4870's confirmed and ddr5

as long as i am waiting for the 4870s on m17 ( if they are really coming) i have seen the w90 notebook. i think it uses two 4870s ddr3 right? how can you be sure it will be ddr5 on m17? how much longer should we wait?

 

AW has confirmed it will be GDDR5.

 

Computex Taipei show is in a month so if you're tired of waiting for AW I'm sure someone else will offer you an alternative to wait for.

 

Until AW gets it working. Currently they're having problems with heating.

 

oh! This doesnt sound good! how could they solve it on a laptop, solid nitrogen? i hope not to release overheating systems. what do you know these information? so still no expectation about release date.

 

Right now nobody can say about pricing. It will be the cards plus whatever heat solution they come up with.

As far as time to send it back........roll the dice, there are just too many variables.

I doubt they would do a lot of extra work by putting a clean install on it, but to be on the safe side I'd do a back-up.

Wow, the post I was responding to disappeared!

 

lol if AW wanted to use ddr3 they would have released it

 

maybe AW and ATI are hard at work developing... ddr6

 

ooohhhhhh yea ....lol

 

you look like knowing too much and have great expectations....!


i also hope they will change old classic look of the notebook. if it wasnt the light buttons it would seem very old.

 

Or maybe AW is hard at work developing their Quicksilver notebook and are holding back the 4870s to improve the appeal of it's new line.

 

Although I doubt they will, I would be very happy if they kept the same design of the notebook, cool but not over the top, stealthy finish, and a front load optical drive.

 

Wouldn't alienware have to change the heat sink if they put the 4870 in the m17? It may require two pipes from the heat sink to the fan for each card. What do you guys think?

 

As has been mentioned here before, A.W. has been successful in providing cooling for one 4870. They are working on providing enough cooling for the second 4870 right now.

It's anybodys guess as to how they will do this.

I think it's safe to say for those of us that will be upgrading to the 4870's, that we'll be buyig a new heatsink/fan assy, along with the 4870's.

I think it stands to reason that the delays are due to finding a cooling solution that will simply bolt right up without further modifications.

IMAO

 

why would AW redesign a entire notebook? and why would you pay for a redesign ?

 

Intel Clarksfield, latest GPUs, taking advantage of the switch to Dell's manufacturing facilities, fix hinge problems, more money, and/or just for fun.


Why do car manufacturers come out with new car models every year? Because there's always someone looking to upgrade to something new.

 

well ur talking about just remaking the case. Which would require every thing to be redesigned, which would mean a whole new laptop. If that what you really ment with that comment then i agree, but the m17 is still a game crushing notebook with out the 4870's

 

Yeah, the M17 is already one of the most bad a$$ gaming rigs out there.

4870's would just be more icing on the cake!

 

m17 is a rule notebook. if you discuss about its price then its an other subject. as referred you also pay the brand name. even the w90 has the disadvantage (for me) of ddr2 ram. alienware pays attention to everything. even if the design doesnt change ( i dont think it will anyway), i ll think about it. the price is for me to worry about.

 

Any extra charge for the A.W. name is usually exaggerated. When you choose similar components like a QX9300 proc to the Asus, the price goes up real fast too.

Plus another huge advantage to the M17 is that numerous other brands use this same excellent chassis. It was a proven chassis in the M9750, and there is a wealth of information about them here and elsewhere. This particular set-up has proliferated within the gaming laptop market partly due to it's selection of high end components, and also due to the very robust nature of the chassis itself. I have never read of any design flaws in this model. Not the chassis, or any of the components. Haven't heard of any GPU's frying either.

Weather you end up with a M17 or another brand of this chassis I think you'll find yourself with a very solid gaming platform.

 

if its for cooling reasons ok. if its just a chassis and they only change the specification then i would prefer something more from a laptop with this price.

 

Whell i also have the m17 but certainly the ddr3 is just for show. Its the same as ddr2 800mhz in the w90 but pricyer. Sounds good though if you dont know the reality right? Read:
Link1
Link2

 

DDR3 will matter a lot in the future.
4870 is cooler then the 3870 the "heatsink redesign" is just a way to suck more money

 

yeah i knew that but logic says that it must be faster, 1033 vs 800mhz. i dont know why benchmarks show they are ("exactly"? until the last point?) the same. motherboard support or something? dont know.

in fact these beast machines as both are, are not so relied on ram to be so fast and performing. so it may not make any difference. and the test was performed with cpus not available on notebooks yet but on desktops. the distances on notebooks are even smaller which means faster data transfer.

i am not a technology specialist and i cant say if this is wrong or right but this is the common sense.

i agree that the price difference doesnt worth it but i doubt about the tests showing them exactly the same in performance terms

 

how i can get the upgrade now?

 

They'll probably be MXM 3.0, so that would mean no upgrade path for the M17.

 

They've already been confirmed to be compatible with the M17. The only problem seems to be getting them in there without them overheating.

 

yup Zfactore has talked to flex and seen some stuff he said they work in there

i trust him fully. KN has tested and i trust in them

 

x2
totally agree

 

flex has working cards i assure you. but heat has been the issue and was even stated by people who used to work for or still do aw/dell on these forums...

 

Would it be correct to assume from this statement that the M17 uses an MXM 2 slot?

 

nah the cards work. I have talked to Mark at Killer Notebooks on the phone and he said with his upgraded heat sink mods on the gpu and the extra holes in the bottom of the case the 4870's run smooth. You can get this notebook from KN with the heat mods and the 4870's but its very expensive.

 

ill believe he has them running when he posts actual screen shots and pics of the cards themselves (gddr5 version) until then i dont believe it, sorry. i was told by someone at flex they only had prototype cards and none were released to anyone

 

how bad is the heat issue anyways? From what I saw in the Project Freeze thread, the current system could be modified pretty easily to dissipate more heat. Considering how the MSI GT725's cooling system is designed, I wouldn't expect it to produce significantly more heat than what a retouched W840 cooling system could handle.

 

i never got actual numbers but i was told flex was not comfortable with the temps

 

well i still hope they release them, the new m17x refresh is stupid money £3800 for a decent system is out of this world when i paid £2000 less for an m17 with the only difference being the gpus!

 

I talked to the E3 Alienware rep.... he does not confirm on the ATI 4870 for the Arima W840DI (M17).

... but that does not say too much, since most of the AW reps only know ow to read off brochures from my experience today.

 

is it possible to use the cards from the asus?

if you could find a source to buy them that is

 

Maybe... Asus loves to do propitiatory things to there stuff, the C90S was a good example of this, but these cards maybe are standard.

If that is the case I much look forward to dropping the GDDR5 version of the 4870 in the W90 as it probably already has the cooling to handle it as it keeps the current cards & cpu ice cold.

But also I find that in many cases even the GDDR3 version of the cards are cpu bound for most everything @ 2.7ghz, they eat most games alive. Maybe the new game wave will change that will higher standards and more quad core support.

 

just thinking that if AW for any reason in thier madness decide not to offer the 4870's maybe we could source them from asus or a supplier

 

well that why we were going to make a power point showing that it's noot hard to keep the temps down on it. if i'm right, i think we manage to get the gpu's 5-20 c lower. and the cpu 5-15 lower. it wasn't finished though because of the fact i got frustated with the whole thing. but i still have all my infomation and pictures and most quotes. i just need someone who know how to use power point and add everything up.

really and truly i'm sure it's not great. with the one fan, the 3870 were hot. so the 4870 would maybe have alot of failures due to heat.

 

Is there any more word on the release of the 4870s? I'm starting to think that they won't release them. One of the reasons I bought an M17 in the first place was because of the future 4870 upgrade...

 

i can think about 20-30 people who did the same. now i'm not going to look for future proof laptops parts until it comes out.

 

Me Too
& now they not even answering
if it will happen or not
that sucks

 

they are releaseing 4850's since the 4870's cannot run

 

Just use a Jedi mind trick on them!

 

Well, if you want it from a price to performance standpoint, the 4850 is better.
4870 provides about 20% more performance for 50% more cost.

But hell, I would still like to get the 4870.
(Vader needs More Power )