Hey guys, need some help on a M17X spec

So Ive been running an M1730 with dual 8700m's (128bit) and an x7900 for a couple years now and I want to order a new Alienware because the M17x is just awesome. My plan was to wait until Sept 24th, because if I don't Alienware will announce a new MALX with dual i7's and quad 295's (I still think Nelson Gonzales used to time product releases for 1 week after my purchase.)

Anyways, I was gonna go fully maxed out and spend the 5 grand. But then I saw the spec that is in store at Microcenter and it has me in a quandry.

The spec is basically:

M17X in black
Q9000 processor
4 gigs 1066 ram
dual 260's in SLI
500 gig hard drive (single)
Blue Ray Reader/CDRW
UXGA 1920x1200 screen

Price: 2299.00

When you spec this machine on the AW site its 2724 plus tax. And Im thinking..ok, I can OC the proc to like 2.5ghz, buy my own 256gig SSD online and move the 500 to a slave, add my own 1333mhz memory, and if Im not happy with the proc I can swap to a QX9300 down the road. Im not sure (Moo/Mandrake question) but I think I can change out the 280s if I feel its necessary also right?

What do you guys think? Im running a Vantage score of P4400ish on the 1730, so either is a huge step up.

Bring the Moo, Mandrake, ViscousXUSMC, Clauss, Butters!

Thanks Guys!

-Thrawn

 

Sli 260's
4 gigs 1066
base CPU n get one off eBay
what ever HD
what ever screen

 

Moo, the 260's are upgradable right? Whats the availability for 280s and 4870s?

 

this should be a good base build you could upgrade further down the road as you said but as i've read it's a pain to open the 17x and change the component however

this rig should have enof power to entertain you for some time stock and if you wich you coul still upgrade later down the road

 

I dunno...he might regret getting the 1440x900 resolution. It's "only" a hundred dollars more but it's better than paying $300+ for the higher resolution off eBay .

 

Its the UXGA display, 1920x1200...hence why they put the Blue Ray player in it. The machine Im looking at is actually available over the counter down the street from my house. The temptation is killing me lol.

 

Get the microcenter deal

It's great and no wait time is great

and yes you can upgrade gpu 's. Just buy them from Dell

 

Moo's Avatar FTW.

On a side note, I called down to Microcenter and they put me on hold forever. Then the lady came back on and claimed that they don't even carry the M17x. I disagreed, and she sent me to some other guy who back peddled and said they carry it, have one in the store but its a display model. He claims its perfect and will knock off 10% and sell it to me for like 2k with all original packaging.

He claims that they used to carry more of them in stock, but people weren't buying enough of them. So know they only carry the m15x and the desktop machines. I checked stock in most Microcenters and a few have unopened boxes but they are all stores that are out of state. So if anyone is looking for the M17x Microcenter deal, there are only a few more machines out there in the wild.

 

You can still order them, but the in store stock will be low for economic reasons. People who go into the store to buy a laptop typically are not looking for a highend (expensive) machine, for the most part that is.

And I am speaking from experience, used to work at Microcenter. The deal is awesome though, if you are not happy with the display model, I would say order it from them and just wait. That was my backup if I missed the July e-value code.

 

At the moment 4870s are not available at all for it (someone correct me if I'm wrong) and the 280s are VERY expensive to purchase aftermarket.

You don't need 1333MHz RAM at ALL. It'll be bottlenecked by your processor so that it runs at 1066MHz anyway. It MIGHT provide a SLIGHTLY more stable overclocking environment if you have 1333MHz RAM but it's not really worth that extra money for it.

There really is very little difference between 260Ms and 280Ms. You're talking a 10% performance gain in most games (whereas the leap from a single 260M to two 260Ms is in the area of 20%-90% depending on how optimised the game is) Even 4870s won't provide a massive gain in performance.

The Q9000 will run nearly everything you throw at it without any problems even before you overclock it. It will not likely bottleneck any games. This is because newer games support multi-cores, so even if they don't specifically say they have quad core support they may well utilise it well, and older games that will only use one or two cores will run fine on 2.0GHz anyway.