M18xR2 Pre-Order Configuration Questions... Ask HERE

Hey, well this is easy to answer, most of the people that have bad experiences will post them all across the internet, that's something that may definitely confuse a customer, while people who have great experiences with their computers are playing Diablo III or BF3 right now and they don't have the time to be writing reviews or posting that all over the internet.
Good and bad reviews there will always be on any single computer, I've personally owned my Alienware for about 1 year now and I've not had a single problem with it, however I'm constantly checking and reviewing tips on do's and dont's. Its always good to do that.

When it comes to hard drives the best way to go is for the Solid State ones because they don't need to spin and this means, less chances for it to break.

Regarding the overclocking, what it does is to make the processor work on a higher clock speed than it usually works at. Most of the Alienware computers are overclocked from factory to a level that the computer can stand under high usage but if the overclocking setting is changed in the BIOS manually to a higher setting it may cause a harm to the processor, but for that you will need to deliberately do it.

I hope this information was helpful. #IWork4AW

 

@Alienware-L_Porras do you know anything about AMD 7970m drivers for the M18X R2 when they are going to be released or if they are testing one ? something ?

 

If you're worried about damage to your CPU from overclocking (HIGHLY unlikely, especially with AlienWare's default BIOS - as voltage modding is not allowed) - you can buy OC protection from Intel.

Desktop-only, unfortunately!

Tuning Plan

 

ive did contact to AMD support about it, but ive been said that they are workin on it, will release it sooner but not any fix date additionally said to stick with dell provided drivers.

 

thanks at least they working on that

 

Hi Speedy, you can actually use the m17x R4 drivers and it should be working fine on your M18xR2, here is the direct link for them: Drivers and Downloads | Dell [United States] .

 

thanks it won't work fine with those in crossfire a lot of games flicker in the menus and some don't even work in crossfire

we been using 12.5 beta drivers instead

 

Yeah the crossfire function is not yet fully compatible, sorry about that, we have no ETA available yet, follow us on facebook as we post all of our newest updates there. http://www.facebook.com/JMLMaster#!/Alienware .

 

Thank you for the answer, but i have another question, which graphicscard should i pick:

NVIDIA® GeForce® GTX 675M SLI™ with 2 GB GDDR5-memory

AMD® Radeon™ HD 7970M CrossFireX™ with 2 GB GDDR5-memory

this is the dual graphicscards, and i am wondering if they are any good, or if i should just pick a basic graphics card like NVIDIA® GeForce® GTX 660M with 2GB GDDR5-memory.

I also have 2 options on the harddrive, 512 GB SSD – Solid State-harddrive and 256 GB SSD – Solid State- harddrive. Is the 256 really small?

Here is the setup i was thinking of getting, anyone think i should change anything? and why?

Alienware M18x Cosmic Black - Anodized Aluminum
PROCESSOR Intel® Core™ i7-3720QM (6MB Cache, up to 3.6GHz w/ Turbo Boost 2.0)
Windows® 7 Home Premium, 64-bitars,
Graphicscard dual NVIDIA® GeForce® GTX 675M SLI™ with 2 GB GDDR5-memory
Memory:12 288 MB (2x2GB + 2x4GB ), 1 600 MHz DDR3-memory with dual channels
Harddrive: 750 GB seriell ATA-Harddrive (7 200 v/min)
LCD-screen 46,74 cm(18.4") WideFHD (1920 x 1080) WLED LCD
DVD+/-RW-enhet (DVD and CD)
wireless: Intel® Centrino® Wireless-N 2230 with Bluetooth 4.0
BATTERI Primary 12-cell 96W/HR LI-ION
Anti Virus Not Included
SERVICE and SUPPORT 3 years

 

That's a great machine!

Couple of things to point out is that most people will quite rightly tell you that the 675m is basically a rebadged 580m. They are no slouches, but compared to a 7970m, they get blown out the water. The only downside to the 7970m right now is driver support and crossfire functionality - it may be some time before "good" drivers are released to let the 7970m really shine.

You mentioned SSD's above - 256gb isnt small, its obviously half the size of a 512gb though!! - I would get as big as your pocket would allow. The other thing to consider is that you can pick up SSD's after you buy a fair bit cheaper than buying from Dell. Same goes for Memory. I should state though that as you have configured with a 3 yr warranty (which is a very wise choice) that any parts you upgrade later on yourself such as SSD or Ram wouldnt be covered under your 3yr warranty.

 

heres my m18x specs
Genuine Windows® 7 Home Premium, 64bit
3rd Generation Intel® Core™ i7-3610QM (6MB Cache, up to 3.3GHz w/ Turbo Boost 2.0)
8GB Dual Channel DDR3 at 1600MHz
750GB 7,200 RPM + 32GB mSATA Caching SSD
Dual 2GB GDDR5 AMD Radeon™ HD 7970M - CrossFireX™ Enabled
Killer™ Wireless-N 1103 a/g/n 3x3 MIMO for Gaming & Video and Bluetooth 4.0
Slot-Loading Dual Layer Blu-ray Reader (BR-ROM, DVD+-RW, CD-RW)

grand total is
$2,929.00
minus the 15% off all GPU comes toooo
and discounts
Subtotal # $2,797.50
Taxtotal # $230.78
Shippingcharges # $0.00
TotalPrice # $3,028.28

hmmm. really high

plus 200$ gift card and 5% gift card. i get them 21 days after...purchased

 

8GB 1866Mhz or 32GB 1600Mhz ? What is better for the R2 ?

 

Questions regarding Windows 7:

1) Is the Ultimate edition with Bitlocker worth it for a laptop?
2) If so, does the M18x R2 motherboard include a TPM chip that I can use with Bitlocker? Specs and BIOS menu don't mention it but it might be stashed in there somewhere?
3) What kind of bloatware comes preinstalled on Win7 by Dell?
4) Is there any way to resize the boot drive's partitions to allow a triple boot with Windows Server and Linux?
5) If yes to #4, I plan on having all 3 OS'es installed on a 256GB SSD. Would that be big enough to fit 3 operating systems and a few games?
6) Does Windows 7 come with Service Pack 1 slipstreamed into it? My lame Inspiron 14z did but I can't find any mention of SP1 on the much higher-end M18x's config page.

I don't know if this has been discussed before, but 17 pages is alot to sort through..

@TheMatrixHacker:

Depends on the application. For raw, ballz2thewall performance for benchmarking the 8GB 1866 is the best choice.

For virtualization, multitasking and RAM disk, can't go wrong with 32GB of RAM, especially at decent 1600 speeds.

For gaming and multimedia, 32GB is way overkill, and, in my personal opinion, the 1866 offers negligent performance boost for those applications as well.

If you're gaming I'd go with 8GB or 16GB of 1600 RAM, depending on budget. If you're considering the 32GB or the 1866 8GB, I'd assume budget isn't too much of an issue, so 16GB is a good sweet spot...

 

Bloatware isnt bad, alien respawn, don't remember much beyond that.

OS disk came with SP1. I set up an alien respawn disks to do reinstalls and have had no problems using them. (nice cause you don't have to worry about drivers, etc.)

 

Thanks for the info about the bloatware. My Inspiron took me half a day to uninstall useless programs and optimize the registry. I guess because Alienware is Dell's top-of-the-line performance laptop, that they don't install to much clutter that would cripple performance?

 

I left it in there (what little bloatware there was) and it runs smooth, no performance issues I've seen. Sounds like as fox had mentioned 12.5 ATI beta's drivers are out and the 12.5 whql should be out shortly after that. (slated for late may....)

 

Hello Follow aliens
I have just ordered my first Alienware from HIDevolution through amazon.com
spec list :
Alienware M18x R2 INLCUDES: Nebula RED Anodized Aluminum, 3rd Generation Intel® CoreTM i7-3820QM 2.7GHz (8MB Cache, up to 3.7GHz w/ Turbo Boost 2.0) , Genuine Windows® 7 Home Premium, 64bit, English, CrossFireXTM Dual 2GB GDDR5 AMD RadeonTM HD 7970M, 18.4-inch WideFHD 1920 x 1080 WLED, 6GB DDR3 at 1600MHz (2DIMMS), 500GB 7,200 RPM SATA 3Gb/s, Slot-Load Dual Layer DVD Burner (DVD+-RW, CD-RW), 96WHr 12-Cell Primary Battery, 330 Watt 3 Prong AC Adapter with 6 ft Power Cord, Intel® Centrino® Wireless-N 2230 2x2 MIMO Technology, Bluetooth 4.0 Included
+ 2x Samsung Electronics Extreme Low Voltage 30nm SODIMM 8GB Dual Channel Kit DDR3 1600 (PC3 12800) 204-Pin DDR3 SO-DIMM MV-3T4G3D/US so total is 16GB
+Intel 520 Series 240 GB SATA 6 Gb/s 2.5-Inch Solid-State Drive
+Seagate Momentus 7200 750 GB 7200RPM SATA 3Gb/s 16 MB Cache 2.5 Inch Internal Notebook Hard Drive
+Kingston SSDNow mS100 64GB mSATA Internal Solid State Drive SMS
and for the Backup of the original Factory OS Patriot X-Porter Mini 8 GB USB 2.0 Flash Drive PSF8GMUSB
So guys what do you think ?!

 

looking good nice specs

 

for 7990m?

ur guys thoughts... o_o

 

Well there will be 8970m 8990m ive hate waitin

 

if you play the waiting game you may find that you'll be waiting forever. why not wait for the hd8970 or another year for the 9870?
if u want it and have the money get it. unless ur waiting for 680m benches then sure, wait abit to make your final decision

 

As Arcticsoldier has stated, you can play the waiting game forever or you can just get a new laptop now and be happy with it.

I have my doubts that the 680M will be out anytime soon. you can try and follow some of the speculation threads that are setup like the one in the Sager/Clevo forums http://forum.notebookreview.com/sager-clevo/641218-new-2012-models-speculation-thread-pxxxem-series-p151em-p150em-p170em-157.html

The 7970M is a pretty sweet graphics card at the moment and it doesn't look like it will be dethroned for a couple more months at least.

 

Here are the specs

Processor
3rd Generation Intel® Core™ i7-3820QM (8MB Cache, up to 3.7GHz w/ Turbo Boost 2.0)

Operating system
Genuine Windows® 7 Home Premium, 64bit

Memory
16GB Dual Channel DDR3 at 1600MHz

Video card
Dual 2GB GDDR5 AMD Radeon™ HD 7970M - CrossFireX™ Enabled

Hard drive
1TB raid0 (2x 500GB Sata 3B/s 7,200 RPM)+64GB mSATA Boot Drive

Optical drive
Slot-Loading Dual Layer Blu-ray Reader (BD-ROM, DVD±RW, CD-RW)

Wireless
Killer Wireless

Alright now heres my question. The hard drive option isnt available in the configuration I have posted. Would that configuration even be possible? Feel free to comment about the specs.

 

how much was all this?

and did u get any discounts from dell?

 

well I havent bought it yet just trying to figure this stuff out but i will be buying this soon. but it will be around 4,500

 

how much u spent? what was total...and discoutns u got?

 

Thanks

3,087.43$ For the Laptop itself and 673.26 for the rest of added components

 

Can anybody give some information about the integrated Sound Blaster Recon3Di audio card that comes with the M18x?

I can't find anything about it on google searches. The only things I know is that it has THX TruStudio Pro, is integrated and comes with Creative ALChemy. That's all it says on the Dell support page.

Because of the ALChemy function, I'm assuming it might be able to use OpenAL hardware accelerated audio? What about 3D spatial audio and virtualized surround for headphones?

Thanks in advance for any info

 

upgrade to i7-3720m or even higher?

because....will games need higher demand of processor even with sli 7970m?

 

In short: no. For games, you do not need a CPU upgrade from the base Ivy Bridge quad core.

 

Agree... you don't "need it" for games.

 

The nice thing about the 3720 and 3820 is that dell has enabled partial overclocking in the bios (you can up 4x multis)

3720 can be set to 40,39,38,38 (i.e., 4ghz when single core in use,3.9ghz when 2 cores in use, 3.8ghz for 3-4 cores)
3820 can be set to 41,40,39,39

This is actually all that most people need and is pretty darn good for non-xm processors

So from this, the sweet spot is the 3720qm from a price/performance perspective

Screenshot of stock alienware bios with 3720qm installed:

 

what does oc the i7 does? i mena would it benefit from oc cf7970m?

if i wanted to oc it, would this mean better for playing games?

 

There is no benefit for gaming to buy a better Ivy Bridge CPU for current games.

Benchmark Results: CPU Scaling : Battlefield 3 Performance: 30+ Graphics Cards, Benchmarked

Better CPU/OC will just help your e-peen.

 

will get a phone call this afternoon to confirm everything

i got...everything BASE on m18x+sli 7970m cf

discounts..
15% all gpu upgrades
5% gift card of whatever u spent
200$ gift card
m18x backpack
2 day shipping

everything was
$2,491.90 (with tax... i know subtotal was like $2,300)
and i get all those gift cards later to spend..but i dont know what to get!

and i asked for 1 day shipping i had an option of +25$ more.

i plan on asking this afternoon for the 1 day shipping. and see if everything is good.
idk what else i can ask to milk them more.
im not sure how well i did but yea......!
rate 1-10, and has anybody gotten a deal like this? if not better?!

im also not sure if i need to upgrade ram. i hope this last 4years. ssd i can live without it. and is it worth upgrading my processor i heard its not needed but for games in near future?

i am thinking of upgrading to killer wireless....
i have no clue how good it is, but if i connect from wifi source it will be better than standard issue thta i have now??

 

I tried to overclock my 3820qm by the BIOS. I enabled overclock to level 3 and "save and quit" but when it reboot and I press F2 and return in the overclock settings, it's reset to disabled. Is that normal? Should I be able to overclock ?

 

Where did you bought ur R2? OEM CPU?

 

From Dell.

 

Try it again it should work. You have enabled both menu's? extremer overclocking and another one?

 

Well I set my BIOS like this:

Spoiler

And after reboot:

Spoiler

Did I miss something?

 

why do you have "Extreme Edition" = "BIOS"? Do you have an "enable" option?

on the m17x's this value should read "Enabled" and on save and reboot, the values stick

 

No I only have Disable and BIOS... Can someone with the 3820QM can check what he has?

 

Question for you guys. I'm stuck for a decision between the 3610 & 3720. 3720, after OC will have 700mhz over the 3610. Is that worth 270 euro?

 

"""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""
"base" m18x+sli crossfire 6790m

5% gift card of the total price witch is $2,374.75 (with TAX:/)
200$ e-card
m18x backpack
2nd day shipping

got it knocked down from..all with tax
$2,491.90
to
$2,411.69
to...
$2,374.75

how i do?

 

This is crazy! I am about to get married.....in 3 1/2 hours.... and I am still obsessed with building my M18...

I look forward to talking to you guys and getting some help with my setup.

What concerns me is is the 15% discount ends during my honeymoon....june 6th


Oh well, time to google my wedding vows.....see you guys soon,

Thanks for all the help already...

 

Can anybody tell me specs about the Sound Blaster Recon 3Di that comes integrated with the M18x?

I mean stuff like audio quality, hardware-accelerated audio functionality, sound-enhancing features, etc? Is it similar to the desktop SB Recon3D?

 

Fool.

Make sure your vows include your promise to your wife to acknowledge her existence at least once a day, for as we all know, playing with computers tends to suck up all your time, energy and money.

 

Anybody with 3820QM can test it out?

 

they told me
5-7 build time
5-7 shipping to ship it out,
then they told me thats when 2nd day shipping kicks in and they ship it.


o_o way to long huh?!

huh...????
"Mcoupe
Newbie

Join Date: Jun 2012
Posts: 1
Rep Power: 0 "

 

sincerely, dell or alienware (same brand however) has great shipping time always on time !