Thinking of ordering M17x need advice

I'm looking to purchase a new m17x and was wondering if I should go with the 5870 crossfirex or the gtx 285 sli? Is dell going to release new graphics card soon? Which if it were the case should I wait or are either of these models plenty good?
Thanks

 

^^^^^^ 5870 is proven and true and has many bugs worked out with the new Vbios and it is cheaper as well. If you can wait another week a fellow member should be getting his 285 sli setup and i am sure he will be benching away as he is the first one to get that setup. Even then i think the 5870 might come out ahead due to overclocking capabilities and has the latest Gddr5 chips.

 

Welcome cplluther,
5870 in crossfire are pure beasts, you wont need anything faster, well not for a few years

 

Nice I'm a Marine who needs something portible, I had a order in for the gtx 285 sli but had doubts and canceled it before it left processing. So to get to the basic's, go with the 5870 even though the sli is the newer tech? Also if I go with the sli anyways, why is it GDDR3 and the 5870 GDDR5? Would there even be a noticable diferance between the two ? I do not really know what the big differances are between the two. And thanks again for taking the time too post you're replies, they are extremely helpful.

 

Howdies chiefs,

The 285s SLi are actually older tech lol. They are just new to the dell site. They never used to offer them until recently. Go figure what they are trying to do lol. Most likely just to give people another option and sell more notebooks.
Overall the 5870s would be faster in terms of raw performance. However there are people who just love Nvidia cards better and swear by them. Also there is physX and Cuda capabilities on the 285s.
I'll be eagerly awaiting Lozz benches and overall testing of the 285s. He should get them pretty soon some time this coming week.

It really depends what you want the system for and to do. If in general gaming then the 5870s should be more powerful in most games however Nvidia cards do have better game support so the difference might not be even apparent otherwise it will be a very close battle I reckon. We'll just have to wait and see.

Cheers.

 

Lol, shows what I know. I'm new to the gaming computer world, but in saying that want the better of the two. Crysis is one of the games I'm planning on running and all other fps military type games. Will the sli's run those games better or should I stick with the 5870?

 

Also, do you think waiting for the newer cards to come out from alienware would be a better option and if not is it possible to change graphics cards with their m17x setup when the cards become avalible? thanks again, this info is extremely helpful to someone like me, who has no prior experiance in the industy.

 

CPL Luther, Check out the ordering advice link in my sig below, Being a Marine, you qualify for the EPP Discount of at least 10%. Also if you order while stationed overseas it's tax free. Hooah from a fellow GI

 

No worries cheifs. Both GPUs will run Crysis really well. I can't wait to try Crysis 2 myself

If your planning on waiting you could be in for quite a wait. Not sure exactly when or what dell/alienware are doing. Perhaps we might get to see some 400m GPUs near the end of this year. No idea really. There will definitely be new stuff out early next year. So it really depends if you want or can wait. However there are some good deals going on atm in Dell. Not sure where your located however theres a deal for the M17x with crossfire 5870s for 2199. Its a free upgrade to dual GPUs essentially.

What ever you choose make sure you go with dual GPUs. the RGB LED screen. Other components are easily and much cheaper to upgrade after market like through ebay.

I would recommend waiting to see how Lozz's experience with the SLi 285s go this week or next though. That will be interesting to see. If you can't wait just got with the 5870s then chiefs. You won't be losing out there. Also in the future we should be able to upgrade our GPUs. It really depends on bios and whether they use the same form factor as well though. As well as thermals and power consumption.

Cheers.

 

Thanks DR650, I had no idea about the discounts. That with the free video card for aleinware will make for one heck of a discount. Reborn, so in a nut shell both are dual video cards but, the Nvidia is just called sli? They add 50 bucks for the sli upgrade and wanted to make sure not that 50 makes that big of a deal when spending 4000 but, in saying that wanted to make sure i was not missing the big picture. I'm very glad I joined this site everyone here seems very knowledgable.

 

What's differance between GDDR5 and GDDR3, and what does this mean?

 

gddr5, clock for clock, is twice as fast as gddr3.

 

Yup don't worry to much about the price difference between the 5870 and the 285. Actually over here in the AUS they are almost the same price. There is like only a $2 difference.
So yeh just get dual cards for the 5870s.
SLi is codename for the Nvidia dual GPUs and Crossfire is for AMD/ATi GPU cards. They both mean dual or two GPUs running together. With all you discounts and the free dual GPU upgrade your good to go chiefs.

Cheers.

 

Sweet, this has been a struggle for me to decide. It is decided I will go with 5870's and I'm sure they will rock my world. Thanks again for everything to everyone this rocks. I will post satisfaction when I recieve my new laptop, I'm stoked!

 

Yea, SLI is the dual GPU term for Nvidia, Crossfire is the term for ATI. Both mean dual GPU. The ATI 5870 puts up much better benchmarks than the 285 from what I know. It uses the newer GDDR5 rather than the GDDR3 of the 285M. Also the 285M appears to just be an overclocked 280M. the nvidia cards use physx, and ATI doesn't. Nvidia from what others say offers better driver support although I havn't had bad experience with ATI for what it's worth.

Also you'll want to stick around. This is the best place online to get advice, information, deals from other members selling stuff, and support for your issues. We also have dell alienware liaisons frequent the forum for feedback. A good example is the poor A08 bios which lowred the CPU speed of the 920XM and 940XM. I ran a bunch of tests, and the rep took them back to dell engineering, and they looked a the results and subsequently release A09 bios which solved the issue.

Here is the level of support we have here. erawneila is the Alienware liaison.

My Bios A08 vs A06, A07 post.

Also, do you know what CPU your going to get?

 

I was thinking of the i7 840, as the xm CPU's are 1000 dollars more. Do you think they are worth it or should stay with 840 for a thousand less?

 

Also with this laptop what kind of settings can I hope for with Crysis ? Will i be able to run very high settingd with aa on at all or will it bogg down to much?

 

Honestly, here is what i would suggest. Order with the 520M or 540M (540M over clocks better in my experiance, I have both) Then get a 920XM ES (Engineering Sample from ebay. Probably from LaptopMonkey. I bought an ES 940XM from him. Generally the ES chips are identical in performance to the OEM chips, but much less expensive. And Laptop monkey has a 1 year warranty on his chips.

920XM ES - Laptopmonkey

The 920XM can run all four cores at a mutiplier of 24, therefore 3.2GHz, UncleWebb, a member here wrote a program that allows you to increase the TDP of a CPU so that it has more power to sustain the turbo boost. The program is called throttle stop. It also allows you to increase the multiplier of the CPU, there for overclocking it. The 840M would be fine for any gaming though. So it's really your choice.

As for crysis, I'm not sure. Never played it on my system.

 

Depending on your budget, get dual Solid state drives in Raid 0.......Then your machine will fly, from one ex service man to another, make the baby spec ops

 

Wait, I'm a little confused. So is the 840 a good chip set? I believe it runs at 2.86GHz, or would I really be better of with a 920?

 

Dual SSD in Raid 0 is blazing fast, I used 2x 160GB Intel X25-M in Raid 0 and it was fast, but the M17x also has an issue with speeds on SSDs. You don't get the max performance. My suggestion would be an SSD as a boot drive where all your games and programs are installed. This will give you quick load times. Then store all pics, videos, mp3's documents, ect on a large secondary HDD (640GB-750GB) where speed isn't as important. Then you get lots of space, and quick loading.

 

I believe my friend is saying both are good but you can do more with the 920

 

It is good, but the 920 is just better, hence the price difference. What DR650SE said is you should opt for the cheapest cpu(in this case, i5-520m) and get an ES 920xm from ebay(~$400) and install it on your own to save some cost.

 

So does the 640 HDDs work or does it have to be SSD?

 

840M is a good chip, but the 920 runs all all four cores in turbo mode, where as the 840 will only run one or two, not sure which. Here is a pretty good discussion on it.

i7-840QM -> i7-940XM - temp difference stock and OC'ed.

EDIT: Yea those guys summed up what I was saying. The 920 is unlocked so you can overclock it as well.

Also you can use one SSD, and one HDD. Currently at the moment thats what I'm running. 160GB Intel X25-M boot drive and a 640GB HDD Storage drive. When I get home I might remove the blu-ray drive, and install a 640 GB HDD in that slot with a optical caddy conversion and run a RAID SSD set up. So three total drives, and no optical drive. I'm torn at the moment on doing that though.

 

Again, I'd recommend you opt for the cheapest HDD and buy your own SSD's for better performance and lesser cost.

 

The only draw back is if you do this they are not covered under warrenty. by dell

 

One thing to keep in mind is the Samsung Dell SSD isn't the fastest, but you won't find a larger SSD at a better price if you get the 256GB. But I would recommend the Intel X25-M which is much better performance. You can get it in the NBR Marketplace from a forum member fairly cheap. Intel offers great customer support. In the last week I killed a 40GB Intel X25-V benchmarking. I called up and told them about it. 15 min phonecall (7 min on hold) and they said I can ship it back to them and they will replace it. mind you I bought it from a forum member and didn't have the reciepts. I didn't even need the original packaging. The have a 3 year warranty for thier SSDs and havn't been out that long. I also would recommend babyhemi. He is an Intel retailer and hangs out here on NBR and has good prices. you can PM him and he will hook you up. Just a few options.

I know were pounding you with info, but just best to make a well informed decision so you get exactly what you want and are satisfied with your purchase and it's money well spent.

Also, while Dell will not cover the SSD that you buy aftermarket and put in, the SSD manufacturer will cover it. So your still safe

 

True, i am just trying to give a new guy some simple advice, overclocking is good 3rd party hardware is good..but if you are not comfertable best buy it all at the point of purchase and let them sort any issues.....Just my opinion

 

You usually get 3-5 yr warranty directly through the manufacturer.

 

Yea, actually gintor is right, I got my 640GB from Best Buy. It should still be under manufacturer warranty too I believe. Good thinking.

 

So buy a stripped model for cpu and hd and buy the parts aftermarket and put them in is what everyone is suggesting?

 

Thats what I did, but really up to you. Depends on what you'd like. But it is an option. We can also walk you through CPU replacement as you need to disassemble the notebook, but there are guides for that.

 

If your confident....No where better to get the advice you need bro. DR650SE among others has a wealth of knowledge at this

 

I know nothing of the current internals of these notebooks, the last computer i built was over ten years ago, a lot has changed. Also does the turbo mode on these processors kick in automatically or is it something that needs to be turned on. Might be a dumb question but that's how out of this i am. Lol

 

It's automatic. When the system senses a load, it adjusts itself to accomodate the load. The quad core-i CPU's have hyper threading. So 4 processors, each running two threads. So your running 8 threads. Which is the same as having a old processors since old processors only ran one core, one thread.

Turbo boost can also be disabled in the bios.

 

So why does the 840 and below boast quad if it only runs one or two?

 

It techniaclly has four cores, but on one or two will turbo boost at a time. I forget what the default multipliers are.

 

Wow am I up in the air now on evrything, so are the ssd drives good through alienware? I just do not think i'm confident enough to change out internal componets on a laptop.

 

Yes, you can. All you have to do is open the back cover and insert your ssd. It's that easy.

 

It's that easy? also is there anything I need to remove or is there space for another hd in there already? If so what option should I go with for the other, I was thinking the 640 raid o, but that says 320GB x2, does that mean both slots are already used if there are even two?

 

The M17x has space for two Hard Drives only. If you buy your computer with a RAID array, either RAID0 or RAID1, it will come with two hard drives fitted.

In RAID0 both drives will combine so in your example each drive is 320 GB and you have two, hence a total HD space of 640. (In practice it will a little bit less than that but not much.)

In RAID1 the second drive will mirror the information on the first so the available space would be only 320 GB even though you have two 320 GB HD's fitted.

edit: It is really simple to install Hard Drives. All you need is a small phillips screwdriver. If you can pull a rifle apart and put it back together again you won't have a problem.

 

Nice, so buy a regular one from them and the buy a sad aftermarket and pop it in and im good to go. Any suggestions on which sad to buy and from where the best place would be?

 

So, 920xm 8Gb ram 1Gb ati crossfirex GDDR5 500 GB hard drive. Then add an SSD after the fact. Also DR650SE Will you let me know what Lozz thinks of his new machine and if he thinks the 285m was a better choice. Not that it matters but, courious to find out.

 

I would save money on the 8GB of RAM unless you really need it. Most users don't use more than four. As for Lozz, Not really sure what he thinks. To the best of my knowledge, I don't think he got them yet.

EDIT: Speak of the devil and the devil shall appear, Stay tuned, NVidia 285M SLI Benchmarks coming tonight from Lozz ---> Here it is, GTX 285M SLI benchmarks