M17x Dual 260 or single? also about warranty

Hi

I am planning to buy the Alienware M17x but am unsure which i should go with, I am not much of a PC gamer but i play games from time to time, I do need the performance this laptop gives for other reasons than just gaming but lets forget about that for now
I am from Canada and the GTX 260 x2 upgrade from single 260 GTX is 370 CAD, is it worth that much? this will make the laptop price hit 3000 CAD before tax
this is the configuration i will go with in case

Intel® Core™2 Duo T9600 2.8GHz (6MB Cache, 1066MHz FSB)
1Yr Ltd Hardware Warranty, InHome Service after Remote Diagnosis
17-inch WideUXGA 1920x1200 (1200p)
4GB Dual Channel DDR3 at 1333MHz – 2 x 2048MB
250GB 7,200RPM w/ Free Fall Protection
Single NVIDIA® GeForce® GTX 260M, 1GB
Slot-Load Dual Layer DVD Burner (DVD+-RW, CD-RW)

if you have any spec recommendation please go ahead

About the warranty, i am originally from Dubai and will take the laptop back with me, Dell told me i need to buy the 3 year warranty for 540 CAD to be able to repair it there, is this worth it? is this laptop prone to defects?
I have connections in Canada and i should be able to send it back but I like to avoid that if possible

sorry for the bad English and thanks in advance

 

I wouldn't say it has defects (or at least it doesn't have any we know of as of yet) but it may be worth going for the warranty. Remember, at times it's better to play on the safe side.

Whether the extra GTX 260 is worth it or not is up to you. You'll see about a 0-50% performance increase in most games, depending on their compatibility (some games will not use it at all, hence the 0%). Just depends if you think that is worth it.

 

1333 Ram is useless.

GTX260 SLI is a good boost... If you have the money

You can simply buy 1 year complete care and renew it later. And yes complete care worth

 

why is that so?
for 50$ i think its worth it

 

Your FSB on your processor is 1066 and unless you are getting the extreme quad and will be over clocking it, your system will not utilize 1333 ram

So you can save you money on it. that is all

 

There isn't much point in buying an M17x and not getting sli.

 

If there's no use for it how it can worth?.

In C2E 1333 is even more useless lol.

Battery life?

 

Ok, that's just wrong. I'm not going to bother explaining why, but it is.

A simple question for you: Why is 2000MHz RAM manufactured? From what you're saying, 2000MHz DDR3 is the same as 1066MHz DDR3, and offers the same performance, which is completely untrue.

 

I am just saying for this notebook. Not in general. Just the ratio so far from what I have gathered from testing and others have pointed out, its not necessary in this notebook.
I am not an expert but many say it is not needed.

 

Just a quote from anandtech:

And here we are talking about 1066 - 1866... Show me your arguments about 1066 - 1333

 

i thought the M17x came with 3 graphic cards if chosen the SLI option
9400 is not in there too?

 

9400 is integrated so it is built into the motherboard. It will be used when the more powerful card is not needed or if you are in power saving mode.

 

it acts as an integrated graphics card and your chipset

 

last question for the owners
are you happy with the laptop?

these are the specs for now
Windows Vista® Home Premium (64-bit Edition) with Service Pack 1
Intel® Core™2 Duo T9600 2.8GHz (6MB Cache, 1066MHz FSB)
1Yr Ltd Hardware Warranty, InHome Service after Remote Diagnosis
17-inch WideUXGA 1920x1200 (1200p)
4GB Dual Channel DDR3 at 1066MHz – 2 x 2048MB
320GB 7,200RPM w/ Free Fall Protection
Dual NVIDIA® GeForce® GTX 260M, 2GB – SLI® Enabled
Slot-Load Dual Layer DVD Burner (DVD+-RW, CD-RW)

is there anything you think i should add or remove (good value stuff), i decided to go with 1066 memory instead of 1333 and got a bigger hard drive

 

If you feel comfortable with overclock you can simply stay with the P8600 and overclock it to 3GHZ .

I recommend complete care too .

 

over clocking voids the warranty doesnt it?
i rather play it safe
about the warranty i plan to get the complete care, i guess i forgot to select that lol
thought you didnt tell me if your happy with your laptop

 

Overclocking doesn't void the warranty in the M17x. Overclocking is an advertised feature now.

 

yep at e3 people they would say "the most powerful 17" laptop in the universe with dual graphics cards and a core 2 extreme overclocked processor"... atleast i remember seeing that on youtube...

 

It's a listed feature on the M17x website.