About the price drop...

Methinks that the DX10 card the m9750 is getting will not be an 8700M-GT because it's cheaper than the 7950GTX. I believe that either Alienware got reasonably priced ($400 for SLi?!?!) or that AW is setting up for newer more expensive cards... maybe even both lol... I wish they'd return the screen back to the price it was, maybe even free like in the m9700
What do you think?

 

Dual 8700's are not the end all be all, so I think Alienware (who is generally performance focused) may either opt out or pull bigger guns out as soon as they can. Depending on the thermals, the m9750 may be able to handle it 8700s and up, but it's hard to say.

Alienware's prices have gone down a lot in the past two years compared to their previous builds which catered to the gaming elite. Alienware may opt for the cheaper 8700 GTs just to get their name out there more, but 8700GTs aren't going to shatter performance barriers unless they have some ace tucked away up their sleeves. Which is why I find the Dell XPS 1730 rather comical for the price.

 

M9750 > XPS 1730 in my opinion.

Alienware rocks.

 

they could, considering dell owns them, have a Quad SLI setup with the 8700gt GX2, that would be something new and very powerful indeed, although there is like no driver support for that right now.

 

also the WUXGA screen dropped to only $200 instead of $300

 

The M9750 certainly has a lot of potential because it is easily upgradeable - even the video cards are modular. I am wondering if Alienware will ever come out with dual 8700M-GTs because then they'd be competing with the XPS M1710, which is something they may want to avoid doing. An Alienware M9750 with dual 8700M-GTs would definitely be cheaper than a Dell XPS M1730 with dual 8700M-GTs and therefore Dell would have to lower their price to 'compete' (with themselves essentially). Alternatively Alienware could come out with the dual 8700M-GTs as noted to raise their popularity.

 

I think they well. Dell and Alienware may be owned by the same corp, but they definitely compete against each other. Everything Alienware has desktop wise competes against Dell's XPS series, and their workstations go head to head against Dell's.

 

The m9750 is the best machine you can get for the price (in my opinion). The XPS M1730 is just ridiculously expensive - besides , performance wise it's not that big of a deal ... I've seen some benchmark results showing that XPS ain't that great. (it has almost the same score as the AW on all the tests, but it costs like almost twice the amount).

 

the m9750 is more expensive when equiped like the dell so i am not sure what you are talking about. you actually get more with the dell like backlit keyboard, lcd info panel, physics card, etc.

what the m9750 has is a better layout design (alot of ports on the back of it, like they should be) and better chassis. plus it looks better. but lets not go around saying the dell is overpriced when the m9750 is alot more overpriced, especially for older tech.

 

This is true, but if you're a do-it-yourselfer, you can take the m9750 and upgrade it into a powerhouse for much cheaper. So it's a better deal if you're lookin' to do a lil' bit of the work yourself.

The XPS 1730 is a great laptop, but the options on it are minimal at best. You can't really select a lot of choices, and are really limited to the configuration packages they have. The m9750 offers a bit more freedom.

 

freedom yes but when you equip it to compete with the dell it ends up costing more even if you are do-it yourselfer.

 

you can get a 9750 with a 2gig core 2, 2gigs of ram, WUXGA, 120GB 7200rpm drive, sound card, windows xp, and SLI 7950gtx for less than the dell, around $2850 and thats will all of their items, do it your self and it will be less.

 

This is true, but at the same time, Alienware has much better purchasing options than Dell (which is... odd). You can't use a Dell finance account *plus* a credit card. With Alienware you can, and the strange thing is... the stupid Alienware Titanium account is a regular Dell finance. It's odd.

 

that still falls short when comparing it to the base $3k dell m1730. you are forced to get the 2.33 ghz and 200 gigs hdd so you are hundreds of dollars higher than the dell.

 

well since they are both gaming notebooks and the best should be the GPU, which is not the case with the 1730. the cpu and HDD will not make up for the lack of GPU power

 

Which they don't. The XPS with a 2.8 C2E still scores less than my 2.0 C2D in 3DMark06 and we all know that the 8700M-GT can't live up to its score with FPS.
So for a DIY setup all you need is $2599 for an SLi setup.

$1799 Base price
+$450 for a second 7950GTX
+$150 for 2GHz C2D, the difference between it and 2.33GHz is 200marks (~8200 to ~8400)
+$200 for the WUXGA screen.

 

it's not all about games and the 3dmark score. for everything else the dell will be faster as it has the 800mhzz fsb and better processor and also will have much better battery life. you are forgetting about the physics card which can create better visuals if implemented in a game. plus, a true full size keyboard.

i don't think you can deny that the m1730 you do indeed get more for your money than the alienware, alot more.

the only thing alienware has going for it is the awsome case design and well laid out ports. this too me is more important than getting a couple more frames per second in a game as i use the laptop every day for all kinds of tasks from gaming to CAD design and office management for my business. but spec-wise the thing is severly over-priced when equiped like the dell.

 

You get more for the money, yeah, but it also forces you to buy more up front -vs- a lower cost performance product that you can customize. The initial investment requirement is far greater along with complete lack of customization. If the m9750 used Santa Rosa you could subtract another $200 off the price of laptop and tack on a T7700, and the m9750 would still win across the board. However, since it's running Napa Valley, that comparison is moot. But it must be taken into consideration.

Performance wise it's not that much better. The Santa Rosa refresh do not offer a huge improvement in speed. The biggest benefit of Santa Rosa chips is that they cost a craaapload less than the original Napa Valley chips. The increase on the bus helps a little, but it is not a major leap. You're going to need Penryn-based chips for that. Both Santa Rosa and Napa Valley both run Merom cores.

In addition, for the price, I still think the m1730 is one of the single uglist notebooks I've seen. The water/smoke effect of the laptop skin is just, uh... tacky.

 

The PhysX card in the Dell doesnt matter. Its a dead technology now and its doubtful if it will ever really be implemented into games.
All it does now is push up the price and take up room.

 

^^ like he said the physx card is useless and drives up the price. the m9750 is smaller and "more" portable than the m1730. why would you buy the m1730 for everyday use, CAD, and office management? you can get a much cheaper laptop to do that, and get a laptop with a 8600gt, or even a desktop for gaming.

 

I've never really though about it, i guess the shocking $2900 as a starting price pretty much scared me , and led me to the wrong assumptions.

 

i only have one computer that i use and it needs to follow me everywhere i go, even to job sites. and with CAD being graphic-intensive by nature my needs fall within the gaming laptop section as that will cover all the bases. i can game, work, and do everyday tasks in my office or at home

 

i know CAD is intensive, but a cheaper buisness laptop would suit you better than an alienware. and then when you want to game, the buisness card will perform like its consumer counterpart

 

IMHO......the m9750 is well overkill for intensive CAD work......We use Autodesk Inventor, CAD as well as 3DS Max and guess what my $1650 Thinkpad (T61P) handled these programs really smooth.......I still love my m9750 but for CAD needs, the T61P is perfect and I got it as a freebie from work!!!!

 

Heh heh. That's one of the reasons I got the m9750 and am upgrading my (alas) X205. Better hardware support for 3D Studio MAX, Photoshop and other Flash.

 

Depends on the CAD application. I run a circuit simulation CAD that doesn't use the graphics card much but really maxes out my CPU. On the other hand, CAD apps that perform 3D modeling (rotating or animating 3D images) can be really graphics intensive as well as CPU intensive.

 

Maybe it's a sign that a 256 bit version of the 8700 gt is coming soon.