M17x R2 - Quick Review & Benchmarks

tweak as in your drivers, OS, gpu clocks, cpu clocks.

you are suppose to open the program and run it.

 

If you don't mind me asking, why's that?

Just wondering if I should save the cash and go for a 720 or 820.

 

Only 5% overclock in bios ? Unless xtu works it's a waste

 

Sorry it's already quite late over here and it's a busy week at work. Only managed to take a quick capture with my google phone, sorry for the quality.

The MBP is calibrated for photo editing, Alienware has more contrast, detail w/o tuning. Looks much better, imo. 100% brightness on MBP, 6 bar 90% brightness on Alienware.

 

Could you please check your temps? Everest Ultimate/GPU-Z/HWMonitor etc

 

Yeah, something to *always* bear in mind are the conditions of any benchmark test of any kind, so it's important to read about a number of similar systems benchmarked to get a feel for an "average". I learned this with cars when reports of time-to-distance were all over the place due to different temperatures, humidity, even drivers.

 

Congratulations on getting your system btw, July, I hate you till I get mine : )

 

wow that's bright and clear to me thanks julylogic + rep

 

There goes my "chase to 20k" contest.

 

18,000+ stock...nice!

You still scheduled to get yours tomorrow?

 

lol thanks mate, you guys are probably a few more days away from unboxing anyway. I'm just glad we're all getting an awesome system.

no problemo.
that's it for the quick review, going to stop here and actually spend time setting up my system for work and some gaming. phew.

 

What he was referring to, was the concept of one standard as an even playing field; a benchmark, so to speak. Not that everyone should have a shot at getting the same score, but rather, so everyone is held to one standard in order to determine how they score against that standard.

Two different sides to the same coin.

And I think what Don was talking about was tweaking of system and drivers to increase system's performance, not 3dMark06 itself.

 

I don't have a tracking number yet. According to my rep it should have been shipped by now. We'll see.

 

O....... got it

 

Time to:
1) Find a monster bag for the R2
2) M11x Order
3) Wait for shipment
4) Find a bag for the M11x
5) 5870 x 2 Order
6) Wait for upgrade tech
7) Rinse and repeat

 

1.) targus xl it's as big as the get

 

Congrats on the new rig. /jealous....

Did you post any screenshots of the dpc latency checker? Just curious on the readings..

Once I am back in town next week I am going to push dell for the ATI cards..

 

Lifes hardships on display right there

Seriously though looks great, I never though I'd see the day an AW screen looks better then a MPB screen. It is less bright but the depth and contrasting seem better. Now I get to lay back eat alot of popcorn and watch Mandrake, Joker and Renghsey go head to head in benchmarking!

 

The colors look better on the M17x. Now of course it could be the camera but look at the red in the picture. It looks more raspberry on the MBP and more red on the M17x.

 

Anyone want to hazard a guess what the 3dmark would be with the same rig but using an i7 720 or i7 820? If I have to redo my order (yet again) and am tempted to get the 820...

 

Now I can't wait to get mine ordered, and it'll be with 5870s

 

What's your gut feeling on the price difference when they become available?

 

lol me too

 

Probably another $300, maybe total cost of $600 over base price. I hope less.

 

How many rep you want me to spread out for you? I will rep until I reach the number you demand

And WOW!!! MBP display was my standard but NO MORE! M17x is clrearly the winner here. You guys see the sunlight in the center of the display? It gives a lot more HDR taste, on MBB the sunlight color is kinda washed out.

And the red path look more red. The green too. On MBP every color is added a lot more white into it (That's what White LED is right)

I think it will look a lot better in person since your Android does not do it justice (I'm not bashing your phone, just... it's not a proper camera )

Thank you so much for the help

 

Yea I really wish the RGB LED was an option when I first ordered mine..

Any of you with the R2 going to replace the optical drive with a BR player/dvd burner combo your self? Last I looked a BR player was not an option.

 

i *might consider it since i dont have one but it will be a while if i get the 920

 

It just doesnt seem right to have such a nice system and no BR player.. geez so archaic without one lol

 

No plans for a BR player since I stream all my movies/shows and it would be a waste.

 

If you want the i7 820 I say get it. I ultimately decided on it myself.I think it priced better than going for the i7 920. But that's just me.

 

i was gona go for a Blu ray driver as well then i remembered i have a TV in the living room that plays blue ray off ps3

 

how much was your system after tax and what type of warranty did you get?

 

initial cost is around the 4110 AUD (config online, including all taxes) with 2 year premium service
but the sales rep gave me 10% off the price so i paid something like 3699.20 AUD

 

thats an awesome price for the build
you paid the same as what i paid for my r1, but you got
better cpu
better screen
better vid cards
better hdd
microsoft office...

 

Sweet Pics and initial info + rep

 

lol i have the feeling i be saying the same thing to someone else in 6 or 12 month time

 

Last 2 are irrelevant and clearly negligible. As for the cards - you can have them replaced for free to ATIs as many did including myself.
The screen is yet to be tested (will know more in a short while)
The CPU - yes, but depending on your activities. If you are not into video streaming and CAD - screw it, C2D is enough.

Don't make me envy the lucky ones or else...

 

You are SO into that screen, oh my.... It THAT SO much better than the MAC'? I mean yes, it looks fine (more than fine to be exact) but still, was the R1 screen that bad? And if yes, please explain?!

 

the r-1 screen was pretty much a complete piece of crap imho. not to mention lacking rgb led (and its obvious niceness) it autodimmed based on how bright the images on the display were. this is similar to what samsung led tv's do (i know cause i had one). this feature tries to dim only blacks in order to increase contrast but ends up dimming the whole display and making it look like you've pressed FN + the down arrow a few times when you haven't.

 

It was probably a driver issue and/or Nvidia related one as I don't see this happening neither in W7 with 4870s nor in Linux.
But yes I had the problem with 280s.
Other than auto dim what was wrong with it?
Comparing to all other notebooks that I had this is the best so far. The only problem for me is that it's too bright for my eyes, but this is gonna be solved with an anti-glare protector in a few days.

 

Yeah the Auto Contrasting/Dimming was the only thing i didnt like about the M17x R1 display .. If it could have stayed at full brightness all the time i would have been very happy... This was with the 280s and i never saw it with 4870s so i cant comment if it fixed it.... I know Witcher said when he got his 4870 machine he did not notice the dimming so there might be some truth to that...

 

There's definitely no dimming with ATIs. I even felt uncomfortable at first, when something was missing

 

Lol well thats about the best missing feature i have ever heard of ...

 

Just adding a comment to this.
I didn't have the R1 but i know I would not like a feature like that. I like to be as much in control of my components as possible, that auto dimming sounds irritating, specially if there was no way to disable it. I suppose the design engineers thought it was a nice friendly feature, but, perhaps they should do a poll or research in what their potential customers really want, and not what they think would be good for them...
For example, my Blackberry 8350i had an auto dimming feature on by default, it was something that I immediately noticed and did not like at all, fortunately there was an easy way to disable it via menu options, so that was cool. Now, not having an option to adjust the brightness or keep that brightness constant on your screen is not a feature, but rather an annoyance...

 

Yes if you could disable it somehow i would have had no problem with them offering the option but that was not the case which left me asking What in heck were they thinking ????...

 

lol Im afraid that I cant explain due to my poor English but let me put it this way:

- I had used my MBP '09 for 3 months before grabbing an M17x. My first impression when I had it powered on: What the hell? Why is the display so dark? I then tried to raise brightness but guess what? At max brightness it looks like my MBP at 50%

I knew about auto-dimming issue on R1 display so I quickly open a blank webpage. Well, the brightness is a lot better then but the white blank page is clearly not white. The best way to describe the white on R1 display is it's similar to your white shirt after 1 or 2 weeks of wearing On a MBP it's similar to a brand new expensive shiny bright white shirt.

Black is not black. It's just DARK because of auto-dimming. Other colors are hard to explain for me but let put it this way: You remember COD1 in 2003? Compare it to COD6 of 2009, color wise only. While COD6 is so colorful, COD1 looks rather greyish.

When I play Crysis on my M17x, despite of much higher graphic settings I feel disappointed with the color it gives out, a lot worse than what I had on my old desktop with a 2007 Samsung 24" display.

Let alone colors are totally washed out on the far right (vertically) and bottom (horizontally) borders. On the left side and the top they are still washed out but not that bad. You can use a solid black color wallpaper and take a look at the borders of the display to see it for yourself.

For me the poor quality of R1 display is very obvious and it was the ONLY pain in my a$$. I noticed all of it weakness in day one and have no other choice but living with it.

That's why I'm totally sold for the RBG LED

 

it was part of the hardware, the screen's manufacturer built it in. in might be the case that since the release of the r-1 with 4870's dell changed who it was getting 1920x1200 screens from, but i know for a fact that when the only option was 260's and 280's, the screen itself was a specific brand that auto-dimmed, there was no way to turn it off. even the bios screens were subject to this dimming, it had nothing to do with nvidia.

 

+1 for the info!
Guess, I'll be more picky now.
Went to check the colors

 

That's a very precise description of the R1 screen. The washing out you saw on the screen during black backgrounds is quite common for CCFL displays since that is usually the side the lamp is located. Some LED displays also have this problem (e.g. Studio XPS 16 RGB LED) but it's not as bad. The auto dim definitely seems like it would kill the enjoyment of having the laptop. For me, half the experience of owning a nice laptop is having a screen that compliments it. I hated the Asus G51 screen (despite it being WLED) because it had terrible viewing angles and washed out colors. Hopefully this RGB LED lives up to all our high expectations.

 

i'm pretty sure all you had to do was go into the OSD, and i think it was in fusion, there was an auto-dimming box. Just uncheck it. I'm pretty sure, but not 100%; nevertheless, i've never experience auto dimming in my r1