M18xR2 Pre-Order Configuration Questions... Ask HERE

True - I appreciate he did not mention overclocking the cpu, but it is worth pointing out the "differences" - you seemed to claim that base clock speed was the only difference, which is not true and needed further clarification.

 

sorry I should have stated that I do realize that at stock clocks there is very little performance gain with the 3940xm over the 3840qm, or even the 3740qm really, and of course I'm going to get the best performance out of my VMWare setups by overclocking a 3940xm, but what I'm wondering is how much of a performance drop I'd see going with a 3740 or 3840 and somewhat of a similar concern is bottlenecking the system at any point, since VM Workstation and vSphere utilize a lot of resources (vSphere alone takes about 6-8GB of ram, FreeNAS will take up a minimum of 2GB, plus i'll have about 8-10 VM's running at a given time which will require at least 1GB each)

as I mentioned above I've heard both sides from people that have done the setup this way, but you never know what else they might be using their laptop for and you don't know if the ones saying to go with the extreme processor are just saying get it so you have the "biggest and baddest" mobile processor out, which I have noticed from many in the virtualization field, or if it is a legitimate necessity if the laptop will be used for more than just the VMWare setups...there is also a guide to setting this "lab" up on the VMWare Community site that states that any i7 Desktop processor would work and Desktop i5s are a tossup and not recommended to use, so I'm thinking that any i7 mobile processor of this generation would be fine also since they all have vt-x capability and all perform above desktop i5 processors

I guess I'm more or less posting this to get the ideas out of my head and written down for feedback from others to give me more angles to think about or to put a different perspective on them

 

Ask around to see how much of the processor is being utilized while running all of the programs that they need to have. Also find out if they are overclocking the 3940xm.

 

yeah I've sent some messages to a few of the people on the VMWare community and I'm going to be meeting up with a guy tomorrow (ironically we are actually in a training class together this week) that has his setup using a 3610QM and 32GB RAM, so I'll see how his is working and what else he is using his laptop for, at that time, which will greatly help with this decision. If his has good performance on top running some other cpu intensive applications I might go with a 3740QM and the 680m SLI configuration and that will also give me a little more room to do some tweaking to my hard drive configuration. I'm not sure if the 2MB of cache and 0.1GHz increase is worth the upgrade to the 3840QM, but I also don't want to regret the decision later for trying to be cheap, so I'll still have that decision to work out later.

Thanks for your help so far Izekael and steviejones133.

 

hey guys.. im a total noob to this site as well as im not a pro... I thought of buying a new desktop replacement end of this month .. and I saw the m18x r2 and I couldn't hold back my self... but right nw the max amount that I can push up will be around 2000$.. due to this I thought of getting a 18xr2 with a single ATI 7970M... but what I wanted to knw is that will I be able to add another 7970m to my 18x later on and make it crossfire enable.. is it possible ???

+ having a single 7970m in a m18x worthy? or unworthy? I might overclock it...

thanks a lot for reading this thread! :hi2:

 

Yes you can add a 2nd card later on, that's no problem. You would need to buy the card, a right side heat sink, a crossfire cable and the right side fan.

a single 7970m is a beast of a card and best mobile ATI available up to date , imagine what 2 are like

 

Welcome to the forums.

Unless you have some kind of other discount you're applying, adding the single 7970M puts you right at $1,999. That configuration is a formidable machine. You can upgrade all of the other little nicknacks such as the CPU and hard drive later on for a fraction of what Dell charges. The 6GB of RAM is way more than you'll need in the near future.

I've been running a single 7970M up until very recently, and I'll tell you that there isn't a whole lot you can't throw at it and play comfortably.

You'll be happy with the machine.

 

just wanted to give an update after meeting with the gentleman I mentioned above...after seeing his VMWare setup and the other things he did with his laptop, I'm pretty confident that I can get by using a 3740QM, or even a 3630QM, and be just fine...given that its still going to be a bit before I can order, I'm hoping I can adjust my budget a little (gotta deal with the wife on that, oh joy of joys), get a good rep that will give me around 15-17% off the configuration I want, and then I will not have to worry about this as I'll be going with the 3940XM and 680m SLI and doing the other upgrades myself, but we'll see how good my haggling skills are when the time finally comes...

 

You'd be better off with the 3740qm because it can be overclocked (if required) by up to 400mhz more than stock. The 36xx cpu's cannot. Better still, you could order with a base cpu and grab a 3920xm off Ebay pretty cheaply - if you wanted to, of course. If you can negotiate a solid deal on a 3940xm and 680m Sli, that would be brilliant.

 

Oh I definitely wouldn't go less than a 3740qm, I just mentioned the 3630 to say that the performance wouldn't be an issue if I were forced to go that low

Sent from my SCH-I535 using Tapatalk 2

 

The only real noticeable gain is benchmarking with an XM processor. But with dual GPU's, it is debatable. I honestly believe if you max out the GPU configuration, you might as well max out the CPU because they work together in operations. This will also help with future upgrades to newer and better GPU's - the XM will be able to provide you with a sustainable performance gain over longer periods of time than a 3630QM or 3740QM can. But this is a debate that has been going on forever. It's obviously not necessary, but preferable, if you ask me. For the average user and light gamer, I'd recommend the 3840QM. At the very least, the 3740QM.

 

The best thing I would suggest when buying an alienware is to go through alienware buying threads here which will help you knock down a bit of price. Secondly, get absolute bare minimum Ram/HDD from Dell and put the money towards CPU/GPU combo. After market RAM/HDD are dirt cheap comparing to Dell prices.

 

I think that some of the extreme benchers on NBR (John and Fox) might just tell you that the cpu will hold back the scores when running a heavily OC'd pair of 680m's, for example. In that scenario, it would be good to throw in as much cpu power as you can at the right places. I know that you can set up profiles with ThrottleStop that allow you to easily switch between cpu overclocks (same goes for PrecisionX for gpu's) so you can floor the throttle on either (as required) during a benchmark test like 3dMark Vantage. The beauty of that is that you can reign in the gpu's on tests that don't require as much gpu power and vice versa....you can then floor both on a combined test and get a better result.

Obviously, that kind of usage scenario is probably only beneficial to benchers as the likelihood of needing to "change up and down gears" quickly is rather a moot point in everyday use. However, having the ability to set profiles for cpu and gpu allows you to select an overclock for either with minimal effort - just a quick macro allows you to throttle up or down for both.

Wicked stuff right there, and that's what owning an AW is about....awesomeness!

 

Yeah - you should have a look over here at this thread if you are buying from the US or Canada - Official Dell/AW rep's looking to get you a good deal - probably cheaper than $1999 for that configuration - you might even be able to go crossfire if the price is right!

http://forum.notebookreview.com/alienware/669327-alienware-sales-assistance-thread-redux.html

 

I would totally recommend going with dual cards (GPU's) from the beginning. The cost involved later on to add a second card (probably in an average of $700.00 including heatsink, backplate & crossfirex cable), will make you regret it a lot!

 

Don't forget the larger cache on the XM CPU. That may have some bearing on VM performance. Might ask about that. (I don't know because I have no reason to run a VM for anything.) While it will not give you any useful insight on overclocking, here is a link to a useful tool for comparing specs on processors running stock speeds: Intel | Compare Intel Processors

I can run my 3920XM at 4.3 to 4.4GHz on 4 cores with 10 flex and 1325 pri plane, and typically stay under 90°C during gaming and benchmarks. Or, even 4.0GHz on 4 cores with 0 flex running through a full 1024M ThrottleStop benchmark run pegging the CPU to a solid 100% load on 4 cores. This is with no abnormal fan manipulation or special measures to enhance cooling. You cannot achieve that type of performance with a lesser CPU. If CPU core speed and cache size makes a difference running a VM, you might want to take that into consideration.

 

I will join TurbodTalon in welcoming you to the Community. We're glad you're here and look forward to hearing more from you. Congratulations on the decision to purchase an M18x. It's a phenomenal machine, even when it's not configured with the highest available specs.

I agree with Julian. If you absolutely cannot afford more than $2,000 right now no matter what, upgrading later on is certainly an option. You'll still own the finest laptop money can buy (M18x) albeit with a lower performance configuration. With respect to GPU upgrading, it will cost more in the long run and depending on where you buy the upgrade parts it may not be covered under warranty. If cost is a problem, consider buying 675M SLI instead of a single 7970M. The performance will be similar to a single 7970M and you will have all the parts needed for a killer 680M upgrade later on if 675M SLI is not enough power to float your boat. You'll also enjoy all of the extra features NVIDIA offers over AMD, such as PhysX and better driver support and an overall better gaming/ownership experience.

Get at least a 3740QM CPU. Using the link Stevie Jones posted, or negotiating by phone, I suspect you can work a deal on an M18x with 3740QM and 675M SLi within your $2,000 price range, or very close to it. If you decide to negotiate by phone and don't like the best deal you're offered, call back and talk to a different sales rep. It make take several calls to reach one that will give you the best possible price.

We already have a thread from this type of question and discussion. I am going to merge this thread with that one, since we don't need a dedicated thread for this.

 

Yeah - I even managed a full 1024m TS run with 4.4Ghz across all cores at 100% and the temps maxed out at only 85c. Amazing power and performance from an XM chip, which goes to show that you get what you pay for at the end of the day. You just can't do that kind of thing with a non-xm.

 

Thanks. I was hoping you would reply. I think I'm pretty much sold on the 3940XM, now its going to be a matter of getting a deal worked out where I can add the 680m SLI as well when the time comes, otherwise I'll go with the 7970m crossfire. Just need the IRS to hurry up and get me my money.

 

Hi all, new person here looking to get a few opinions on config options. Apologies if these have already been answered in the past, but a few searches didn't turn anything up. Here's the system I'm looking at currently:

PROCESSOR 3rd Generation Intel® Core™ i7-3940XM (8MB Cache, up to 4.2GHz Overclocked) edit
MEMORY 16GB (4 X 4GB) Dual Channel DDR3 at 1600MHz edit
HARD DRIVE 512GB SSD RAID 0 (2x 256GB SATA 6Gb/s SSD) edit
VIDEO CARD Dual 2GB GDDR5 NVIDIA® GeForce® GTX 680M - SLI® Enabled edit
WIRELESS HD None

Questions:
1) HD: I'm considering 2 x 256gb ssd over a single 512 ssd for the speed benefits. Can anyone confirm that 2 SSDs 6Gb/s in raid 0 won't over-saturate the motherboard or cause some other component listed to be enough of a bottleneck that the gains will be negligible? If so, I may just go with a single 512 ssd.

2) Wireless: I'm putting a Killer wireless card in, but am a little concerned about how many reports there are of bad experiences with them. The esteemed Mr Fox has talked about the virtues of the 6300 (which is obviously no longer offered). Is there a guide available in case I decide to swap them later? At least by going with the Killer to begin with, I've already got the 3 antennas. I'm just wondering about connecting them to the 6300 - is it just clip or plug? Or more along the lines of soldering?

3) Ram: 1866 vs 1600MHz - worth the upgrade?

I've been reading these boards for a few weeks and have been impressed by how helpful the people are. I'm looking forward to ordering my M18x and joining your ranks!

Cheers

 

It depends on what your main needs are. Since I bought mine for gaming, I will answer your questions in a gaming-centred manner:

1) A RAID 0 setup will be faster than a single SSD, but for general use, the speed isn't noticeable at all. I'm running my OS off an SSD which is on a SATA II port therefore running at 3 Gb/s, and my system boots in 10 sec. Now if you're looking at something which requires a lot of sequential writing for example, then you may be better off with a RAID 0 setup. I value storage space over speed, so if I were you, I'd go with a single SSD drive (512 GB)

2) I have a Killer wireless card, and it outperforms by a far stretch my 6300 card which I had on my Dell XPS. Range is phenomenal, speeds are decent (I have a crap ISP so I can't really gauge speed) and it's stable enough. It's one of those things that's either stellar or down the drain, pretty much touch 'n go

3) No. Mr. Fox himself confirmed that the upgrade showed no noticeable differences at all

Welcome to the community

 

Thanks for the response, I am looking to use it primarily for gaming.

I have a question about configuring the laptop for wireless HD: The configuration tool says the wireless HD options are not compatible with Nvidia cards (I noticed this because I want SLI). If I were to want wireless HD will I need to get an external kit then? I'm not sure I'm up for taking apart the display to wire the antenna for an aftermarket internal card.

Thanks again,
JSheldon


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk HD

 

Good morning everyone.

First of all, apologies if my questions have already been answered but search brought up way too many results.

I am after a laptop(space is limited so a desktop is a "no no") exclusively for gaming and the M18x looks to be a winner in my book.

I've been away from gaming for almost a decade so my initial use of the machine will be games like GTA 4, Anno 2070, etc, all games that were released before this year. Clearly, in a year or two, I will of course purchase newer games, reason why I would like to buy an as-much-as-possible future-proof machine.

Configuration-wise I'm pretty in the dark, all I can say is that budget is close to unlimited, the OS should be able to run pre-2011 games, my knowledge on the NVidia vs ATI debate is very limited and as I said above I will do only gaming on it.

Wi-fi is not needed, HDD-wise, I was considering one SSD to install the OS and games and nothing more, since I will not use the machine as video storage/movie player whilst memory-wise, I was looking at 32GB.

As a final note and since I might not pull the trigger before the next six months, is a new Alienware machine around the corner?

Cheers.

 

Morning!

Well, if you were buying right now, the top end graphics card setup's are 7970m Crossfire and 680m Sli - not too dissimilar in power/performance. Some titles will play better on AMD, some on Nvidia. One thing that I feel gives Nvidia the edge is PhysX - it makes gaming a more "involved" experience as you get to see hidden detail that simply isn't there with AMD cards. I mean things like fog effects, explosions, floating debris - all background effects that provide a great deal of realism to a game when played on Nvidia cards. If you want to see what I mean, you can look at this video which shows you the differences:

AMD versus NVIDIA: Quality Matters

If you can, crank it up to full screen and 1080p and you will see some rather apparent differences. From a personal perspective, I feel that this alone makes the Nvidia cards a better option. The other factor to consider is support for each product. AMD support, whilst getting better, has not been very good of recent times. Owners have often found themselves frustrated with poor and infrequent driver updates where as Nvidia owners do not seem to suffer this anywhere near as much. I'm not a fanboy, I'm just stating the obvious if you trawl the NBR threads - you'll probably see more complaints coming from Team Red.

If money is not an issue, I would couple the 680m Sli with an Extreme Cpu to max out performance potential. I would say that other than the XM, the 3740qm is a great "bang for buck" cpu as it can be overclocked by up to 400mhz more. The 3630m is totally locked, so avoid if possible for best experience.

SSD's - yeah, a SSD will make using your computer a much faster and pleasant experience. One or two SSD's would be perfect.

As for new releases and the R3, that's kind of anyone's guess. I think we all hope there will be an R3 some time but no one has concrete evidence of such, and as so, could be a long wait. If you want something now, grab it if you can get a good deal on it and enjoy Today's technology right now. High end Tech moves along so rapidly that if you wait and wait, you will always find news of something just around the corner that would put you off buying now. That's just the way of it.

Finally, if you want a good "in depth" read of 7970m crossfire vs. 680m Sli, have a look over here:

Clash of the Titans: NVIDIA GTX 680M SLI and AMD Radeon HD 7970M CrossFire

 

Thanks a lot for the detailed reply steviejones133, very, very kind.

I've always owned NVidia cards so your advice to go for them is music for my ears as I find them extremely reliable although in all fairness I do no gaming at the moment.

You mention overclocking, that's one area I would love to check out but it would void the warranty if something goes terrible wrong, no? :S

I mean, I can accept overclock + run game + get a BSOD + go back to default settings but overclock + run game + CPU fried would be a disaster

One more question, if I may. Is it true that graphics-wise, laptops cannot be upgraded?

Cheers.

 

Nvidia, in my humble opinion, is the way to go - as long as you don't mind the cost over the AMD cards. It's not that the AMD cards are poor, they are far from it. I prefer the added "eye candy" and somewhat more robust support offered with Nvidia.

As far as overclocking goes, it would be highly unlikely that you would fry your hardware if you did things in the right fashion. Of course, trying to apply an outlandish overclock and running it 24/7 may end up damaging your cards, and technically, would be user induced damage which would not be covered under warranty. Thing is, if you did fry up a card, it's extremely difficult to ascertain that user induced damage was the cause and is also unlikely that Dell would take the time/trouble to identify overclocking as the cause of hardware failure. Also, if overclocking the cpu, Intel has built in thermal safety measures so that it will make sure that it doesn't damage itself. If it's running to fast, too hard for too long, thermal limits will kick in to prevent total failure.

The official Dell word on overclocking you machine and how it affects warranty can be found in this thread/post: Alienware M11x OC void the warranty? - sure, it's an M11x inquiry, but the Dell response would be the same for all machines, I imagine. If you read further in that thread, you can see a response from DellChrisM that states:

If you wanted to find out more about how to overclock safely, there are two very informative threads here on NBR which cover more or less all aspects of GPU & CPU overclocking - Overclocking both GPU & CPU is perfectly safe if you apply some common sense and knowledge, testament to that you will find below:

http://forum.notebookreview.com/ali...alienware-m18x-benchmark-thread-part-2-a.html & http://forum.notebookreview.com/ali...ridge-ivy-bridge-cpu-overclocking-thread.html

As for upgrading graphics cards, it's not true that they cannot be upgraded. I have recently upgraded (did it myself) my old 580m Sli cards with 680m Sli cards. What you may find is that certain upgrades require "modified" drivers to allow the graphics driver to "recognize" the new hardware in the old machine. An example of this is installing 680m Sli in a M18x R1 - the upgrade I just did - because Dell have not authorized Nvidia to include the Hardware ID for the R1 in the .inf file of the Nvidia Drivers. This means that a small amendment needs to be performed manually in the driver files to allow the drivers to complete an installation and get correctly recognized. The reason behind the Hardware ID not being included is quite simple. If Dell did so, they would end up losing out on sales of shiny new M18x R2's because there would be a lot of R1 owners simply changing the cards, not the whole machine - why buy a whole new machine when you can simply upgrade some parts, eh?

 

That's just brilliant mate.

So basically, a video card upgrade will not force me into upgrading the mobo as well (which would mean a format of the system), which is nice.

On a final note, even if hardware-wise I'm a "noob", software-wise I would call myself an expert so all the threads you're pointing to should be extremely helpful if I indeed decide to overclock and/or upgrade cards.

Cheers!

 

Yep. No need to upgrade the motherboard to upgrade GPU's. If you were buying/currently owning an M18x R1, like myself, and wanted to upgrade the cpu to an Ivy 3xxx series chip, you WOULD have to have a new mobo as the cpu's are not backwards compatible with the Sandy Bridge platform/HM67 Chipset. Several owners here on NBR have actually done that particular upgrade to their R1's - dropped an R2 mobo/daughter board etc into an R1, kind of like creating a M18x R1.5 ! (in essence, all the power/upgradeability of an R2 in an R1 unleashed - except for adding an mSata port due to case restrictions).

That won't bother you though, as chances are you will be buying a new R2, right? - in which case, if/when newer cpu's come out (Haswell), it's highly unlikely they would be backwards compatible with Ivy Bridge/HM77 either - just the way Intel rolls, they don't make upgrading older platforms with newer chips possible.

 

WiHD does not seem to work on the R2. I don't have one myself, so I'm not sure whether a solution was found for this problem. For more reference, hceck this thread out:

http://forum.notebookreview.com/ali...18x-wireless-hd-sibeam-discussion-thread.html

 

Good, just like a desktop machine after all

To be honest, I didn't know there were two revisions of this laptop, now I know what you meant with R3 up there

Well yes, R2 would be the choice unless there are reasons why one should opt for an older version?

Another question, please. I own a Latitude E5530, is the power adapter of the E5530 compatible with the M18x?

 

I doubt it. The M18x with a dual card setup requires a 330w Power supply. Anything less will just end up being a poor experience, even if they fitted into the jack.

 

And the other way round?

I ask because on my desk I will have the E5530 almost all the time, only to put it away when I want to use the Alienware so one adapter for both machines would be nice.

 

Well, the jack looks like it would fit but I wouldn't like to recommend using a 3302 PSU when the E5530 only requires a 90w PSU - I'd hate to think that you plugged it in and fried the latitude. If the E5530 only draws what it requires an no more, I imagine it would be okay but I would advise you getting official confirmation on this - either from Dell or someone on the forum here who would know more about power supplies etc. Maybe you could ask the question in the M18x owners Lounge?

PSU jack dimensions are the same, according to these two links:

Genuine Dell 330 Watt AC Power Adapter w/ 6ft Cable For Alienware M18X Systems

Replacement Dell Latitude E5530 AC Adapter 90Watt 19.5V 4.62A

 

Well folks after much searching and fighting with my pocket I decided on a m18x with 8gb of ram and core i7 3940XM 680M SLI.
I hope I made ​​a good choice.
Color red.
I would very much doubt that some colleagues would take me before my beast sitting on my hands.
the thermal paste that comes with it is good quality?
these memos that comes with it supports up to 1866?
what is overclocking sound that I can start with him?
I'm thinking that before I even get into windows want to use E-SATA to make a ghost system what do you think?
after migrating to want an SSD with 500GB HDD and it'll be using it for Ghost.
Thank you in advance for advice given.
remembering that because I'm afraid of video cards there are 2gb.
Will cause me problems with Crysis 3?

 

True

Allow me to keep taking advantage of your kindness with an important question I have.

As I said in one of my previous posts, I'll spend the first few months playing catch-up, that is, playing games that were released before or in the early months of 2012 only to start enjoying newer releases in let's say, end of 2014. For this reason, the best M18x available in the market today would be overkill, at least in the first few months.

But what is the risk that when I decide to buy newer releases, the machine will be obsolete? That is, overkill today, obsolete tomorrow?

It's a fear that is worrying me a little because clearly, if the machine without any upgrade or with a GPU upgrade(what we discussed yesterday) would still be kicking butt in a year or two then I'll be more than happy to buy the best available M18x today but if not, maybe it would be wiser for me to purchase a less-performant version of the laptop and upgrade or go for a new machine in two years.

What do you think?

 

Well, I'm a great believer in that "too much power is never too much power" - sure, an older machine will suffice and suffice comfortably with a lot of Today's great titles. As I mentioned before, the machine I have now had 580m Sli from the factory and whilst it was a beast of a machine that chewed up many a game, there were a few that it struggled with - namely Metro 2033 and a handful of others. Those kind of games cripple powerful desktops too.

I think gaming developers will continue to push the boundaries of whatever hardware is available. Even right now with 7970m Crossfire and 680m Sli enabled machines, some of Today's titles are still extremely demanding on them. Technology moves forward at an eye-watering pace in the computer world and I don't see any let up in that. Give it 6mths time, you will probably see new gpu's and cpu's that perform better than the current generations do. Who's to say that in 2014, gaming developers won't be pushing the boundaries of that hardware, thus making current hardware look obsolete.

There's one guarantee - unless you have pot's of cash - whatever you buy Today will be out of date or superceeded pretty damn quickly. That's why my mentality is to get the best you can comfortably afford Today and worry about Tomorrow when it comes. Sure as eggs are eggs, there will always be a better option available in 6-12mths time with more power and performance. Staying on the bleeding edge is very expensive.......

So, my advice would to NOT buy an under powered or older machine, as quite simply it will be older and even more outperformed in 12 mths and you run the risk or possibility that it will struggle with newer games not yet released. If you want to futureproof your intended purchase as much as possible, you have to go with the best you can get right now. That way, it'll stand more chance of not being overwhelmed with new releases and it will also be worth more should you choose to upgrade in 12 mths time - older technology will devalue even more so upon each and every step up in hardware that becomes available.

If new technology is just around the corner, it could be seen as wise to hold off buying before it's released to avoid your machine being spuerceeded within a matter of weeks with new hardware. Other than that, I don't see any reason for NOT buying right now and NOT buying the best available right now - personal budgets of course being the limiting factor.

 

Way too kind mate, and glad we're more or less on the same wavelength.

When I was in PC gaming, but that was almost a decade ago, I was always under the impression that there's no machine that can handle with ease the game of today and will struggle with the game of tomorrow.

From what you say it seems this is still a case but allow me to add one more thing that I think I omitted in my previous posts: I'm not a hardcode gamer. Fair enough, I want to max performance as out as possible from "older" games but with newer ones, as long as the resolution is pretty high and I have no lag and FPS is acceptable, than I'm happy

Hoping that I'm not breaking any of the house rules, what site shall I keep an eye on to know about the "around the corner" technology? Hence knowing whether it's wise to wait or not.

 

Well, Notebookcheck can give you a good indication of performance of each car that is available Today. Look at the list, select what GPU you want to look at and it will give you a long list of benchmarks and games tested on various machines. They aren't always accurate, but it's a good place to gauge gaming performance of each graphics card.

Actually, NBR is a pretty good place to read to find out about new tech. There are always threads with info on prospective new gpu's or cpu's - constant talk on what will be next and when, if you like. You just have to read the message boards. Other than that, Anandtech seems to be up to date with breaking news. I tend to just Google about a bit too. If you Google Haswell, you will find lots of links about Intel's new cpu lineup, rumoured to be launched June time-ish. Don't expect leaps and bounds in performance as Intel don't need to make massive jumps because they have things pretty much cornered. I've read to expect a 5-10% performance increase vs. Ivy cpu's but they will be more efficient and have better on-board graphics (HD4600) which is supposed to game as good as an Nvidia GT 650m.

 

Hello guys,

First i have to say i'm sorry if my english is not that good since its not my main langage.

I'm planning on getting an m18X from usa but i'm not sure about which graphic card to take. This question has been asked before i guess but i'm in a different situation.

Here's the thing :

Constraints :
1. i'm getting my alienware from usa but i live 3000 km far from it so i'm concerned about warranty since i dont know if my country can provide full technical support on alienwares.
2. I have 220 volt / 50 hz electric energy( is it the same in usa? )
3. I dont have enough budget to get the dual GTX680M SLI

Here's what i need :
1. Stable computer.
2. Good durability.
3. Best performance.


Now i know that crossfire 7970 provides the best performance but i checked on forums and saw that many people have problems with the drivers , some even had to change there gpu through warranty , also there is the overheating problem .

My questions are :

1. Are the new AMD drivers resolving the issues with the CF 7970 ?
2. Does CF 7970 work well on windows 8?
3. Is having a m18X with CF 7970 increase the probability of getting software / material problems than a single one or a single gtx680M?
4. Can i upgrade the graphic card on a M18X from a 7970M to a GTX680M?
5. Knowing my situation what is in your opinion the best choice for the graphic card ?

 

Answers to your questions:

1. Yes. I haven't seen anyone post issues with the latest drivers.

2. They probably work fine, but better on windows 7, at least for the time being. I'm sure drivers will only get better from here on out - don't worry!

3. No. The portability of the system is going to be the same in terms of size, and very similar for weight. However, having a single GPU will allow you to have a smaller power adapter - 240W as compared to the 330W (dual GPU's).

4. Yes you can. This is what is great about the M18x. However, you will need to buy more than the GPU. For specifics, search for Mr. Fox's tutorial thread - he upgraded from 2x 7970M to 2x 680M. (Look in his signature!)

5. The 7970M in Crossfire will perform better than a single 680M, but with your energy consumption concerns (above), I personally believe a single 680M will suffice and is the best option for you at this time. You can add another 680M (of the same type) later on. The 680M is a very powerful GPU, do not be concerned with handling games - it can do so for at least two years. If the power consumption isn't an issue, I'd get dual 7970M's in Crossfire!

Hope that helps!

 

Thanks you very much for the answer , it's really helping me in making my choice

On thing though, for the 3rd question i meant is having crossfire/ dual gpu increases the chances of having material or software(graphic related) issues since it creates more heat and i'm a hardcore gamer so i will be using them a lot at full potential i guess .

 

Oh, my bad, I thought it said "portability", not "probability", haha.

No, it doesn't increase chances of issues. More heat is generated, but the cooling in the M18x is quite phenomenal.

 

Hey Everyone! Long time lurker here . I was wondering if anyone knew of any benchmarks that show the effect of the clock speed of the processor on fps. The reason I ask is Anandtech's review pertaining to the 680m SLI alludes to the fact that they may be bottlenecked by the 3840QM, and I'm trying to decide between the 3840QM and the 3940XM. Thanks in advance!

 

It won't be bottlenecked, at least not while gaming. However, while benching it will not score as high as the 3940XM, obviously. The 3840QM is capable of handling overclocked 680M's. Check out the benchmark thread, a member has this setup.

 

I'm a happy camper with my lowest-OC'able processor in the Ivy Bridge setup, albeit using my rig exclusively for full-on gaming. No game has taxed my CPU + GPUs yet, although admittedly I haven't bought Crysis 3 yet. The only one which exercised my CPU was Far Cry 3

 

Hi I am looking into buying a high-end gaming system. Price is no object but I do not want to pay 500 dollars for marginal performance boosts for instance. Below is what I chose based on some research but I have some questions still.

1. For memory, 16Gb should be plenty from what I read. Does the 1866mhz make a real difference?
2. For video card, getting dual 680m SLI seems like overkill currently, I don't FPS as often as I used too. Should I spend the extra 500 for the dual? Plan on keeping for 3 years.
3. For Hard drives, I want some storage for videos etc. but read that the 32gb or 64gb bootdrive are worth it. Perhaps if someone can explain why I would want to go with 256gb SSD over the bootdrive option?
4. Backpack or messenger bag? I think for its weight I want to lean towards backpack.
5. Wireless adapter, I usually dont play anything where 2 or 3ms ping matters that much though I do primarily play multiplayer games. Is it worth the 75 bucks?
6. Consensus is the warranty is worth it yes? The system is gonna be over 3k so seems reasonable.

PROCESSOR 3rd Generation Intel® Core™ i7-3840QM (8MB Cache, up to 3.8GHz w/ Turbo Boost 2.0) edit
OPERATING SYSTEM Windows® 7 Home Premium, 64bit edit
MEMORY 16GB (4 X 4GB) Dual Channel DDR3 at 1600MHz edit
HARD DRIVE 750GB 7,200 RPM + 64GB mSATA Caching SSD edit
VIDEO CARD 2GB GDDR5 NVIDIA® GeForce® GTX 680M edit
WIRELESS + BLUETOOTH Intel® Centrino® Wireless-N 2230 With Bluetooth 4.0 edit
INTERNAL OPTICAL DRIVE Slot-Loading Dual Layer Blu-ray Reader (BR-ROM, DVD+-RW, CD-RW) edit
PRE-INSTALLED SOFTWARE Steam Factory Installed and Steam Extra Content edit
BAGS & MICE Alienware Orion M18x Backpack - TSA Friendly edit
SUPPORT 3 Year Essential Support edit

 

Thank J.Dre for pointing me to the benchmark thread, it was extremely useful in comparing the performance of processors, and thanks Radi324 for letting me know about how your set up performs .

Seleucus, as far as clock speed on your RAM is concerned, unless you're doing video editing or something computationally demanding (e.g. running calculations in Mathematica or FORTRAN), the clock speed is rather unimportant. I know with my desktop, the upgrade from 1066 MHz RAM to 2133 MHz RAM had little, if any, effect on my gaming experience.

After a quick Google search, I managed to find http://techreport.com/review/20377/...of-memory-speed-on-sandy-bridge-performance/3 , which does a pretty nifty job of showing how the RAM speed affects your gaming experience.

 

1. 1866MHz makes no discernible difference, as was reported by various NBR members
2. The 680M will be able to play games in 3 years time, but probably at low-med settings. Depends on which games you're talking about - if they're very resource-intensive such as FC3, Skyrim, Crysis-series etc, I don't see a 680M being able to keep up with any developments of those types of games. I, like you, bought my rig for gaming - I preferred having a weaker CPU but a 680m SLI setup. Games really shine on a SLI setup, believe me, and in 3 years' time it will certainly be able to play games better than a single card of course
3. Pretty simple. Apart from the OS, you might want to run some other often-used programs from your SSD. Games load up faster (although ingame performance is not affected) and all other programs in general. Even Word is zippier on a SSD
4. It's all down to personal preference. I went for a backpack because it's more comfy and I can use it for other stuff to, for example hiking.
5. There were various reports that the Killer Wireless is buggy and likely to drive you mad. I had the same experience in reverse i.e. it was the 6300 card which drove me nuts when I had it on my XPS. Been perfectly happy with my Killer card, worth the $75 upgrade in my case - it has a phenomenal performance even at long distances.
6. It's a no-brainer. A definite yes, make sure your warranty in total last at least 3-4 years.

Hope to see you soon among us!

 

Happens , anyways i think i'm finally gonna go with the crossfire 7970m but apparently i'll need a better cpu than the default one ( 3630qm i think ) to use them at full potential . I was told in the forum that i'll need at least a 3740qm but i think there is not much difference between the 3630qm and the 3740qm and i can't add 315$ for the 3820 qm.
I just wanna confirm that 3740qm is really enough to use my CF 7970s at full potential because if not i think i'll stick with a single 680m and upgrade the cpu later.

 

If you are into gaming a 3740QM is more than enough combined with CF7970 setup ....................though honestly after my torrid experience with the 7970 ...i would go Nvidia any day but i do realize that there is a significant bump in price ...................so SLI might not be a option for you ............for me personally even a single 680m is adequate when i game at 1920*1080p .......i am not a fps freak but ....when i game at 2560*1440 ......i desperately need both the cards to kick in .