aspect, but does 120Hz make a difference?


I didn't get the CC plan on my M11x R2 and I regret it, so this bigger investment I want to protect some stuff happening, so how many years is worth getting? I was thinking maybe 2 or 3 years and then renewing it when time is closing to being up because I don't want to spend so much money at once.

But I was thinking of doing an instalment plan to pay over time and is it possible to pay for a 2 year period rather than the 48 months they say?


Thank you very much guys!

 

neither cpu upgrade is worth it for games. i notice pretty much 0 difference between the 2720 and 2630. ive had both.

580 is good but unless you want 3d get the 6990 as its cheaper.

 

I think you should focus on getting the and 6990 first, because that will give you the best gaming performance over any cpu upgrade for the price. The 580m is way too expensive for the performance upgrade it gives. I would think that the 2670qm would be good enough, because I have the earlier version the 2630qm, and it works great, it's really rare to max out its full cpu potential. But if it was "either/or" I would take the 6990.
And get the 120hz screen. Because a regular screen will only show 60 fps maximum, even if FRAPS says you're getting higher, you will also be able to use vertical sync and not be capped at 60, but at 120 FPS, if you're a serious game it would be a "must upgrade"
Linus tech tips on youtube has a great comparison between 60hz and 120 hz.

 

Since rendering videos uses a lot of your CPU, would it possibly make a difference in rendering videos in a shorter amount of time then? I also render 1920 x 1080HD types of videos so would that probably max out my CPU usage and would it probably max out if I even got the 2860QM processor?

Okay, I see; I don't care much about 3D so I think the 6990 is worth it; thank you!

True, I see that you will never really max out of CPU usage with gaming, but I will be using this laptop for other things like rendering 1920x1080HD videos which I want to probably focus more on. So do you think there would be a difference if I were to get the 2860 in comparison to the 2670 when I render videos? Or would it be a small difference also?

I just realized I cannot get the 120Hz screen UNLESS I get the 580M .. what a bummer. So what would you suggest now?

 

Well from what I hear unless you go 3d, 6990m is better. Personally I got my 560m and 900p screen, all ultra on battlefield 3 and it works great !!!
Now it's all up to you and how badly you need that screen... the 560m will most definately not run battlefield 3 at 1920*1080 and all ultra (I do have minor slow downs some times but very occasional at 1600*900). And it can accomodate the 120Hz screen.
But 560m is really not that good so beware.
As for the processor you should make a specialized search on the software you use for video editing, check out how much CPU it may actually use you know? That way you will be better able to judge which one fits your needs.

Lastly. You do video editing, therefore need a lot of ram... I assume you already know, but I might as well through it out there: by your own ram! and your own hard drives! (Apparently Dell's hard drives are pretty faulty!!!)
There you go! Good luck finding answers now

 

if you're a gamer...vid card is the most important. I'd go 6990m because the price tag on the 580m isn't worth it. Plus 580m users are often suffering from power and thermal throttling which occurs when the card hits a certain thermal limit.

With regards to the CPU, i'd get the cheapest one you can get...then update it later. For games, the 2670 will be more than adequate.

I just updated my CPU to a i7 2820 which i bought from ShirleyFu (ebay) for $270 shipped. Once i see its completely stable, my core i7 2630qm will be going up on ebay for about $300 (hence i get a free upgrade). I've created a guide as to how to update the CPU...its very easy to do

 

The 2760 seems to be the sweet point in terms of price/performance. For encoding videos, I'd go with that one.

Also, in terms of GPU affecting video rendering, it depends on what applications you use. I know, for example, Adobe CS5 (and possibly CS4) can offload some processing to the GPU, so if you use Premiere Pro you may see an improvement with a better card.

 

I would get the i7 2760qm over i7 2670qm - Core i7 2670QM Review, Benchmark - Specs, Review - NotebooksNews.com

There is a difference of ~5000 points between the two in PCMark Vantage. i7 2860qm should be more powerful but i7 2760qm is sufficient IMO.

 

My advice:

Get the lowest processor, I did and later on upgraded to a XM on with unlocked multipliers. I get 4.3Ghz turbo boost and that on 4 cores not just one.

If you want to really save money, screw the 580m, get a 6990m with the lowest screen. User Villosa will be putting up a guide soon on how to replace your panel with a 95% gamut one from AUO.

So basically get the stock laptop and upgrade everything yourself.

Done