My M17 Review

Specs are the following

M17 SYSTEM

Video/Graphics Card: Dual 512MB ATI Mobility Radeon™ HD 3870 - CrossFireX™ Enabled!
Processor: Intel® Core™2 Extreme X9100 3.06GHz (6MB Cache, 1066MHz FSB)
Chassis:17-Inch WideUXGA 1920 x 1200 LCD (1200p) with Clearview Technolog
Keyboard Options: Illuminated Keyboard – Alienware Exclusive Design - Astral Blue
Operating System (Office software not included): Windows Vista® Home Premium (64-bit Edition) with Service Pack 1
Notebook Tuners and Remotes: Without Media Center Remote Control or TV Tuner
Memory: 4GB Dual Channel DDR3 SO-DIMM at 1066MHz
System Drive: 2*320HDD Drives on Raid 0
Optical Drives : 8x Dual Layer Burner (DVD±RW, CD-RW)
Wireless Network Card: Internal Wireless b/g (Full Mini-Card)
Sound Card : Internal High-Definition Audio with Surround Sound
Warranty: 1-Year AlienCare Onsite Service and 24/7 Toll-Free Phone Support
Alienware Extras: Alienware® Mesh Cap
Alienware Extras: Alienware® Mousepad
Alienware Extras: Alienware® Mobile Binder
Alienware Extras: Owner Identification Card
Alienware Extras: M17 Protective Cloth Sleeve
Alienware Extras: M17 Keyboard Diagram Overlay

Unboxing Video is Up!

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Temps are after 15 min on the ati tool

Customer Service Is great and they are always willing to help I called usually 3 times a day I thought they would get tired of me calling but they always treated my excellent.

Laptop Arrived 2 days before the estimate arrival date they gave me Overnight Shipping I paid for regular shipping.
The Box that the laptop came in was great no damage to box or anything on transit.

No scratches or dents on the lappy the feeling of the laptop is great the part were the skull design.The AW head only is blue when you change the color on the keyboard the lights on the head do not change.

Everything was great no crashes or BSOD or anything everything was great no errors Temps are good also GPU on idle is around 48-50c and GPU max temp with Far Cry 2 was 76c.

Finger Print Reader works great and so does the face recognition thing.

Overall I am very satisfied with the laptop and glad I went with the m17 instead of the m9750.


Let me know if you want more info.

 

em,why do you reserve the post space?

 

So no one post stuff because I am doing the review once thing at a time

 

get the temp of GPU in first plz.

 

whats wrong about editing 1st post?

 

Thats the new trend apparently

 

he reserved a bit more than enough.

I reserved some for mine, to organize different type of review for better organization, but not as many as his.

 

Uploaded Pictures

 

Wrong temp picture.

 

I like the video, nice touch. So far, so good. Keep it coming.

 

New Video Is Up!

 

your temperature reading is on wrong GPU.

 

Picture is updated

 

ok, somethign wrong with mine.

 

Very nice Mike.
Goodluck with your system!

And sorry to hear about your temp problem Fusion. Hope it's something minor.

 

Looks great, now i just can't wait for mine!

December 15th sucks :[

 

good job on the review. thank you very much for putting it out there.

 

New Update on the review.

 

why dont you make some game benchies ?
id be interested in single card config, crossfire disabled

 

why single card if he he has two? kinda pointless...

 

It would help people thinking about getting it with 1 GPU, See how much difference crossfire makes and see the performance increase between 1 and 2 gpu's.

 

hows the wuxga screen matey? Im still deciding with what screen to pick. Looking at your screenies that resolution looks a tad small for me, especially the youtube pic. Awesome vids tho dude - rep!

 

WUXGA is awesome. As a wiseman once said: Once you go WUXGA, you don't go back.

Seriously, I can't live without all this extra space now,

 

Im just debating wether it will **** up my games resolutions

 

It won't. Earlier i was playing 1024x768 on a 1680x1050 screen, didn't notice until i pulled up the options for some controls

1920x1200 should scale nicely to lower resolutions considering how packed the pixels are.

 

hmm m17 prices have shot up by like £30 now :S alienware prices are all over the place shooting up and down lately. Grr... just as im about to place my order.

 

I think it's because Alienware is in Ireland for the UK, and they're in Euros. Where as us Brits get GBP, so i'm guessing it's exchange rate.

 

Same here, I even run all my games at native resolution (1920x1200)!

 

think again

 

ok... i've thought again. and i still think it's pointless to measure the lappy's performance with one GPU card, even though it has two.

 

he would be testing the performance of one card for the people who are looking at buying a M17 with just one 3870.

 

80% increase for crossfire, do the math

 

which seems to me like a fairly pointless thing to do.

 

UP TO 80%

i cant afford 2 3870 i want to know if its worth it

 

Why would it?

 

Have you tried hooking it up to an HDtv using the hdmi?

Also, I saw that you mentioned that Crysis worked swell at high res and settings. Would you happen to have any specifics that you could put in this thread? Res, temps, general game settings etc.

 

Congratulations on your system, this is a great review. I'll make sure to share this with others here at Alienware. If you have any questions do not hesitate to contact us.

Thank you.

 

I posted a 1 3780 gpu 3dmarks06 benchie in my review.

 

Thank you
post some game benchs

 

i tried CoH 1 gpu, there is no point.
1 gpu and 2 gpu is about the same fps in coh, since coh is capped at 61 no matter how i change the vert. sync in driver.

I know many of you guys are deciding if you can be cheap and save $250, but when you think of it, the $250 is like 15% of the whole system, depending on your spec. If the system can run games faster with 2 gpu than 1 gpu by 30% , it's already worth it. Or can last 100 days longer for $250, it's already worth it.

 

wow that looks really nice mate. Congratulations.

 

Updated Benchmarks and Specs

 

humm nice laptop it seeems... whats its battery life and volume of fans in game play like..

my poor little m860tus battery seems dead <_< kind of regret not getting a bigger 17inch now...

i want a quadcore for some reason... not sure why pitty the ingame scores dont reflect your very respectable mobile 3dmarks thou :{

 

I get around 1.5-2.0 hours on High Performance.

About games it can practically play any game maxed out with my specs still Crisis is like 25 FPS