M17X Spec Questions

I was wondering that if I chose to go with the Quad Q9000 processor and then chose to upgrade to the Extreme Quad QX9300 later on, would I still have the ability to overclock it? Does the overclocking feature only come bundled with the QX9300 when you customize it that way from Dell?

Also, would it be more cost effective to go with the 4gb of RAM and then self-upgrade to 8gb later on, or would that end up costing more? Would it also be better to hold off on buying the QX9300 until it drops in price and then self-upgrading to it?

 

Don't know about the overclocking, but buying RAM separately is nearly always cheaper than buying it from Dell. Also 8GB is going to be very expensive no matter what.

Do some research into the prices of RAM before you place your order. I myself went with 1GB of RAM in my machine, then upgraded to 4GB and saved myself £20. Sure, it's not loads, but it's not like upgrading the RAM is a difficult thing to do.

 

Self upgrade is ALWAYS cheaper (with rare exceptions - like the SSD's and video cards)

The overclocking ability is there in every machine, regardless of CPU.

 

self upgrade may be cheaper. You always need to factor in the cost of the base product you must buy to get the machine in the first place. For example for me, upgrading to the HDD I wanted was cheaper to buy from the manufacturer because otherwise I'd just be spending money on the smallest, slowest one and then spending more money on another which would mean one was defunct.

You need to keep this in mind always.

Sure, in my case the HDD is not wasted because you can put it in an external caddy and you have a portable HDD, but for many other items, whilst the upgrade itself is more expensive, it can sometimes be more cost effective to simply buy it from the manufacturer so you don't lose cost.

Of course, you could always eBay your unused parts though. I just can't be bothered with this though

 

I have found that usually what they charge OVER the base price, is what you would pay independently, or close to it. And then you still have the base item which can be sold to recover some of the cost as well. Typically you will come out ahead in this scenario.

 

Ok thanks guys. I think I'm going to stick with the 4gb of RAM (I highly doubt I'll ever need more than that) and leave it with that. I'm still not sure if I want to go ahead and get the QX9300 right now or just ride it out with the Q9000 for awhile. Do you think the price of it will drop anytime soon?

 

Given that the ES qx9300's on ebay are getting very scarce, if you will really want one, get it from Dell (then it has a warranty as well), but that will set you back $1000 alone. The Q9000 should be fine, and can be overclocked to 2.4 GHz pretty often.

When I get mine it will have a Q9000 (but I already got a qx9300 left over I can put in it - from the days when they were abundant on Ebay)

 

Probably not for a while, not until the mobile i7s and i5s come out.

 

Ever since the m17x came out, the prices have steadily risen and they are still selling out. I would just use the Q9000. The Qx9300 will stay hard to find and expensive on ebay, like I said though, you can always get it from dell for $1k....

 

Yup agreed. When the new mobile i5 and i7 processors come out it's likely we'll see a drop in price for quite a few processors and/or a bunch of them going on sale on eBay. You can always buy one then. The Q9000 is plenty powerful enough for most people.

 

I don't even think the mobile core i7/i5 will be worth the premium they are going to cost over the qx9300 and other current cpu's, so I wouldn't expect them to change the prices of current gen cpu's.

Again with laptops, it always comes down, buy what you need now. Don't wait for the next new thing or you will never end up getting a machine

 

We shall see. Given how far the desktop versions have been overclocked, it will be interesting to see how far the mobile versions can be - and this will greatly impact their selling price and the number sold.