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

Anyone know how far behind NZ/AUS will be with regards to the 7970's?

 

Yeah I'd like to know as well ^^

 

I believe AMD is still having some issues with driver support for 7970M CrossFire. If my understanding is correct, a single 7970M functions properly, but CrossFire does not. Alienware is working with AMD to try to get that sorted. I am somewhat surprised to see it being sold as a configuration under the circumstances. I don't know if any M18x R2 systems with 7970M CrossFire have shipped yet.

 

Ah, okay- I just wonder because the situation I was having earlier re: tech borking my system is finally getting resolved, and I've been offered a full unit replacement (awesome) but it just is probably going to happen right in this lovely gap between the old gen 'high-end' gpu's being discontinued/replaced but before the new gen ones are released (not awesome). Oh well!

 

If you haven't been following it, have a peek at this thread...
http://forum.notebookreview.com/alienware-m18x/661918-m18x-r1-7970m-crossfire-14.html

 

Here in Qatar, customs did charge me 'import tax'. Can't remember how much it was, HIDEvolution has said they've typically found it to be about 5% of the value of the machine. No idea what it'd be for the UAE though. Maybe ask HIDEvolution if they know what any import taxes would be, just because you ask them that one question doesn't mean you have to buy from them

And I would really be careful about sending it through Aramex. If I remember rightly, the limit on insurance claims through their Shop and Ship service is nowhere near the cost of these machines (it's like $100 or something when I saw it, but I can't find it on their new website). I don't think they'd have any trouble with customs, but I would definitely send it through a courier like DHL or FedEx to make sure you have no problems (and to make sure the package is fully insured), even if it is more expensive.

And I'm buying my machine from HIDEvolution. If they ever get back to me with a bloody quote. They must be really busy, I sent the email to them last Friday The wait is killing me! At this rate, I'm going to be back in the UK before it's shipped and I'll be hit with 20% import tax instead (and yet that's still massively cheaper than the UK's prices...)

 

^ Thanks for the thorough feedback! That's +1 rep to you sir!

 

Just messaged hidevolution and they were saying that at tops UAE would impose a tax of 10% if any
They also said that they will declare the price to be much lower to 750 dollars(not sure how comfortable I am with that)

 

I know I wouldnt be comfortable at all with that....it would mean that should the shipment go missing or get damaged, its only insured or covered up to the declared value of the contents of HID's package......not good. Sure, it might aid in avoiding excess fees, but it's too risky in my book - especially when dropping a few thousand....

 

Exactly it's like losing 6000 dollars compared to paying 600 more

 

Yep. Exactly. I know which I would prefer.....

 

I sent an inquiry too regarding that. And also on the 7970M Crossfire support.

Geez, 10%.. so that's why unscrupulous local resellers have the nerve to rack up prices here -despite being tax-free!

 

What you could try is speaking to one of the authorised resellers : Find a Laptop, Notebook, Desktop, Server, Printer, Software, Service, Monitor or TV at Dell. | Dell Middle East

they might be able to help though judging from past experience they won't know much :/

 

They replied to you that quickly? I sent an email to them last Friday and still haven't heard anything back! The longer this takes, the more I wonder if I should just stick with buying through Dell UK...(although the machine is £400 more expensive in the UK than it would be buying it through HIDEvolution and shipping it to the UK, including shipping and taxes, so that would have to be made up through a huge discount)

 

As long as you've been waiting for HIDEvolution to respond, it might be a better idea to go through Dell UK. Maybe get in touch with Stevie Jones' rep for a hot deal. I was thinking to myself that their unresponsiveness could be a sign of poor service.

 

Yh they replied in 1 hour o.o
Main reason I'm going for hidevolution is cause it makes up a difference of like 1500

 

I'm reluctant to, because if HIDEvolution can give me any discount on the price listed on their site, it's unlikely to be cheaper through Dell UK no matter which rep I get, unless they can offer me a discount of over £400 (and a 4 year warranty, which you can't get on the UK site but can in the US).

And this is all assuming it's sent to me after mid-July. Any time before that I'm in the Middle East still, which further reduces costs by £200.

Still, maybe it wouldn't hurt to try again to contact them.

EDIT: They did get back in contact with me, I sent them another message and apparently they missed my email. They've offered me a $100 discount - so it's now almost £500 cheaper than the list price in the UK, including shipping and taxes, and that's all assuming it's delayed and I can't get it shipped to Qatar (which is £200 cheaper still). Still trying to see if I can squeeze an Alienware Orion M18x backpack out of them for free though.

They've said to me that they usually declare a $500 value for the M18x, but doesn't that mean shipping is only insured for $500? I'd never want to take that risk, even though it drops the VAT to about £60 from £400...(although this is again assuming it's shipped to the UK and not Qatar)

 

Just 'cos you cant see 4yr warranty on the website doesnt mean you cant get it - take a look at my signature - as I have said before, speaking to a rep unlocks all other options you dont see on the website.....I am also pretty sure that my guy could save you around £400+ on a heavily spec'd M18x....no problem.

And, yeah.....$500 is all you would get back if something happened to your HID shipment...basically 'cos that's all it is insured for....

 

Yes it does mean that it's insured for the lower price but I'm gonna email them later and check again. But that does come down to personal choice but I would use FedEx or whatever courier service instead of the default option.
Also last time I checked the ssd offered was the dell mobility which I believe is slower than the Samsung pm810

 

You dont want either of those drives - you want a PM830....PM810's are Sata II, not Sata III....

And it wont matter WHO you use to ship your machine, its still only insured up to HID's declared value of the contents which would be $500...dont forget, you also pay duty on the shipping fee aswell (at the rate of the country you are importing to, obviously)

 

My bad then its PM830 couldnt remember it properly..the reason Im saying to use FedEx is cause on the other HIDevolution thread they were saying not to use the default one

 

No worries...and yeah, I think USPS (I think that is their default) isn't that reliable from what I have heard...

Also, I take it you guys are 100% aware that you will get a US keyboard layout as opposed to a UK one and a US PSU? - I know these are small considerations but from a personal viewpoint, they are all things that factor in....(last time I looked, I didnt think HID offered a UK keyboard/PSU but I could very well be wrong by now....)

 

Yeah, I was hoping you'd be able to get 4 year by calling in.

The discount would have to be huge. Provided the build time doesn't exceed a month, this is getting shipped to Qatar and by cutting down the import tax to 5%, that cuts a huge amount off the price.

With the $130 discount HID has now offered me, the grand total including shipping to Qatar and the estimated 5% import tax is just under $3800 - or just under £2400. And that includes the Orion M18x backpack, and assumes everything (full value of system, backpack and shipping cost) is taxed. The grand total for the same configuration in the UK (but with 3 years warranty, not 4) is £2850. So the rep would need to get me a £450 discount and upgrade me to 4 years warranty - even with the best reps, I don't see any of them exceeding that, so there's no point in me waiting longer to get it in the UK if it's the same price, in my opinion.

As for the shipping, I thought that would be the case. I'll make sure to ask them to declare the true value of the machine ($3000) so it's fully insured.

That worries me. I wouldn't want to go with Dell's mSATA drive if it's not a SATA 3 drive. (I have actually looked online for competitive prices, but can't find any...mSATA SSDs aren't common in hardware shops online yet, in the UK at least)

Yeah, I'm going with DHL. Was perfectly fine with my M17 before, so I'm assuming DHL will be good for my M18x this time around.

And yeah, I know I'm getting the US keyboard and US PSU. Two small niggles, they aren't going to put me off. As long as the US PSU works the world over (which it does IIRC), I don't mind having to use a plug adapter.

In any case, getting a name plate makes up for it

 

Well, I guess if you are requiring a discount of £450 & Warranty upgrade from a UK rep to compete with your HID deal, I have to agree - it's unlikely.

Yeah, the PSU itself works all over with various travel adapters - if you want to use it in the UK without, its easy enough to pick up a normal "kettle type" power lead so you dont have to use an adapter whilst at home - no way around the KB one unless you buy a UK version one - seen 'em on Ebay cheap enough but maybe not worth it if you are OK with the US layout.

One thing regrding the mSata - it's only Sata II 3gbps anyway, even though the Dell issue mSata drive (64gb anyway) is the Samsung PM830 Sata III 6gbps. One NBR member (juliant) has taken some comprehensive photos/screenshots over on the benchmarking thread that show this to be the case.....so, wont really matter what mSata drive you use as it will only operate up to 3gbps Sata II.

Oh, and forgot....yep. The name plate definetly makes up for things LOL

 

Nice, I was hoping I'd just be able to pick up a replacement lead for the PSU. Would absolutely any lead work (as long as it's got the right 'plug' to fit the PSU) or would it need to be a particular type/official cable?

Well, that's annoying about the mSATA drive then. I'm now considering dropping that from my system and perhaps picking up a 2.5" SSD instead. It means dropping one of my hard drives, but it'd run faster (and be slightly cheaper).

Would the mSATA SSD only being SATA II really make a noticeable difference to system performance, or is it so fast that it would barely be noticeable anyway (compared to a high speed SATA III SSD)?

 

I am using a power lead for a desktop PSU, so I think that is all you would need. Those are cheap. I don't like the factory power lead for the 330W AC adapter because it is bulky and unwieldy, and it takes up too much space in my backpack.

 

Regards the mSata, I havent seen any disk benches of it so its hard to tell. Goes without saying though that if you use something like the Samsung PM830 mSata (which is Sata III 6gbps), its only gonna function at 3gbps Sata II.

If you look at SSD's when comparing Sata II vs Sata III, there can be a huge difference in performance. Trouble is that when you stick anything on Sata II, the max you will get is 3gbps when top end Sata III drives are getting on close to saturating Sata III 6gbp with High read/write speeds.

Say you got any drive that performs 550mb/s reads & 400mb/s writes, by putting it on a Sata II port will limit it to 300 max as that's the max speed supported my Sata II 300mb/s....that's the kinda performance hit you would take.....

Oh, and this may be of interest for those wondering about 680m...

NVIDIA preparing GTX-680M for presentation at Computex by VR-Zone.com

 

The problem is that the stated speeds of around 550MB/s are sequential read/write speeds. Sequential read/writes are the rarest of almost every user workload, including gamers, in the region of 0.1% of all reads/writes. IIRC the typical user workload has more 4KB read/writes than any other type - and speeds of those are far lower than sequential.

I've just looked this up. For 4KB random read performance, and at low queue depth, the speeds of any SSD (including the Samsung 830) are close on SATA 2 and SATA 3. As the queue depth increases, the speed on SATA 2 caps at around 200MB/s, whereas fast SATA 3 drives go far higher than that (including the 830). But this appears to be at around queue depth 5 and above, and IIRC in a typical home user workload (including gamers) queue depth rarely rises above 1-2, particularly on the virtually non-existent latency of an SSD. (A server workload on the other hand would typically have a high queue depth.)

So, basically put, the vast majority of SSD users (including gamers) should not be able to perceive a real world difference with a fast SSD (such as the Samsung 830) running on either a SATA 2 or a SATA 3 interface.

Someone correct me if I'm wrong there. It's a shame how much mis-information there is out there from SSD manufacturers, using the sequential read/writes as the advertised speeds when that is actually relevant to few people.

 

This is how they sell AW here in the UAE:

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v197/YuJinn/IMAG0668.jpg

Preposterous, right?

 

It's just as bad here in Qatar in Virgin. Saw an M18x there about a week ago (R1 of course) with the 2630QM and a single 560M selling for the equivelant of $3000...the worst part is someone will undoubtedly buy that. If only the uninformed masses were more, well, informed

 

True. I still would not like to be having to use superior Sata III capable drives with superior performance and KNOWING that it has a Sata II cap because of port limitations....regardless of where that cap is, its still gonna get limited at some point. It's kind of akin to putting a speed limiter on a F1 racing car....

And those UAE prices are just bonkers......

 

I spoke with one of the head tech's over at Alienware about installing the 7970 CF on a m18xr1 and he said it "could work" but those cards are made specifically for the new adapter. Sure they are backwards compatible but they themselves do not know what issues could show up.

 

I know what you mean. Still, if I'm going to have an SSD anywhere (and if it's not a rediculously expensive high capacity drive) I'd rather have it in the mSATA slot so I can get extra storage with 2 hard drives.

 

Good thinking. At least the mSata does provide that advantage, even if it is Sata II.

 

can you raid the mSata with another ssd? if they are the same size?
forgive me if that was a stupid question
m18x r2 can pretty much have 5 hard drives? 1 msata, 3 caddy, and if you put one in the optical drive area? that would be pretty sweet

 

I believe you can raid it, and I think there was an option for that as well (3 256GB SSDs, one of which is mSATA).

No, there's only 2 HDD caddys (someone correct me if I'm wrong there), so you could have 4 drives potentially.

 

He's actually right: three 7mm high 2.5" drives (maybe two/one 9mm + one/two of 7mm too), one mSATA and one in an optical caddy.

 

I would say this thread has gotten way off topic..the subject is "M18x R2 HD 7970M Xfire GTX 680M SLI when?"--which you would think we would be discussing video cards upcoming..but it looks like we are talking about mSATA drives and hdd's..should this be moved?

 

Back on topic then....

Some more news on 680m....

NVIDIA preparing GTX-680M for presentation at Computex by VR-Zone.com

 

Sorry for going off topic again, but...

Really? But aren't there only 2 SATA connectors for the drives? How would you connect up 3 drives?

 

There are x3 Sata connectors in the drive caddy itself to store up to three 7.0mm drives....that leaves the mSata on its own connector and also, if you wanted to, you can remove the optical drive and use that port for an additional 5th drive.....then just put the optical drive in an external enclosure.

 

37% is impressive but aren't the numbers that the 7970's are getting more impressive?

Last round I went with ATI/AMD on both my m18x's but this time I wanted to go the nvidia route but I really hope some better bench's show up.

 

We will not see better benches from NVIDIA before the 680M is released because the NVIDIA cards that are out now are no longer their top end products. The 675M is mainly a refreshed 580M, so nothing more we can expect from 675M in terms of performance. We cannot compare a 675M to a 7970M because they are not in the same class, just as a 2760QM and 2960XM are not. The clock speeds of the 7970M seem to give it the edge over the 580M. Honestly, I was expecting a wider gap between the two. With my 580M overclocked to speeds similar speeds as the stock 7970M, there's not a gigantic gap in performance.

I saw that article and thought the same thing "only 37% improvement?" I don't put a lot of weight on most of the internet articles because they are frequently wrong. Even notebookcheck's testing information is often wrong when they have hardware to test with. Some of it is based on the talent (or lack thereof) of the person writing the article or doing the testing. We get more accurate information by watching what happens in this forum, and it's going to be exciting to see the 7970M and 680M go head-to-head. Hopefully, NVIDIA will not release it prematurely if the drivers are crappy like AMD seems to have a knack for doing. It's a shame the release of the 7970M wasn't executed more gracefully. Hopefully, the 7970M will be a solid overclocker with improved driver support, so it can achieve the full performance it should be capable of. It would be sad if the core and memory are already running at their maximum stable clock speeds with no room for more.

 

You are right most articles tend to be wrong so I cannot wait and see what happens.

 

Yes, indeed. Fun times ahead with the red and green.

AMD should be ashamed for this sort of thing with their flagship GPU. Rushing something to release gives an edge to their competition.

 

for all you guys who want to maximize space you can fit 2 regular 9.5mm HDD's and a 7mm SDD on the caddy I have done this yesterday at first tried to put the SSD on port 0 the one close to the laptop cover but the HDD on the bottom close to the palmrest don't let me screw the caddy so I put the SSD on the bottom port 1 and it worked you can also see a little space between drives so that's good for cooling

 

can you show pics speedy

 

I don't have the machine with me now but see this pic those are 3x9.5mm SSD's but for some reason the HDD's have a belly where the sticker is and the caddy don't seat flat on the space with ALL SSD's is different you can fit any combination

 

Speedy, so the SSD is on one of the 6.0gb SATA 3 ports? Honestly, I need to buy you a beer, now, or whatever drink you'd like, as this was my major worry as the mSATA port seems to be limited to 3.0gb SATA 2 speeds. Thank you!

 

yes sir I am real exited about this because I bought an M4 7mm for my boot drive and two scorpio black 750gb for storage + the seagate 750gb that comes with the machine I am going to put that on the optical drive space total of 128GB+2250GB storage

by the way I drink Becks