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    Just how far can you take an M18x R1?

    Discussion in 'Alienware 18 and M18x' started by Luclin999, Jan 5, 2016.

  1. Luclin999

    Luclin999 Notebook Guru

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    I'm curious as to just how far you can take the upgrades in the old R1 machines with essentially plug and play components.

    Fastest stock CPU?

    Fastest Nvidea GPU?

    Fastest AMD GPU?

    Win 10?

    Any specific hardware imitations vs. the R2 and later machines?
     
  2. Raidriar

    Raidriar ლ(ಠ益ಠლ)

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    Fastest CPU: 2960XM
    Fastest nVidia GPU: GTX 880M (780M highly recommended over 880M)
    Fastest AMD GPU: R9 M290X (equivalient to the 8970M, slight clock bump and vRAM bump from the 7970M)
    Win 10 capable, but highly not advised since it is full of garbage. Windows 7 is still the proper choice here.
    Limitations include no mSATA slot vs the R2 and A18, and PCI Express 2.0 vs 3.0

    That's it. Still a highly capable machine. I personally just purchased one and stuffed a spare set of 780M SLI in it and just purchased a 2920XM and triple pipe heatsink. It manged to blow the hinges off any computer Alienware currently produces and still manages to stand up to desktops of today with ease. In short, the M18x is a stalwart of a computer.
     
  3. Luclin999

    Luclin999 Notebook Guru

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    Well I stumbled into an m18x R2 (3610QM & 675M in SLI) for $700 so I ended up going with that instead.

    8)

    Plan is to sell off the 675s, upgrade it to one 780m to start (I believe that even one 780 should outperform the two 675s by at least a little bit) and pick up a 2nd 780m in a few months.

    I'll probably keep it running with those for a year or two and ultimately move it to 980s once the games get to the point of really needing the boost.
     
    UltraGSM likes this.