M18x R2 HD 7970M Xfire GTX 680M SLI when ?

As the tittle said when we are going to see 7970's and 680's on the M18X we know the 680M hasn't been released yet but what about the 7970M?

note: since the speculation about new models is over I open this thread to stay on topic

 

Great idea speedy!! Would love to see these in the m18x!! They are out, so I'm a little confused as to why they haven't been crossfired yet :s waiting on official drivers perhaps?

 

that's what Bill said he also give us a hint about when they was going to be released something like soon + a week " whatever that means I just can't wait anymore

 

Soon + a week hey? was he saying soon when referring to the ivy bridges earlier on? Maybe next week if that's the case?

 

I'm reading the performance of the 7970m in the M17x-R4 threads for now, and I just cannot believe what 2 of these animals will do in the M18x-R2. That alone makes the wait worth it!

We must be strong and resist DYI

 

As our elders say "Be vigilant!"

 

God waiting a week for ivy was bad enough D: the fact one of them scores around 80 fps on heaven I believe? That's enough to get me very VERY excited for a pair of them

 

yep we must be strong

hey your M18Xr2 on your signature almost disappear

 

WEll he said soon + a week...a week is dead now !

SOON IT IS

 

Maybe the 'soon' part is done, and the week part is still left!

It's almost gone because I think it's close! And also notice the R2 part is now red

 

Well the 3rd gen intel processor now available. That mean that the graphics card are on it way!

 

m17x -r4 people cheated and got 7970m first D:

 

^^ yeas, I don't like the m17x^^

 

DECLARE WAR

 

Yes! Declare me!

And we will finish first; with 2 of those beasts.

 

Yh we will!
ON a sidenote what specs do you plan on getting on your "notebook" <--

 

Just upgrade the cards, and get the 3720. At $150 it's the best ratio of price/performance. And it leaves you open for an upgrade down the line. Oh, and it will be Red

Anything else like Ram, SSD, etc, will come from third parties. How about you?

Edit: Never mind, just saw your sig. Very nice!

 

Depending on the manufacturer's ability to meet the demand, the answer to "when" is "now"

http://forum.notebookreview.com/alienware/660004-new-m17x-r4-m18x-r2-gpu-part-number-lists.html

 

Im going up from a i7 720 so I wanted the best proc, card is obv 7970. Im torn between red and black..if I get red might put some carbon fibre on it like speedy did and getting my ram and stuff from 3rd party too

+ 10 interwebz for relaying that to us !

 

Never soon enough. Tempting to get but, I'd like to see the 7970m and 680m in this laptop before making any leap. Read the 675m are rebranded 580m. Not much point in buying those.

 

Agreed 675m is more or less pointless at this point in time. The point of the matter is that nvidia old tactics points towards really expensive mobile cards so that just keeps shoving me to the red side...
the use of the word point was very intentional...

 

this is not looking good for us

 

I'd say is better than not knowing Speedy. Don't go for the G75!

 

G75 is the darkside ! a cookieless darkside!

 

Originally Posted by gbsn721
So we are looking at 7970's in the m18x around May 10-ish? I've waited this long, I guess I can make it another week and half.

Originally Posted by gbsn721
Sounds good, should we be expecting the price to be inline with the m17x? (+$200 for a single 7970m, +$350-$400 for x-fire)

Just trying to plan everything out ahead of time

Also, thanks for all the quick replies.

Just in case you guys missed it in the other thread.

 

Yeah I was thinking that aswell. Makes me less excited for the 680m unless it's a good bit better than the 7970m. I don't see that being very likely so I'll probably be staying Red.

 

one of the reason for me to upgrade, is the Creative Sound Blaster Recon3Di High-Definition 5.1 Audio with THX TruStudio Pro Software (Standard)
2.1 Speaker configuration with Subwoofer.

 

history repeat itself...

not sure if any of u remember, but when the alienware m18x came out , ATI had the 6970m CF and NVIDIA had the 460m sli...
same words and critisism were spoken back then as now , and when nvidia came out with the 580m sli , it was desired by most users despite the price diffrence...
Im expecting the same thing will happen with ATI being in a rush to spread the 7970m as they did with the 6970m and when NVIDIA comes out with the new cards , it will all be the same again...

 

The 680m is definitely gonna be a top notch performer, but I really think Nvidia made a mistake by not having it ready for the Ivy Bridge release. I know their are a lot of people like me that have been waiting for IB to order a m18x, and hopefully I'll be able to place my order on the 10th when the 7970m's are out, but waiting all summer long for the 680m is out of the question.

No a happier note, my 680 for my desktop will be here Friday! =D

 

Not really. The 600 series nvidia cards are new. NVIDIA isn't going to be coming out with the 780m shorty. If that was the case I'd agree. They have strong show to follow from at at this point. I'm sure they'll deliver but, at what cost? If they're 680m is only 10% faster than the 7970m and costs $200 more then besides those with too much money are gonna buy?

 

I think if Nvidia is delaying the 680m, they are pretty stupid since folks will just buy 1 machine normally and the majority of folks won't bother with a return/upgrade if what they have works. That's just loss sales.

From what I've read here, Nvidia isn't happy with the performance of the 680m and is tweaking it to meet/beat the 7970 so it's already behind at this point. All the benches have also been with hacked drivers as well.

I don't think it's as clear cut this gen that nvidia will repeat and dominate with teh 680m since they are both going to 28nm and very different tech change as the previous gen.

 

Gonna hafta agree with joecait.

The only explanation I can come up with about the delays is that, currently the 7970 is outperforming the 680m. When you consider that it's likely nVidia will once again cost 300-400 more then AMD ~ When I buy my M18x I'll be going for the cheapest Duel-GPU option. Because I know they'll likely be similar in terms of performance, actually in truth I'm leaning towards Radeon because nVidia seem to have lots more issues then Radeon.

 

Exactly, this is the reason I keep going red despite the driver issues (swore I would never buy an ati/amd mobile card after the w90vp 4870x2 debacle.). When there is a 30-40% price difference for 5% more raw performance, the decision is basically made for you.

This round will be a bit more stable interms of models, I think. Both 7970m and 680m are as fast as possible for mobile cards on this current architecture: there won't be any new model with a few more shaders or higher clocks - a good argument for buying since 7970m and 680m will be king of the hill for a looong time.

 

Besides you gotta remember both the cards have reached the ceiling of 100W on mxm 3.1 so defo wont be a card after 680m/7970m.

 

Any news about the posibility to upgrade the M18 R1 from 580M Sli to 680M SLI or 7970M X-Fire? I guess that if exist any chances, would be out of Dell hands right?

I mean if we want the upgrade we will have to do ourselves. I would love to see those machines on my laptop hehe.

 

The M18x will be available with 7970M CrossFire, but it's not at the moment. The new GPU models currently available (and the 680M if it becomes as reality) are backward compatible with the existing Sandy Bridge-based Alienware laptops. So, it's not out of Dell's hands. Dell is actually doing it.

The GTX 580M was a late release with the M18x R1 and people were flip-flopping a lot, as usual. This seems to be the status quo and I don't get too worked up about any of it.

I've got to say that AMD has a steep hill to climb to earn back my respect with the poor reliability of the 6900M series and lousy driver support we saw in 2011. I'm going to sit back and watch what happens for a bit and just enjoy the beast that I have a little longer. A lot of the predictions I am seeing are nothing but speculation and things sometimes go differently than expected.

I am not predicting, but I am eager to see how this plays out. Based on past performance, I anticipate the GTX 680M will be a late release that smokes the 7970M. NVIDIA has shown a trend of letting the competition show their cards first, then sniping them with a head shot. That's actually pretty smart, even though some folks don't like it. In a fiercely competitive market, I think I would run a company the same way. The fighter that comes out swinging and lands the first hard punch often goes down in a TKO. Plus, it would be really boring for AMD and NVIDIA to release their flagship mobile GPU models at exactly the same time. I kind of like seeing the staggered releases. It keeps things interesting for me.

Fanboys have always made up lame excuses like the cost to performance ratio not being "worth it" when something new and better displaces what they own as king of the gaming/benching hill. For the person willing and financially able to pay more for the current best, the cost is irrelevant and all of those excuses are irrelevant. There's always going to be something else that's faster and more powerful... just wait a minute and things will change. For the average enthusiast, being compelled to own the fastest is a futile endeavor that will drain your wallet and leave you unhappy or jealous at the end of the day if you let it.

If you already own an M18x with 6990M CF or 580M SLI, you own a wicked beast that whips the life out of most all of the so-called gaming laptops you can buy. For those with the cash for upgrading or those just now entering the world of ultra-high performance laptops, whether you end up with 7970M or 680M GPUs in this round, either way you're going to own an insanely powerful beast that everyone else will envy... for a few months. Enjoy it while it lasts... this too shall pass, LOL.

 

I knew you was listening. Lol

 

By the way, when the 580m launched on the M18xR1 the 6990m was about $400 cheaper? Both 6990m and 580m had very similar performance at 580m's launch on the m18x with the 6990m having a little bit of an edge initially (actually the 580m spent some time without proper drivers at launch). Then the 580m developed some issues with throttling I think (I'm pretty sure it was the 580m that had the first issue we noticed).

Everyone at that time was buying the 6990m like hot cakes (including you) which was in my opinion a very wise choice, up until the 580m SLI became cheaper (which was a couple of months or more afterwards). At that point in time the 6990m also developed the overheating issue that required the forum to intervene with Dell and that's when the tide turned. People were then buying the 580ms like hot cakes, which was again the wise choice at the time. After that the 580m stayed on top with a small margin and AMD was more or less struggling a bit with drivers (which is the main issue, more so I think than performance).

Point is, it's very hard to predict what's going to happen in the long term. People usually try to get the best or close to the best option for them at the time of purchase (which cannot be postponed indefinitely). Sometimes the AMD solution might be the good option at the time, other times the NVIDIA one...unless one can predict the future.

EDIT: To WaR: Thank you kind sir!

 

Thanks vzachari for not sounding like a fanboy; very nice balanced summary of everything. Have some rep

 

I know everyone keeps talking about this. I installed the latest AMD Drivers (which was 12.2 at that time) and I have never ever faced any problem. Every single game works perfectly fine.

I was kind of sad to see the performance of the 7970m (they are insanely powerful) but then again as long as the current 6990m Crossfire is working fine I dont think I need to upgrade for at least a couple of years.

That said and done I am waiting for a 7970m crossfire review

 

12.2 are indeed good drivers (some people even claim they are the best so far for AMD), however, that is by no means the standard when it comes to AMD GPU drivers. I feel compelled to make this argument just to fuel the fire and hopefully (together with other similar posts) haunt AMD to never again repeat the driver issues of 2011, ever.

I won't be exaggerating if I say that in 2011 a new catalyst driver release was similar to that scene in the movie War of the Worlds when the first tripod comes out of the ground. People approach it, some people make the mistake of touching it and then all hell breaks loose with people running and screaming.

 

So I had my order for the m18x r2 submitted about 5 minutes after it came out, more of an instant gratification person I suppose My question is; if I have the 675m in sli now, can I purchase the specific 7970m's in the future from a third party and swap em with the GTXs or is does crossfire require a different motherboard on laptops than SLI does?

Also what retailer would sell the type of mobile GPUs that will fit the m18x?
I know when I was looking at some Clevo's and some of them use a universal mobo slot where it's really easy to buy third party GPU's is this the case with the m18x as well?

Just one more question.. How easy is it to add another SSD and will any of these mods effect my warranty? How about re-pasting the CPU; or is that even needed.. I'll check with real-temp when it arrives but I've heard some things about Dell's pasting jobs..lol..

Thanks for your thoughts! just found this forum a few days ago and have been reading religiously

BTW my setup.. can't believe I've gotta wait a month before it ships!
Alienware M18x
Processor 3rd Generation Intel® Core™ i7-3820QM (8MB Cache, up to 3.7GHz w/ Turbo Boost 2.0)
Memory 12GB Dual Channel DDR3 at 1600MHz
Video Card Dual 2GB GDDR5 NVIDIA® GeForce® GTX 675M
Hard Drive 750GB 7,200 RPM + 32GB mSATA Caching SSD
Hinge Up Space Black Anodized Aluminum

 

yes you can change the GPU's later if you wish the SLI cable is different than the Xfire cable so you will need to purchase that too

yes Dell will have those available for sale but the price for parts like that is ridiculous so you better buy them with the machine at first that's why we waiting

yes the Clevo cards are MXM so they fit and they are backwards compatible with the M18X sometimes you will need to flash DELL vbios to make them work properly

yes you can change or upgrade to SSD real easy and that don't affect your warranty if you wish also repasting the GPU-CPU don't void your warranty if you know what you doing

 

Cool, this is what I was thinking nice to confirm it thanks very much! I'm too eager to cancel my order and wait 10 days..lol so it's good to know the cards are upgradeable I shouldn't need to for another year and by then who knows; maybe I can get a good deal on some well, I'm going to go stare at my status on the dell website for the next few weeks.

 

that's good to see people exited for something at the end that's what matters the 675's still top of the line and you can play all the games at max settings with those

so you don't even need to upgrade now if you really going to upgrade later just cancel your order and wait for what you really want believe me that is the best way to handle this I have lost tons of cash doing what you are about to do

I am exited too because I know the wait is going to be over soon

 

So its possible to upgrade 675M to 680M sli?

 

GTX 680M does not exist yet, so not at the moment. GTX 675M (aka GTX 580M) is the most powerful mobile GPU from NVIDIA for the moment. If/when it is released, it should be backward compatible as are the other NVIDIA and AMD MXM modules used in the M18x.

 

The problem with the CPU or GPU upgrade, is tha dell charge $1,300 or more for the 580M in SLi. And for the 2960XM CPU, ha forget about it they charge $2,500 to upgrade from 2760qm that I have.

The best thing you can do is, wait for order and return it and reorder.

 

Whooa my first post on NBR. You are doing great job heare, its a pleasure to read you guys

Just letting you know that M18x R2 with 7970m CF is already available in Poland

Sklep internetowy firmy Dell: Zbuduj swój system

Probably you gonna get your 7970's soon

 

Funny how the 675 sli is more expensive than 7970m that's gotta be a mistake 0.0