Worth it to Upgrade M17x?

I have an Alienware M17x R2 with an Intel Core i7 CPU Q 720 @ 1.60GHz, 4 GB RAM, and an ATI Mobility Radeon HD 5870 graphics card. If I upgraded some of these components (more RAM, better CPU or better processor) would I be able to get a significant peformance increase? If so, what would be the best thing to upgrade first? I play WoW on it, so the main reason I would want better performance is to run WoW better. If you want me to give more information about my computer, just say so. Thanks for any help you can provide.

 

how many radeons is in that thing ? just the one ? if so might be a nice boost to stick a 2nd radeon next to it.

if u check the benchmarks list the r2 pretty much kicks with dual gfx, maybe upgrade the cpu aswell. Although its cheaper to diy im not sure if dell actualy upgrades the r2 for u still.

 

There is alot you can do, its al about how much money you are willing to spend.

-More RAM.
-SSD for OS, HDD for data.
-Second GPU.
-XM CPU.

The second GPU will give you a boost.

 

I only have one video card in it right now. If I put another one in, would it be able to benefit from both at once? If I were to do this, should I put in the same one that's in there now? I think I would probably be able to do it myself.

EDIT: Right now I have two 128 GM SSDS in RAID 0, so I don't plan on changing the hard drives.

 

Yes it must be the same card.

R2 owners can help you with this since you might need some more parts.

 

Yes there's still alot more life in this machine. With my setup there isn't a game that I've tried that I couldn't max out with fluid framerates (45-60fps), vsync enabled. The only exception is Crysis 2 on Ultra at native res. That plays about 28-35fps outside and 45-52fps indoors. On extreme setting at native res the gaming is fluid. Tesselation kills performance in Crysis 2 with AMD cards.

To upgrade to crossfire you would need another 5870M with heatsink, crossfire cable and the 240W PSU.

You can pick up the part numbers from here. although I would call Dell.

You can also pick up the parts in the for sale section here as quite a few R2 owners are upgrading to 6970M/6990M's. You may want to consider that option as well although I've read that there aren't many suppliers with the 6970M's in stock anymore.

 

So this part number, I presume?

ATI Radeon 5870 Mobility
*F603N - Left Fan
*F605N - Right Fan
*C8245 - 5870, primary - (goes on left side)
--->*RV546 - 5870, secondary with cable and heatsinks (goes on right side)

That's cool. What about the processor and RAM? Would upgrading to Crossfire give me a more pronounced increase in performance than upgrading either of those?

 

For gaming, especially an older game like WoW, the extra GPU will give you the most benefit. Sure the CPU would be nice, but you have to be willing to spend ~$350 and put it in yourself (if you buy the 920xm from dell they want like $2,600.00--thats what they told me when I called about it 2 months ago). The 4 gig of ram is ok...I upgraded to 8 and didnt see much of a difference frankly. Maybe some faster load times...but you have an SSD so i dont think your load times will get much faster.

You can also download the A10 Bios Mod for the r2's and use it to overclock your processor 5%.

 

Thanks for the input, everyone. I'm definitely considering upgrading to two graphics cards.

 

2600 dollars for a new cpu ?

might aswell just get a m18x then lol

but yeh dual 5870 will be a fairly big boost if not masive, lil a10 bios mod will boost ur cpu a tad however most games mainly rely on the gpu so maxin that out is the better option

 

Yeah thats correct, confirm with Dell beforehand though. 4gb is more than sufficient for gaming so no need to upgrade to 8gb unless you work with large PS files or CAD.

An XM CPU in combination with Throttlestop will give you a substantial increase in performance but purely from a gaming standpoint the extra GPU is what you need to get.

Good luck

 

The CPU upgrade is well worth it if you're into emulation as well.
Dolphin and Pcsx2 works great with a 920xm@3,4Ghz.

 

The 920XM is very inexpensive on Ebay, and will give you a major boost in everything you do. Don't go for the 940XM, whatever you do. By using an awesome program called ThrottleStop, the 920XM has the same exact performance as a 940XM does. Adding a 2nd GPU will give you the greatest boost in gaming performance. I have a slave 5870M for sale, but it is the card only. You would have to find the fan, heatsink, and CrossFire cable elsewhere.

 

I'd upgrade in this order:

GPU
CPU
SSD
RAM

It may be simpler to upgrade to a single 6990m. Then he would avoid the crossfire headaches and potential power and heat issues. According to notebookcheck, the 6990m is on par with crossfire 5870's (look on right side of class 1 gpu's).

AMD Radeon HD 6990M - Notebookcheck.net Tech

i'd definitely do the 920xm upgrade after the gpu.

With this done, the R2 definitely has a lot of life left