R3 wireless upgrade?

So i was looking around and found i could buy the Ultimate-N 6300 wireless card for on $35 on amazon, question i have is does the R3 come stock with 3 antennae so i could upgrade to this for cheap or would i have to buy it from them to get the 6300?

 

yeah mandrake confirmed it had 3 antennae even when ordering with lowest wifi. i'm planning on doing the same thing. have a spare 6300 ready to go.

 

YES woot, i actually took a loan out for this (my bank offers employee's a 3 year up to 3k no interest loan for it's employee's) and i ordered with the lowest processor and a ram upgrade, well i decided to get 4gb ram (upgrade to more for cheaper myself later) and get the better processor so i can buy the HyperX 1600 from newegg. Problem is i messed up and got the loan BEFORE i decided this so now i needed to figure out what to drop to get it back under the amount lol. This just made my day.

 

My dell preferred account was approved for $4k. Spent $3143 shipped to me, paid $2500 up front... No interest if paid in full in 12 months.

I did get the RAM and wireless card from them though.. The RAM I have no trouble upgrading but this m17x is my first laptop EVER (I built desktops from the time I was little) ... Wasn't too sure on the wireless card.

IMO the 3 major things for you to drop back (in order of least important / easiest to upgrade)

-RAM
-HDD/SSD
-Wireless Card

Make sure you get a good processor, a good screen, a good system color, a good warranty, etc as they're going to be the hardest / most expensive to replace... Or just sign up for a Dell preferred account and drop the loan or something. Takes 2 minutes - You can order right away after making it and within 10 days they mail you a sheet with all the information repeated and your account number which you can use to make an account to make online payments.

Minimum monthly payment was like $80/month for me and it isn't due until April 14th(ish) so they give you some time to get everything ready.

 

Well i like my bank and they work pretty well with me on all this especially since i work for them , also dell won't give me a preffered account >.>, a year ago i signed up for an account and they only gave me a 1800 limit (im 20 with not a very long credit history and with this i have 3 loans out), anyways i called them to see if they could work something out with a higher limit and ofcourse they said it was based on my credit and they couldn't, i had them cancel the account and have had issues every single time i've tried to sign up since, it just won't let me, btw the ONLY thing wrong with my credit right now is the debt ratio, im actually sitting at 750

Edit: Also the 3 year loan is no interest the entire time, not just 12 months.

 

What's the advantage of upgrading from the stock to a 6300? Will my downloads be faster over wireless? Or is it only just for longer range?

 

If you have an insanely good connection speed, then yes it will be faster. It is mainly for range though that everyone get the 6300. It will be faster than the base wifi card.

 

Ah. Then I prolly wont need it since the router is less than 25feet away.

 

If you can get it from newegg and install it yourself, I would say it's definitely a worthy upgrade.

 

You mean amazon, cuz I live in CA, land of overblown taxes for everything you can think of ()

 

Gotcha. Either way, I would most definitely upgrade to the 6300, though.

 

I was always wondering whats the difference with wifi-card besides range.

 

With the right router you can get some very good performance out of the 5300/6300. Intel's wireless chips perform quite well.

I'm a bit surprised that the R3 doesn't come with 4 antenna's wired in. Dell/AW high end are often future proofed in the wireless area, because these cards get upgraded over the life of the machines.

 

When I was talking to the sales person at dell, I asked about the wireless hd broadcasting capability, she said, that I would need to go in and switch to the discrete gpu, that the nvidia card wouldnt broadcast.

So my question is was she right? She was only a salesperson and might not have known exactly what she was talking about.

She also made it sound like as if I already had a tv with wireless capabilities that I could broadcast to it.

I was under the impression that in the R3D that the gpu on the motherboard is turned off and no way to get to since the nvidia is pushing the 120hz screen.

So is the R3D gimped in the ability to broadcast as well and gonna be lacking this ability?

 

She is wrong. You will need the card in your laptop, and a receiver hooked up to you tv if I recall correctly, Comrade.

 

sad it was one of the big selling features for me as I often like to display photos and videos and I hate having to drop them on my hard drive and then display them via my xbox or blu ray player and videos have to be converted first. Was hoping an easy solution right out of the box on this machine was to be able to broadcast to my big tv.

 

Yeah. I'm hoping we will be able to add the card later when they actually become available. I think I remember someone saying the receiver hooked to the tv would cost around $200 as well. : /