M15x CPU choice?

Hi guys

This is my first post in here and I hope I did not mess anything up

I loved to play modern 3D games and hence I plan to purchase a alienware M15x laptop soon. Knowing that you can upgrade the CPU by yourself/ask alienware to do the job, I decided to make a CPU choice before getting started.

There are a lots of CPU choice as shown from the Dell official site, ranging from i3 to i7 QM.And here's my question: Is all the processor showing on the site are compatible with M15x? So that I can buy a i7 820QM processor myself and fit it into the laptop? Could there be a better choice than 820QM for gaming?
And I could only found those mCPU from ebay but nowhere else.Are they reliable?

Lastly where can I find useful guides or resources related with this laptop? Is there a CPU replacing guide?

Sorry for all bunch of questions but I have no idea where to start. Thanks for helping.

 

From what I've read, they're all supported, but some are incompatible with the upgraded 260m GPU. I think you need the 720qm and higher, number-wise. Yes, you can swap them out yourself. There should be a manual that shows you how to do it, but it seems pretty straight forward. Everything, with the exception to the optical drive, is super easy to access and replace.

From the few games that I've tried - Borderland, MW2, DragonAge - they all seem to be limited by the GPU, rather than CPU, so you wouldn't want to go any less than the 720, and get the 260m.

As for ebay, most of the ones available are Engineering Samples (ES) which work perfectly fine.

Also, the Official type owner threads are a huge huge resource. There are 3 of them with thousands of posts. Wouldn't hurt to read through some of it to familiarize yourself with the pros/cons of the laptop.

 

I would go with the lowest videocard and do a manual upgrade to the 280 to get that 10% gain although the price structure of +200 for the 260 is hard to beat, as a 280 would cost 400-500.

 

Thanks for replying guy I will search through the owner post now to get more information

But for the video card upgrade: I heard that this is very complicated and dangerous as well since higher level card like GTX 280M can potentially melt your laptop down? Could this be true?

 

here is everything you need to service your M15x.

http://support.dell.com/support/edocs/systems/M15x/en/index.html

a 280m had been successfully put into a M15x, true it runs hotter, but the M15x is a cooling beast so its not a real issue. but performance gains from a 260M vs 280M is not worth the price and the heat from the upgrade.

 

IMO, 720QM + 260m is the perfect combination for a decently priced gaming laptop.

The 260 is a great card, and the i7 720QM is a perfectly capable processor. Unless you're really trying for balls to the walls performance, there's no reason to get a 280m, and if ultimate performance was your goal, you'd be looking at the m17x for dual video cards.

Honestly, get the 720 + 260. Best mix of performance and cost for the m15x IMO.