Upgrade questions and advise needed

Hi all. So after seeing what Alienware is up to these days with the smaller form factor and also with the probable AW18 being discontinued, I had kinda decided that I was going to stop supporting Dell just based on principle. This is after I was going to purchase an AW18 and then an Area 51. However, I just don't know if I can give up on my 18. So, I have a few questions. 1st some background. I have a base model 18 with the 765's which was OK a year ago when I got it. A little underpowered at the time but OK for the time being seeing as how I got it new for 1300 bucks. I am not an overclocker or anything like that, I just want a machine that can power through games I throw at it. Knowing those things, here are my questions.

I figure I have a couple options, keep the one I have and upgrade it or get rid of this and get one with the 880's. I am not interested in any other laptop currently on the market. I want an 18" with SLI which leaves me with the AW 18 or the new MSI as my only options and I am not sure the MSI has me very excited. So, seeing as how I am not an overclocker or anything, would I be OK with an 18 with the 880's? I see people discussing heating and throttling issues but I'm not sure if that is under normal gaming use or when people are overclocking. If that is not a good idea, then I have questions about upgrading. Does my 18 with the 765's support 880's or even 780's or would I have to upgrade other things like heatsinks, power source, etc.? If I do decide to upgrade, what parts would I need to complete the upgrade? (I would also be upgrading the processor and putting an SSD in it if I keep the 1 I have). The problem is that while I am fairly comfortable fooling around with tech, I'm not really feeling very confident in working on this beast so that is really creating doubt about whether me upgrading this thing myself is even possible.

My last question is regarding purchasing a new 1. There are some new ones with 880's on Ebay and they are cheaper than Dell is selling them for. If I buy a new 1 from an ebay reseller and not a used 1 from an individual seller, would the Dell warranty still be valid? It looks like if I can't figure this out I will have to go the desktop route. There just isn't any other gaming laptop I can imagine having other than the AW18. Now if Asus would do an 18 inch version of it's ROG with SLI, then things might be different. Anyway, I hope I can get a few answers here as I would like to make a decision relatively soon while there are still new 18's to purchase and my options are still available. Thanks to all and happy new year. Maybe we will get a surprise this year even though it looks unlikely at this point.

 

Since you have 765 cards, you could probably upgrade to 780s. The 880 cards will probably get bad reviews more times than not, but a lot of those complaining seem to be over clockers. My 18 came with the 880s, and I'm not an avid over clocker and I have no problem with them. If you go for the 880 cards you may need to get a bigger heat sinks, older 18 pcs have 2 copper heat pipes newer ones 3. If you up grade your CPU, IMHO I would stay away from the extreme CPUs. I have the 4940xm, and I think I wasted about $500 needlessly (or whatever it cost), especially, since you say your not an over clocker. If your looking to get a new AW 18 why not look at Xoticpc, they have good rep, warranties and service. You usually can get more customization from them than Dell. I would say, since I have been reading the AW 18 forums it seems the older model 18 inch pc, MX 18 R2, is a better machine than the AW 18 (MX 18 R3?)


Good Luck

 

1 - Why exactly is the "18 inch" so important? The Clevo SLI models are 17", support 120Hz displays and 980Ms in SLI and can use two power bricks if you really need more power. 1.1" diagonal space should not be a massive difference.

2 - 880M issues exist directly with 880Ms in SLI no matter what you do to them. Either they throttle like crazy on the stock vBIOS or they overheat like crazy on the modded vBIOS, assuming no vSync (or high refresh monitor).

3 - They support 780Ms and 880Ms as well as 80% support of 980Ms. I think 780Ms with a slight 24/7 overclock would do you better than 880Ms. 980Ms require UEFI BIOS and Windows 8 to use, and do not perform optimally like they do in other manufacturers' notebooks. They ARE however, an improvement over 780M SLI no matter how you look at it. I do not know what you would need to upgrade to 780Ms or any other card for the AW18; others would reply to this with the information I am sure.

 

Hey all. Sorry been dealing with family stuff but appreciate the responses. I think I'm about to go for an 18with the 880's then sell mine with the 765's. Hopefully since I'm not a clocker or bencher, I won't have issues with them. I am wondering though, how long do you think the 880 sli will allow me to play new games maxed at a minimum 30 fps? Do u think a year, a couple years, a couple months? While I really want to get this at the same time I don't want to have to start lowering settings right away either. I assume I could upgrade from the 880's easier if they ever get the 980's working right but I'm not looking to have to do that soon. As always any help is greatly appreciated. Thanks.

 

You are definitely going to want 100W 780M 3-pipe heat sinks. The stock 765M heat sinks won't be effective at cooling 780M or higher GPU. The SLI bridge is the same part on any SLI setup.

The main benefit you will have with 880M is the 8GB of VRAM. That matters and anyone that says otherwise is kidding their self. More VRAM means less caching, faster and a smoother gaming experience. If anything needs to be swapped with system RAM it is going to detract from the gaming experience because system RAM is very slow compared to VRAM. Having more than enough is always better than not enough.

Look at the minimum system requirements for some of the most demanding recent game titles and they accommodate playability on machines that are so old and weak most of us would find their specs totally unacceptable. Obviously, the examples below would require lower quality settings, but they are still playable.

Popular Game Title	Minimum CPU	Minimum GPU	System RAM
Battlefield 4	Core 2 Duo 2.4GHz	512MB AMD Radeon HD 3870 or NVIDIA GeForce 8800 GT	4GB
Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare	Core i3-530 @ 2.93 GHz or AMD Phenom II X4 810 @ 2.60 GHz	GeForce GTS 450 (1 GB) or AMD Radeon HD 5870 (1 GB)	6GB
Watch Dogs	Core 2 Quad Q8400 @ 2.66Ghz or AMD Phenom II X4 940 @ 3.0Ghz	Nvidia Geforce GTX 460 or AMD Radeon HD 5770 / Intel Iris Pro HD 5200	6GB
Crysis 3	Dual core CPU	Geforce GTS 450 (1 GB) or Radeon HD 5770 (1 GB)	3GB
Metro: Last Light	2.2+ GHz Dual Core CPU	NVIDIA GTS 250 (or AMD equivalent e.g. HD Radeon 4000 series)	2GB
The Evil Within	Core-i7 or an equivalent 4+ core processor	GeForce GTX 460 or equivalent 1GB VRAM card	4GB
The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt	Core i5-2500K 3.3GHz or AMD CPU Phenom II X4 940	Nvidia GeForce GTX 660 or AMD Radeon HD 7870	6GB

Long story short, unless you are trying to do something unrealistic like gaming at 4K with max settings and expecting to see an exciting frame rate, a single 880M should be powerful enough for an acceptable gaming experience for 2 or 3 years and 880M SLI possibly for 4 or 5 years.

 

Thank you sir. I actually just bit the bullet and ordered one with the 880's. Looks like it was just in time as they may start disappearing quickly now. Last night they were available on Dell's site, this morning they are now marked unavailable. I guess I could upgrade from the 880's easily if I wanted at some point assuming we get new cards that will work in this thing. My next goal is to sell my current 18 and get my new 1 running fast, smooth and consistently. Oh, should I keep the 5400 rpm hard drive or upgrade to a 7200 rpm? (it has a 256 ssd as well) Thanks again all.