Alienware M11x Debut Discussion

Moo, there's only 2 options for the processor? Youch... Can only hold out as far as first week of feb then I have to go to new freaking zealand when uni semester starts. No parents credit card there... T_T

 

Yeah that company who prided themselves with cutting edge hardware they were Alienware which is long long.

Todays Alienware is really Dellienware a watered down version of the original in hopes of making larger profits off less product.

 

Guess its the Dellienware management that built the m11x and not the R&D team ay. ahahaha

 

How much of a bottleneck will the CPU be?

The 335m is not exactly powerful. I liked the idea of a super small gaming machine even though it only had a 335m. After hearing the CPU will bottleneck I may not get one.

 

I think its the GTS 335. Correct me if my memory has failed me. As for the processors being a bottleneck, we'll have to wait for the first adopters and reviewers to tell us, rite?

 

What a difference a day makes...Damn this is really disappointing I was so wanting to buy this with i5 and the 330 why put a 330 with su7300? It doesn't make alot of sense but I guess now we know why they only showed SFIV and MW2 at CES both run really well on low end systems. Meh... hope tommorow doesn't bring more disappointing news.

 

Hops around indignantly. Chants GTS 335 non stop. Forgive me for incessantly posting. Empty store = lazing employees.

 

Sony Z will smoke m11x but it will also smoke your wallet LOL Those things are like 3 grand aren't they?

 

Let me ask The Bored One. Whats the difference between gts 335 and 335m. Is the GTS a desktop gpu?

 

Someone said the MSRP is along the lines of $1800 further up the thread. lol

 

Sorry, was thinking about the new Sony Z's because of fscussels post LOL

 

The specs for that sony are awesomesauce, but for me it'll be 3.6 times that price thanks in no short due to my country's lousy currency

 

1800 would be a steal for one of those, the old ones go for 1800ish but the new ones are all aluminum and carbon fibre construction. I think it's going to be a big price jump. If it's 1800 though i'm in, the 13 inch has the same dimensions as my 1201n except it's 1" wider and I think it even weighs less too lol That is like the nicest laptop i've ever seen.

 

Agreed but sony's tend to heat up a lot when placed under full load. Personal experience with 3 vaios.

 

Well the new CPU's are smaller and they should run cooler so hopefully the new i5/i7 chips will help with the temps.
What exactly ran hot the CPU?GPU?
Never had a SONY laptop and not to familiar with them.
But the SONY Z is pretty much the only alternative over the M11x, the ASUS UL30JT is good too but the 310M GPU offers less performance then the other two cards.
Don't mean to hijack this thread but I'm sure with the news of the M11x having a SU7300 CPU it's a little bit of a let down.
One of the reasons I want a M11x is it's much cheaper than the SONY Z.

 

We seem to be on the same boat. I'm not sure if i can manage to afford the Z though, so I've been eyeing the CW too... let's hope the M11x beats the CW at gaming (worried about sc2 mostly)

 

2 Vaio's here myself.... other one a 17inch AX series. They both do indeed heatup pretty good, the CPU more so then the GPU. Friends with the newest series are pretty much the same, heatup pretty good....They weren't really made for intense gaming afterall. 2 things keeping me away from the Z, price and heat. No doubt like most Sony's it will have a really nice build and screen.

 

Once dad had an old sony Z with a 9400GS I think, Ran really really warm when running MW on medium settings. I 'm not sure which was it since Sony was cranky about the end user opening up their hardware (which voided the warranty, not very smart since the device was darn expensive) I second your thoughts about the M11x, sony = expensive.

EDIT: Do you get points for being quoted 3 times in a row?

 

I'm not giving up hope on the M11x just gonna wait to see what the first adopters might say.
Probably after the first reviews get out I'll get that urge to buy , just hoping for AW to surprise us with better CPU options.
Slight chance but I keep trying to convince myself different.

 

My f5 key is probably nearly broken by now. lol. I don't really want to get a mac over an alienware , but if the specs dont add up, might have to cause I'm running out of time to get a new pc. Have been waiting PC-less since December.

 

I hear ya.
Just wait another week or two and see what the final specs are.

 

Lol. Everyone has a Mac but not everyone has an alienware. :laugh:

 

the whole story doesnt make sense to me

from the marketing and sales point of view, this is a desaster, all other companies using the i series and the so called "fastest and high quality company" releases last years technology

the only reason why could be the battery life, but hey....

if the release spec´s dont fit me i will also look on some other brands

 

An oxymoron if you ask me. But I guess AW has to make a buck somehow?

 

obviously
most of the guys want to take it to college, ok, i can hear the crowd already, there will be some "wow" and "ahh" but then some others appear with
the new i series inside, ok, not the same light effects and design but hey, finally you will end up with a "non all powerfull disco ball"

 

Yeah and I might have to go Mac cause I really can't settle for another pc with a lesser build quality. But then again I could probably survive gaming on low and medium settings (been doing that for years, even had a Geforce 4 at one point) but who games on medium and low on an alienware rig???

EDIT: Today must not be a day for good news. http://www.engadget.com/2010/01/27/is-this-the-apple-tablet/ No macbook updates (last few lines). So Im torn between the underpowered MBP with the 9400 and the nerfed m11x...

I need to hire some crossed fingers and a rabbits foot... Make that a crate of rabbit's feet.

 

^ I'd rather have the M11x than the MBP. I had the aluminum MB before they put the Pro badge on it with 9400m and 2.0 C2D and I gamed on it for awhile. It was a nice, great machine, but after I started really getting into gaming, I realized it wasn't powerful enough. the 9400m, although good is still integrated 256MB. I know it can't game as well as the M11x. High settings in CoD4 was not possible at a similar resolution of 1280x800. 1366x768 actually has a few more pixels, so yeah. Now if gaming isn't number one on your plate, the new 1199 MBP's have great battery life, CPU wise a lot better (but still last gen tech) and build quality, screen are both terrific. I say if you can, either wait for M11x reviews or wait even longer for a MBP refresh.

I feel with all the delays, and underwhelming ultraportables or 13.3 or smaller laptops, GPU's have been weak compared to the 335m. Even the 330m doesn't look too great, so I'd rather take the better GPU and stick with an SU7300 in the M11x.

 

Might wan't to pick up an Asus 1201n to hold you off for awhile , it does everything the Macbook Pro 13 does right now only it's smaller and you'll save yourself 700 bucks. I've even used Photshop on the little thing LOL

I think i'm just gonna stick with mine for another month or so and see if anything else comes out similiar in size of the Alienware with i5 and updated graphics. Kinda seems like buying right now would be a mistake with all the new stuff coming in the next month or so and if nothing comes out better then maybe I will go ahead and pickup an 11x.

Would have preordered already if the darn thing would of had an i series in it

 

Parents say get one really good one and keep the damn thing lol. So no "stopgap PCs" since I dont really have time to wait. Leaving early march so I'll have to purchase sooner and not later.. T_T

I would have preordered too and bragged about it to good measure lol :laugh:

 

I'm not going to get another core2duo, i'll only buy this if it's using Core i7 ulv.

 

nick would yah consider a core i5 ulv? lol.

 

Same here. Just to be fair, we all built the M11x around an iX processor because of that Chinese website. All previews and hands-on always said Core 2 Duo and not a hint of anything else. After seeing that site hope turned into expectation. Truth be told I would probably still be much more excited about this laptop if we had never picked up the iX talk. But we did, and that is that.

Anyway, I am still hoping, again, to be surprised at launch. But if it has Core 2 Duo, I will most likely skip it and wait for a refresh. My Eee PC will just have to do a bit longer. Also need to see what goes down with that Apple Tablet today.

I would estimate an iX refresh of the M11x to hit sometime in the summer. Maybe it's time to start an M11x Refresh thread.

 

So basically we, like every other rational person, were wishing for a... miracle? lol. As long as the C2D is clocked nice and high I'm happy cause my desktop uses an old C2D E6400 which hasn't failed me yet. Though an i-series would be nice to rub in the face of those who dare say 11 inch never has enough power. :laugh:

Tablet announcement in about 4 hours mate. hahahah.

 

I posted this in the Official Owner's thread and I'll post it here too.

I'd like to point out that, if notebookcheck is to be believed, the difference in performance between the ULV Core 2 and the ULV i5's and i7's is going to be pretty minimal.

In fact, the i5-520um looks to be about a 10% performance improvement AT MOST over the su7300.

To put it all in perspective, none of the ULV chips hold a candle to the high-end i7's, but all are significantly more powerful than the atom line. Here's the chart (ULV i-series at 6,9, and 10. ULV C2D series at 11-13, with the M11x using #'s 12 and 13, most likely).



I know everyone wants the latest and greatest, but quite frankly, after looking at this anyone who considers the c2d ulv a deal-breaker didn't know what they were getting in the first place.

 

Oooh and thanks for sharing, I replied in the other thread.

EDIT: Just wanna know when the sweepstakes page will be updated. lol since I think its due for the final question already.

 

Yeah, me too. I think it was a few days late last week, so it might be this week too.

 

Owh alrightey. Might have a clue in the last question. Who knows?

EDIT: op, regardless of the specs, the m11x would be like a major hardware upgrade for you rite? lol, I didn't even keep my dell studio 15 (2.06 T8300, 3GB DDR2 800 HD3540) for past a year. My specs might be wrong but its along those lines

 

Honestly, the i5/i7s wouldn't have made a massive difference over a C2D ULV anyway. If a game is bottlenecked with the 1.3GHz C2D ULV, there's little chance it'll give you more than 2-3fps more with an i5 or an i7 ULV.

And if this C2D ULV is overclockable to 1.73GHz as others have been mentioning is possible in some Acer laptop (or was it Asus? no idea, can't remember) then the i5/i7 ULVs would have made virtually no difference, and in 2-threaded applications, the C2D ULV would likely actually run faster considering those ULV i5/i7s are only something like 1.06GHz.

Even with turbo they would only just about match a 1.73GHz C2D.

Plus, everyone's missing a lot of the point. The vast majority of PC games are far, far more dependant on the GPU than the CPU. There are a few exceptions, particularly RTSs, however the most popular categories (RPGs and FPSs) for the most part won't be bottlenecked by a 1.73GHz C2D.

Honestly...Dell have even said that it runs Crysis at 50fps. Even if that's running on low graphics, that shows that the CPU isn't likely to be much of a bottleneck at least where Crysis is concerned.


I'm still torn in two directions over this M11x. I really, really want one come April (my birthday ) but I'd also like to get an iPhone 4G when it releases. So it really depends for me on the price of the M11x...IF in the UK I can get a good one for under £600 I most likely will.

 

I think being told twice in a row is a sign of something, right? Especially if the second time, its like from a freaking dragon lol. Thanks for the informative pep talk.

 

It is best to double check how much CPU power your favourite games use.

I can guarantee that the M11x will run virtually every game out there, but the question is on what settings. IF it's a CPU intensive game, it may well have to run on low settings just to get it smooth enough to play.

 

Am a FPS/RPG guy. Don't have much patience with RTS, save for the really big ones coming up such as SC2 and C&C4 (Not so thrilled about sup com 2 though, especially on an 11 inch screen). So this rig would be kinda alright, right? Clocked around 400 hours on L4D. Not counting L4D2. Besiiidesss... Am used to playing games set on low/medium settings. Had a Geforce 4 once and the bleeping thing didn't even have pixel shader 1.o....

 

I don't know about the other members here, but I intend to do a lot more than gaming on it, just like I do with my M17x. It's works great like a worstation. I don't have a problem with the processor itself, but having a good chance of Dell sticking an iX in a refresh soon after launch is not something I want to experience. From my point of view, they need to drop an iX on it now. You know people will scramble to sell it if they see the same one 3 to 4 months later with an iX processor.

If I wanted to use it exclusively for gaming I would get a PSP. I want a somewhat powerful laptop. I want to run plenty of applications besides gaming on it. And, of course, I want newer tech in 2010.

Anyway, that's just me. This is branded as a gaming laptop after all.

 

I have a PSP but its not even used exclusively as a game machine so... lol? Praying that I will earn enough from a part time job to get a refreshed version down the line.

 

On an unrelated note: 2.30 hours to the Apple event.

EDIT: Think I'll give up on staying up late and read the news (and the flood of posts in this thread) tomorrow morning. Its Hlaf past 11 where I am lol.

 

To those of you saying a i7 ulv wont make much of a difference I strongly disagree with you.

It has already been proven clock for clock the I architecture is 20-50% faster than the Core architecture.

Now the su7300 is 1.3 ghz(overclocking currently is only on Asus which is built in from the manufacturer and something Dell dosnt really do so dont hold out on that prospect).

If we had a i7-640um its 1.2ghz.

Given the base clocks I would say that might make around 10% faster for the new i7 processor.

But lets consider these factors:
The i7 turbos up to 2.8ghz and the su7300 does not turbo at all
The i7 supports hyperthreading so that makes 4 logical cores and the su7300 does not support hyperthreading.

Given those additional factors I can see a i7-640ulv performing on average 30% faster and in best case scenarios even 70% faster.

That is a big jump. Not to mention the greatly increased performance of the new integrated graphics that come on the I7. For those that dont know there is a huge difference between the intel new gen integrated graphics and last gen.

So yes there is a huge difference between having a core i7 processor and a core 2 duo.

 

Does anyone think that an 11 inch screen is too small?

 

guess it depends on your point of view... for me, no. I started in the netbook/ultra-portable scale with an EEE901 which was the perfect size for what I needed... as small as possible for light gaming on the long bus ride to and from work. unfortunatly the EEE901 was a little to light for some very impressive games, so I bumped up to the HP DV2z. It was a comprimise on size for me, but well worth the gain in power. Now it seems I will be getting another boost in power while moving closer to the form factor I originated at big plus for me

 

actually the form factor will probably be really close to what I have now considering the extra bezel and 0.5" difference... but power wise, a huge boost

 

I rebutted this post here. The i7 ULV will most likely be, under NO circumstances, 70% faster than the SU7300 - 30% is more realistic. And that's the BEST i7 ULV (the 640), the i7-620 and the i5 ULV will both likely be less than 10% faster than the SU7300.

If the Core 2 Duo SU7300 isn't fast enough for you, neither are the i5 or i7 ULV's.

 

exactly 10 char