M18x ?

Is alienware prepping an 18 incher to accomodate beefier setups, like for instance 480m SLI ?

 

No one knows for sure. Most people seem to think a revision will be early next year with the new Sandy Bridge chipset.

 

18" + 4XXM SLI + Sandy Bridge....seems probable.

 

+1 (only time will tell... )

 

I don't believe it until I see it. I think it has something to do with my being a cranky old man.

 

Uhmm.. 18" sounds good but then I think they will make M15X 1-1,5" bigger.

 

go ahead, bring a 18" laptop (a laptop means it should be portable) anywhere...with its weight at probably 15 pounds you are bound to turn hunchback.

 

It would still be cool (and semiportable)

 

It wouldn't be a desktop replacement then. The desktop computer would be an m18x replacement.

 

Absolutely. Pointless.

You CAN'T fit any extra hardware into it except for one extra hard drive. It STILL has two GPUs, like a 17" laptop. They can easily fit 480M SLi into a 17" laptop; it'd just be impractical with massive power consumption and heat consumption, neither of which would be significantly improved in a 17" platform.

It wouldn't be cool, it'd just be pointlessly big. The M17x is still the limit of what can really be considered a portable notebook. Why would you make it bigger just for an extra hard drive slot?

 

raid 0 with 3 hdd for faster loading ?

 

More screen real estate is actually more important to some than the added weight.

 

you mean like the X8100? Even that thing can't fit 2 480M's in it.

 

TRI SLI!!! Why not but Lozz funny support. But the thing is having a 18'4 isn't bad more real estate space. But the thing is that all of the lcds are CCFL and which only companies are beginning to use due to the fact of course not many people buy 18'4.s Remember only about 7 percent in the market counts for desktop replacements.

 

They CAN fit 480Ms into a 17" laptop. Last time I checked, they were MXM 3.0b, were they not? So they can FIT.

After that, it comes down to a case of power and heat. You need a power supply capable of supplying the 100W each card sucks, and cooling sufficient for keeping them running well. The M17x, with an upgraded PSU and slightly upscaled cooling, could do both.

Not that I think it's a good idea. The entire concept of 480M SLi is foolish, really. They suck up so much power that it's impractical even for a desktop replacement, and they are significantly more expensive than the 5870s-which use around half the power, and are only marginally less powerful.

Still, whatever pleases the nVidia fanboys out there.

But, nevertheless, as freedom16 suggests there really isn't a significant market for 18" desktop replacements. 17" systems are significantly more popular. Therefore, on the financial/marketing side alone, the M18x is a bad idea.##

RAID is over-rated. Without a dedicated RAID controller, software based RAID makes little difference in terms of actual performance. Couple that with the introduction of SSDs, and I truly believe that RAID 0 is going to become obsolete. The ideal configuration now is a fair sized SSD for programs and the OS, and a large HDD for mass storage of documents, music, videos etc.

 

If the 100W power figures are correct, no they can't. MXM3.0B is a 75W maximum power design, so they're not strictly MXM. It's not as simple as shoving a bigger PSU in the laptop, the moffsets and Phase modules on the mainboard may not have been originally designed to supply power to the 200W graphics processor, so you'll either have to modify it somehow and put a secondary power source on the laptop or start from scratch and make a new mainboard that can supply the cards. It's why there will never be a SLi 480M M17x, and probably not an X8100 SLI 480M either.

 

and theoretically an 18" screen might be squeezed into something the dimensions of the current M17x too, coupled with integrated/dedicated gpu switching for better untethered performance it'd be a win-win.

 

This is true.

But I'm actually considering dropping my M17x-R2 in favor of an Aurora ALX and an M11x-R2. I doubt that I will go the desktop-replacement route next time. An M18x sounds nice and all, but I'm ready to hit the desktops again (been through a Toshiba Satellite, M17, M17x-R1, and M17x-R2). At 18" it can hardly be considered mobile anyway.

 

yes, aside from all the M18x speculation, that seems to be an observable trend atm... (desktop+ultraportable, or even sole ultraportable)

 

Hmm, I forgot about MXM 3.0b's 75W power limit. We still don't know how physically big the card is, true, but I doubt fitting two in the M17x would be hard. Getting them to work properly with the power and heat is a different matter.

And yet again I believe this is an argument for why the 480M is a pretty poor card, if they actually have to have a physically bigger notebook to fit two in SLi. It'd only really cater to pure nVidia fanboys; anyone who's not a fanboy and does their research will more than likely go for a 5870 instead with its much lower power consumption as well as cost, without sacrificing much performance.

If they could fit a bigger screen in without making the actual laptop smaller, that would be awesome.

At the same time, that would change people's mentality and make them think that it's bigger. I mean, the M11x...yes, it has a huge bezel but people hear M11x and think of it as an 11" netbook sized system. They could have fit a 12" or maybe even a 13" screen into it, but that'd make it sound bigger, even if it isn't any bigger than it currently is.

You've got to consider your situation, really. I would have gone down the desktop + small powerful laptop route, however I went for a desktop replacement as I spend 9 months in one country, 3 months in another. I don't want to be without the power for those 3 months, and I can't be bothered to mess around with moving files and all of that BS.

If I spent nearly all of my time living in the same place then yes, I'd use a desktop with a small powerful laptop like the M11x for gaming on the move/on holiday.

 

they probally would physically fit in a MXM3.0B slot I'm sure, however it's a 2GB graphics card so it's going to have ram chips on the underside of the card as well as on the top, and the clearances in the M17x to allow a heatsink on the underside like in the sagers and clevos might not allow for such. There's only a few mm between the fan and the PCB of the mainboard in there. I think there acutally are some ES 480M pictures and the physical layout looks like a MXM3.0B standard, it's the power supply and total heat sink package that would be the problem in the M17x.

 

my m1730 and m2010 already did that lol

 

True. I wouldn't argue with tech issues 480m may have, but I am definitely willing to go with 18" screen (as long as it is RGB LED). I only carry my lappy to and from my car, which is never really more than 20-30 yards...

 

We wont see 480m SLI in anything other than a clevo frankenstein.

We WILL however see some kind of 460M derivative SLI product in the M17x chassis.

It should be a A/B alternative though, as the 460m would be slightly less powerful than then 5870m, but would be an nvidia product so the brainless fanbois would be happy.

Covers all areas of the market.

Unfortunately, I think that instead what will happen is we will get a sandy bridge M17xR3 with dual 460m's as the new flagship. It will sound faster on paper, will actually be slower, hotter, more power hungry and more expensive.

Nvidia FTW!

-Ash

 

in phsyix games it would be far superior. 5870's are no good unless you have drivers that work.. and so far(3 months since release) we dont. To answer your stereotype though, yes, I'd jump on them in a heart beat.

 

it wouldnt be "cool" with sli 480's LOL....might be a tad warm hehe

 

sadly but by the time sandy bridge is out ati will have the 6xxx serie out so we will see a cometition between the 6xxx and W/e nvidia has to offer ati scipped using the real 5870 gpu core they still have up thier sleave in the mobile market since nvidia can't bring competition on the mobile market they jumped right away to working on the 6xxx serie

andi don't get why people are still exited about the 480 some one over the clevo forum tested it with a desktop cpu and compared a 480m and a alienware 5870 with the same cpu the score diference was less then 200 if i recall right in vantage

the only good thing these card might bring is a laptop with a strong enough psu and heat evacuation capacitie that we could see a 3 way CFX in a laptop

 

First, there's no such thing as a '5970 core', the 5970 is a graphics cards with two 5870 Cores.sandy is still 8-10+months away, and so is a "real" 3200Shader sub 250W Graphics card. Are you even aware that the 5970 uses 183W idle? Desktop GPUS become more power hungry all the time, and Laptops have remained generally the same size, which limits cooling ability. It's why the notebook sector is getting left in the dust by desktop cards.

 

i ment 5870 it was a typo (yes i know the 5970 is a dual gpu solution)


wan i mean s looking at the shaders we know they used a 5770 core for the mobility 5870 so i mean they could use a real 5870 core

 

a real 5870 core has 1600 shaders, not 800(ie twice the power consumption and heat). If we see anything out of Ati before sandy bridge or after, it's going to be a clock speed update or a slight shader bump, we might get 1-150 more cores *maybe* 200, but not 1600. Unless of course ATi goes the way Nvidia has and throws the MXM3.0b specification to the wind and makes a 150+W monster.. We already have 1600 effective shaders in the M17x and they already run @ 70-80+ C core and 80-100+C ram temps.

 

Think Intel guys. more power less heat... its possible.

 

The managed that because of turbo boost and process reductions, of which the 5870 already has. Intel also can evolve their processors for better efficiency. In the Graphics world, the solution is to just add faster clock speeds, more shaders and faster ram. You can reduce the process (which we're already on 40nm btw), but you're going to increase power/heat when implementing those speed increasing solutions regardless. The only way to get a lot more power for less heat is to just dump current architecture and focus on a new one, and that's not going to happen for a while..

 

They could always call it a "lap and part of your stomach-top." Or maybe "portable desktop" but it sort of fits on your lap. You know, kind of like how the m11x is a "big, gaming netbook."

 

how about a m22x 20 lbs of portable desktop

 

They built one of those once (ref 20" size). You might find one now on ebay for $200. I can see 18" (though that means going 16:9 screen and I'm not fond of that in a laptop) but bigger is really shrinking the marketplace for such a machine. While we often here toss around HP and Dell and Clevo 17's and discuss them, the market for 17's is pretty limited as it is. Going higher probably starts to shrink your possible market so much that higher is not really better.

17.3-18? Even that difference is pretty small. 15-17 is a noticeable amount of screen real estate increase. With a much smaller set of possible screens built for 18" sizes I think even the parts options start to limit how much you can do in that size. I think the 17.3's, from many vendors are about the top end of the practical (based on the ability to sell enough of them to be worth it) side of a manufacturer's options.

 

18"?

I'd just buy a desktop for more power and less money.

 

Unless they increased the resolution I dont know why they'd change the screen size.

Don't get me wrong I'd actually prefer an 18" since it would sit on a desk most of the time. But I think I'm in the minority regarding that.

My guess would just be M17x R3

 

i dont think alienware will bring out something that has been done before and did not work, neither do i expect to see big changes on their current product the next years. I think there focussing on bringing new stuff to the market like the m11x. gaming on 11 inch never been done before. gaming on 18 inch.... been done before. think 3D or a pad is there next move.

 

If Alienware makes an M18x....why stop there?
Imagine a M20x....where is the drool emoticon?

 

I would purchase all the way up to a 20 inch laptop, I would have no qualms

 

Wonder what folks would think of an Alienware style AIO?

I'm thinking laptop parts but on a gaming grade scale and say a 22-23" touchscreen. Market? No market? I'm just curious.

 

Leave the all-in-ones for the Mac fanboys... PC gamers know better than to buy a junk box like that.

Also, touch screens are unresponsive and useless, especially for gaming. I don't see why anyone would spend extra money to get a touch screen on a computer built for gaming when it would never be used.

 

HOw do you even play game via touch screen? Do you just tap the enemy and you automatically shoot them? ... lol It would be interesting.

 

You'd be surprised. I was looking for video reviews of the M17x R2 on youtube and two of the top videos were

YouTube - Alienware M17x i7 R2 Review by Female Gamer.

YouTube - My Alienware i7 M17x R2 (Best Gaming Computers 2010) Computer Gaming Room

 

ati is curently working on a new architecture ..

wich will be out with the 6xxx card as a new serie of card because if tey wanna remain competitive they just can't bet all on the new achitecture wich is not yet mature enough


and also with ati shaders count are worth more then clock so a real 5870 core underclocked enough to fit the m17x would still blast the curent core to hell

 

Clock speed and shader count are relative.. double the shaders at half the speed of half the shaders and double the speed would perform the same. It's more energy effecient and easier to add more shader cores than it is to double the clock speed however.

Ati 6000 is not a totally new architecture, they're basically just making their shader cores more efficient by doubling the triangle output, increasing tessellation performance by 3-4 fold and adjusting the L2 cache to work a little better, it's still based on R600. They're 'tweaking' it more or less. the 6750 pre-release still calls for two 800 shader core processors for a total of 1600SP and has a target advantage over 480 by ~15-20%. R600 and G80 were new architectures, everything since then have been re-iterations of those GPUs. That being said, this past year or two has been disaster after disaster for nvidia, and with the global economy down as it is, it's starting to look very dark for the green team. Their Chipset business is toast ever since Intel gave then the snob nose, and they dumped AMD support because of the ATi merger, their GPU business has seen big failures and delays multiple times, CUDA GPU compute business are taking big hits, and Tegra is going down the drain too. They've managed to screw almost everything up except their drivers so far. Their only saving grace so far is GTX470 and 480 have been selling well somehow, but you can't run a business on the top 20% of the market either.

 

I would totally buy an M18X if it was metal framed like the M17X. Remember guys that an 18in would not have to be much bigger than the M17X. An 18 in screen could fit in the actual M17X frame if it was a true edge to edge display. I still don't know why they make displays with almost an inch frame around it. It's so ugly.

They could make the M18X slightly wider to include the heating needs of the 480M SLI.

 

I'm cool with an 18 as long as there's a 13 too

 

to prevent flex, have you had a E2E screen in your hands? They're horrible in that regard.

 

Yeah but when you see they can make 52in tv with a frame that is much thinner than an M17X one... It let's me wonder...