Looking to upgrade

Hey folks, I'm thinking about upgrading my machine and could use some advice/opinions to help me make up my mind.

Currently I have an m18x R1 with the i7-2920xm, 8gb kingston hyperx ram, and 2 580ms in SLI.

I'm trying to decide between possibly getting a new 18 inch alienware with 980ms SLI (used), or waiting to see if there's anything on the horizon, even tho there hasn't been any indication that I've seen a new 18 inch coming.

The third option is buying some 780s and upgrading my machine.

My questions are:

Is the increased performance between the 580m sli and the 780m sli significant?

Would the money be better spent on a used machine like an alienware 18 with some 980s?

Or, with the 1080s soon to be released is it smarter to just wait and see what happens?


My machine is starting to show it's age, and on top of that it's going in for service for the third time this month - if it's still giving me issues upon its return, should I try to request an upgraded replacement?

Thanks in advance!

 

Request for the 18" one with MQ processors at least
4910MQ / 4900MQ / 4940MX / 4930MX

 

I upgraded the beginning of this year against my own advise and better judgement to a new 18 with the 980's and the 4940MX and I must say I am extremely happy with it. Other than some backlight bleed on the panel which I think I can fix myself. Just haven't messed with it anymore since I use an external monitor most times. But I can tell you that for gaming, the performance is fantastic and as of now, there is nothing I can't play pretty much maxed out and get atleast 60 FPS. Most games are much higher than 60 though. Consider a factory refurbished one as well. My previous 18 was bought on eBay and was classified refurbished but was literally brand new.

 

Sounds good. If I can't get a replacement I'll look into the 18 on ebay. They're all so expensive at the moment tho. I'm seeing 980m SLI for about $3k.

Is the difference between 780m SLI and 980m SLI that big?

Also, can anyone comment on the graphics amplifier setup? I'm thinking a 17 with a 1080 with the potential for future upgrades might also be an alternative.

 

http://www.notebookcheck.net/NVIDIA-GeForce-GTX-780M-SLI.93346.0.html

http://www.notebookcheck.net/NVIDIA-GeForce-GTX-980M-SLI.129389.0.html

Here are some comparison benchmarks. The 980m sli benchmarks that are shown here were early results and before newer, optimized drivers came out and improved their performance even more.

Having said that, if you are cool with the 17 and everything that comes along with it regarding BGA, soldered parts, it along with the amplifier might work for you. Not sure whether the amplifier will allow you to get the full potential of a 1080 or any card for that matter tho due to the power supply. Hopefully others can tell you more about that.

 

If you want to compare graphics cards check out this link:

http://www.notebookcheck.net/Mobile-Graphics-Cards-Benchmark-List.844.0.html

Personally, I'd keep the M18X and upgrade it. 780M SLI is possible on the R1 and you can even upgrade the motherboard to an R2 and then upgrade to a 980M SLI setup. Even a single 980M with an R2 motherboard will be a huge improvement.

https://www.techinferno.com/index.php?/forums/topic/3414-can-i-upgrade-my-alienware-m18x-r1-to-r2/

http://forum.notebookreview.com/threads/aw-m18x-r2-dual-980m-sli-upgrade.765169/

 

Better check results in games because 980M tessalators will boost its score in benchmarks but not in many games. Im happy with 780M SLI (880M).

 

I can say I have a drastic increase in performance with my current 980m sli over my previous 880m sli. My 880m sli ended being pretty stable and running close to max stock after about 6 months of fooling with them but still see a big difference with the current 980m sli. By the way, I am not a bencher, just a gamer.

 

Yeah that's the thing, benches and actual gaming are different worlds. I don't like the idea of having things soldered to the mobo, so I think that knocks the 17 + amp out, plus I saw someone say in the replacement thread there is some performance loss with the amp. Shame, great idea a long time coming.

Now I'm also eyeballing the r2 mobo & 980m option which is a lot cheaper, but is that it? I saw there they mentioned the daughter board, hdd caddy and a flex cable, and thats starting to look like $1100+, plus the install work and the possibility of losing dell support? I've blown through 2 gpus, 2 mobos, 2 AC adapters and 3 SETS of gpus and Monday it's going back to fix the right side USB ports... I'm apparently rough on my machine, I can't imagine spending $1100 on a machine that would probably be scrap in 6 months then get downgraded back to r1... would the upgrades be covered?

Because if not i think the smart bet is to go 780m SLI and wait for a 1080m set up...

 

I think the amp is held back by the power supply. As far as 1080's. Who knows if that will ever be an option at this point. The other things I'm not sure about as far as what else you would need and if the upgrades are covered.

 

I couldn't agree with you more. Having the CPU and/or GPU soldered to the motherboard is an absolutely horrible idea and any machine built that way qualifies to be classified as a dismal failure in my personal opinion.

Yes, you need all of those things for the basic upgrade and you won't be able to complete the upgrade if any one of those parts is missing. Motherboard alone won't cut it. If you also want the extra mSATA SSD drive capability, you also need to buy the bracket, cable and and M18xR2 lower chassis to have a good place to mount that. It's not an inexpensive upgrade, but not terrible. It's still cheaper than buying a new machine that is is actually good enough to be considered worthy of spending money on. (Yeah, you can buy a cheap BGA turdbook for less, but those are a real joke and a huge downgrade in numerous ways when you stop and think about it.) Just bear in mind that the gains are modest and you will be "upgrading" to technology that is 4 years old (released in Q2 2012) with the associated limitations. Personally, at this point in time I think it would be smarter to put that money toward the purchase of a new P870DM-G instead. I did the R1-to-R2 upgrade and it was awesome back in the day. But that was then, this is now. It's still going to be awesome, but not cutting edge and with lower performance than 2016 standards in some respects. I'd love to have my P870DM-G guts and screen inside of the M18xR2 chassis, or one that is built exactly the same and looks like it... that would be truly phenomenal.

 

You can upgrade it to GTX 780M SLI I think, but that's all.
Still it should significant boost.
But I would buy single card only, because SLI isn't worth it, GTX 680M, Quadro K5000M or GTX 780M, should be a very good option.

 

M18xR2 can do 980M. SLI is a gigantic boost in performance over single GPU. Anywhere from 50% to almost 100% more powerful depending on the game title or benchmark. It would be much more powerful in everything except for poorly written games that did not receive adequate attention to quality by the game developers.

 

Yeah, going from 45 fps with a single card to 75 fps with SLI or 60-100 is well worth it as far as I'm concerned. I actually think developers should be required to incorporate SLI support into every game before they are allowed to release it. And that's coming from a guy who hates regulations, rules and someone else dictating what you do with your product with a passion. I think SLI is that good.

And to be honest, without SLI, none of these gaming laptops people have used the last 4 years or so would have been worth it and laptop gaming would still be way behind. Maybe the new single card 980 desktop systems but nothing before those. Putting SLI in laptops brought attention to laptop gaming and it is what made these companies consider getting desktop level cards and performance into laptop machines.

 

Sli is a good option, but it comes with cost, noise and not so great support of games. I have sli in my desktop, 780 sli and it wasn't great. Better was 980

 

I disagree it comes with more noise. If one fan is cooling a gpu the second fan doesn't really add much more noise at all if any.
It really depends on the design of the machine more than anything. The slim laptops are thermally challenged and usually sound like little blow driers.
I can barely hear my Clevo P870DM-G under a demanding gaming load.

 

@Mr. Fox, that clevo you mentioned made me seriously reconsider the whole alienware thing lol.

Anyway I've been wavering back and forth between SLI 780m now or waiting a while for the 1080s in laptops to get the most out of my money, but I've literally just gotten off the phone from a call with alienware telling me they were about to elevate me to the exchange process. They don't know what the replacement team will offer me if approved, but sadly they only have the 17s available at the moment.

While a new machine (with a new GPU) would be great, I'm concerned about the tradeoff. But I'm thinking a free machine to hold me over even with soldered cards means I don't spend any money until I can get a proper upgrade.

 

Well I've received the offer, and it appears to be the following listing
http://outlet.us.dell.com/ARBOnline...22&key=fezYuJVTF1b2gyOiMKEFPQ==&puid=7425c475

I have to say I'm disappointed, I didn't realize the 17s didn't have optical drives. Between that, fewer USB ports, smaller screen, single soldered card, and being silver, on top of coming out of the outlet implying somebody else has already manhandled the thing, it feels like alienware has let themselves go. What's frustrating is that for a comparable price to their outlet, there's better machines available on ebay, including an 18 inch with dual 8gb 980ms rather than a single 4gb card.

I'm tempted to take the replacement, sell it for a loss (because nobody is likely to pay that price on ebay), and buy the ebay machine.

 

Yeah, that's a rip-off getting offered a crippled turdbook as an exchange for a dual-GPU beast with sockets and slots. Unfortunately, they can no longer provide adequate warranty service because they don't make anything equivalent to what you had, so now is a good time to cut your losses and move on.

Taking whatever you can convince them to give you, not opening the box, and selling it as a factory-sealed machine and putting the money toward a P870DM-G would be a decent plan. You'll probably end up having to sell it at a price quite a bit less than what one purchased direct from Alienware would cost. Seems people prefer to pay more for the same thing buying it direct even with a factory-sealed box. Once it has been shipped the value seems to plummet.

 

Well against my better judgment I took the replacement, and it arrived today, and I'm already being annoyed by it. I didn't realize one of the hard drives was m.2 (and that the original offer for 1tb was gone so now its 256gb) and it only actually has a slot for 1 HDD.

Anyway, I really want to give this thing a fair chance, so can anyone point me to, or quickly break down what I need to do to remove the current drives and add my SSD from my m18x?

I'm running windows 7 on it, but I have so much stuff on it (its a 2tb samsung evo) that I don't want to be transferring back and forth for hours. Would upgrading to win10 and then just downloading the drivers be enough?

If I can't keep my hard drive I'm sending this thing back - its useless to me. Its already bordering on useless with only 1 drive.

Thanks again folks.

(seriously, what is alienware's long term plan here? to crap themselves into bankruptcy?)