New M17x R4, M14X R2 and M18X R2 are coming - Speculation thread.

you did order a m17x r4 right?? on the phone with customer support now...

 

But hey, I mean if you're getting yours so early, that's a good sign overall. I'm hoping I get mine asap.

 

According to Bill's posts and the Direct2Dell blog, it should have the IB. According to Dell sales support, it will have SB. I will just have to wait and see.

Yes, it is an M17X R4.

We shall see! Good luck to you!

 

I ordered the M17x r4 with the i7-2860QM and the 7970m on the 19th with an EDD of 5/18/12. It's still "in production".

 

That's a little sketch-ball that there's no definitive answer on whether or not you will be getting the 3rd gen chip or not. Can't say I've ever seen sh*t like that going on within a company, but then again maybe I just haven't had my ears and eyes open at the right times.

I'm hoping either way, that I get my laptop very soon, and not on the damn 25th.

 

The Dell rep Bill on the forum has been more than clear, if you ordered I7 you will get Ivy bridge.

Sent from my DROID BIONIC using Tapatalk 2

 

Can you PM me your service tag, email address, daytime contact number and shipping address, please? I have alerted Scott from the @DellCares team about your posts. He will take ownership of your case and make sure you get the right CPU. If you get the wrong one by some weird set of circumstance, he'll do anything up to an upgraded exchange at no cost to you to make it right. Don't worry about restocking fees. That policy can be over-ridden by agents at his level with no problem.

We are still on target in APJ, which includes Aus. Pretty sure it's 2xfull HDD slots plus one mSATA slot.

Yeesh. I really wish there was some way I could impart to the masses that the front line care, sales and tech agents are just incorrect about a lot of things on this launch. I'll attempt to clear this up in a post right after this one.

We have you covered one way or the other. You have my personal guarantee.

Malaysia falls under the APJ date of May 2. You should see it tomorrow. If not, remind me again, and I'll chase on details.

No idea what they're doing with their site, but the launch is the same in all regions. Next post should clear this up. Gimme like 5 minutes to put it together.

 

Yeh it sucks, i think the nda is lifted so dell/alienware should be able to tell us all the necessary info when thinking about buying one of their systems! Its a strange and sticky situation, what doesnt help is when each rep tells you a different thing...

 

Got that right. I'm so antsy right now, that I can't focus on anything. I just want it to get here already!

 

Plain and simple:

M14xR2- There are multiple motherboards stocked for warranty replacements. One for each GPU offered, and each supporting Ivy Bridge. The base config has a Core i5 offered. That CPU is Sandy Bridge and will remain so until further notice (aka, when Intel delivers Ivy Bridge i5's, and we deplete stock that will be current at that time). Every other motherboard supports only Ivy Bridge. There are currently NO engineering plans to make the Ivy Bridge motherboards backwards compatible with Sandy Bridge. This may change. So, it's impossible to ship this system with a Sandy Bridge, except for the base Core i5 config. Once the platform is brought online in the Recommended Spares List (database tool tech support and care use to get part numbers to dispatch), I will post screenshots of all the motherboards. This should happen when or shortly after systems start appearing in the field.

M17xR4- There is only one motherboard stocked for warranty replacement. It supports ONLY Ivy Bridge. There are currently NO plans for engineering to add BIOS support for Sandy Bridge. It is impossible to have a packing slip say "M17xR4" and have a Sandy Bridge in it. It is possible to see packing slips, online order status tools, or tools frontline reps use that say "Sandy Bridge," but again, IT IS IMPOSSIBLE to get a Sandy Bridge CPU on the R4.

M18xR2- ditto from the M17xR4 info above.

 

I could grow old waiting forever, but that won't stop me from doing just that. The 7970m is a wonderful card, but what I'm really hoping is that Dell listens their customer base, and, with the 680m (which will hopefully beat the 7970m by enough to warrant NVidia's 200% cost) release a 120hz display for it for 3D usage (I, myself, don't care too much about 3D, but I have found that higher refresh rates to be worth the cost in almost all cases).

But by that time, there might very well be talk about the R3, which will come with a back massager and coconut peeling addon, and I can't pass that up, right? Heh heh.

Yeah, that is what I'd think, and most likely for all of May and most of June unless NVidia is on the ball.

Thank you!

~~~

I've queried regarding this in the m18xR2 thread over in the owner's forum, but in case anyone from Dell that has the desire to assist with this (that's my way of saying "Bill, please help me, kind sir!") it would be most appreciated: http://forum.notebookreview.com/alienware-m18x/657864-alienware-m18x-r2-4.html#post8485981 the gists being that the power supply 331-2429 (330w, m18xR1/X51) is cheaper than the power supply 330-4342 (240w, m18xR2), which makes me wonder if the 330w power supply is compatible with the m18xR2, and if so, why isn't Dell offering this as the stock power supply unit? Thanks!

 

Short of saying "do not trust the front line phone and chat reps on this because they don't know," I just don't know how to clarify this. I'll go with, "the information I have provided is current and accurate."

 

Which is a shame because they are the ones selling the product, shouldnt they know what they are selling?
Heres what my rep emailed me earlier after i sent him the direct2dell link!

"In US we have already launched the IVY bridge processors, we may be doing the automatic upgrade for US orders.
As of now we are not doing it for UK orders."

Your doing a good job bill, wish sales reps were as clued up on what they are selling as you are, would stop a lot of confusion

 

@Guswut I posted on that thread. Hope it helps.

 

@ Bill : I have a question. Will the power adapters which come with the M14X have a voltage range from 100V - 240V ?
I'm planning to go to India this summer , so I need to know

 

@Dell-Bill

When will the new AWs be released in Singapore? thanks for the info

 

If you want to forward me that email, I will make sure the sales messaging team in the UK gets updated messaging out. I just did the same thing for the US sales floor yesterday.

Singapore is APJ (Asia/Pacific/Japan), and should launch tomorrow. Sometimes countries within the region will hold the launch for some reason. If they hold it in Singapore, it shouldn't be long. Nothing I've seen says it will be held up anywhere, but I'm not on all those emails.

 

whoa that would really be awesome... thanks for the reply.. im really excited about this launch. it is my first AW btw and im planning for the M14x R2..

 

Boom. Done. Definitive proof of Ivy Bridge on this order emailed to Poison1217. He can post screenshots after he blacks out his personal info from them if he wants.

For everyone else, a pro tip: Tell whatever agent you're talking to, should you choose to punish yourself with this exercise, look at your order, find the SKU for the CPU, BOM that sku up and own, and then read the master part description they see to you off the screen. Disclaimer: I can't promise whatever agent you happen to request this of will a) do it without saying they did when they didn't or b) understand what "BOM" means or how to do it.

I have no idea until the replacement parts come online in a few days.

 

Thanks to Bill some questions have been answered. Do not panic guys. Your orders will be fine and there is no need to cancel and re order, if you do it'll be very very strange most likely a 1% chance for it to be you. Just be a little patient. Ordered on the 25th. A total of 5 dell reps told me "Your item did not get 3rd gen cpu", but little do they know. Last rep i talked to said to me "I am willing to bet you money that your item wont get 3rd gen intel" when i referenced Bill. So put your phones down, drink a cold one and wait patiently.

 

I emailed order support earlier asking this:

Hello, I recently placed an order (last tuesday) for an M17X system with the 2860QM CPU. I noticed some people are getting updates that they are being upgraded to an equivalent Ivy Bridge CPU. Will my order be updated with this change as well, or? If so, will this affect my estimated arrival date of the system? As far as ETA, what is the current status of my system in the current production line? Thank you.



I got this as a response, completely useless drivel that shows NOTHING new. Actually scratch that, I can't really understand it to the point where I have no idea if anything in there is helpful:

I understand from your e-mail that you recently placed an order for an M17X system with the 2860QM CPU, you noticed some people are getting updates that they are being upgraded to an equivalent Ivy Bridge CPU and you would like to know if your order be updated with this change as well and will it affect your estimated arrival date of the system. I assure you that I will assist you to the best of my ability.

I have checked our records and found that you have placed an order for ?Alienware M17X R4? under the order number XXXXXXXX.

I would like to inform you that we do see any such information regarding the upgrade you have mentioned in the email.

For more information, I would request you to please contact our Product Advisors at 1-800-289-3355 Monday through Sunday 8:00 AM CST to 9:00 PM CST. You can order online at dell.com.

You may also contact our Product Advisors by doing a Live Chat. Live Chat is available Monday to Sunday from 8am to 11pm CST and the link for the same is:

http://www.dell.com/content/topics/...t_core?c=us&cs=19&l=en&s=dhs&~lt=popup&~ck=mn

Or you may email them at [email protected]

However, I have reviewed your account and it shows that your order number XXXXXXXX is currently in production and the estimated delivery date is on or before 05/25/2012. However, It?s just an estimated delivery date and we will try to ship out the order at the earliest.

I would like to inform you that an estimated delivery date is provided to you at the time of placing the order based on conditions at that time. Most of our orders are delivered to our customers within the time frame referenced at the point of sale. However, as all of our systems are custom-built to specification, we do occasionally run into unexpected delays in the manufacturing process. As informed to you earlier at the time of order processing, there may be a delay that even may subject to cancellation of the order, hence we are unable to guarantee any delivery date.

Once your order ships out of Dell, you will receive an ?Order Shipped? email with the required delivery information for your order. So, please check your e-mail regularly (including ?Junk? and ?Spam? mail folders).

You can check the progress of your order any time by clicking the link below and entering your Order number and Customer number.
_www.dell.com/orderstatus
Please provide an alternate phone number and the best time to contact you for our records. This information will help us contact you in future.

If there is anything else that we can assist you with, then please reply to this email and we will be glad to assist you.


Also what the crap is with the live chat link? Every time I try to use it, the session ends within a few minutes, as if no one wants to talk OR their live chat system is just garbage.

 

Tell that rep he can reach out to me, and I'll teach him how to BOM a part down. He should be buying your cold one.

@BiH115 dude dude dude dude. You should edit your order number out of that post ASAP. It's personally identifying information that can be used against you by the unscrupulous in the world.

EDIT:

In the meantime, I managed to use the order number to get your CPU SKU and BOM it down. You have Ivy Bridge coming.


Component Part(s) of 319-0583
KM1JJ MOD,PRC,IVB,I7-3820QM,2.7,ANW
V9KPP MOD,LBL,INTEL,NB,CI72

 

Crap! I meant to take it out before hitting submit reply, I noticed that right off the bat. Thanks for fixing my mistake for me! It's gone now.

 

No problemo. You're good to go. Suggest next time you need support, use the links in my sig first. (see my edit above)

 

Heres the part number of my processor in my setup, guess its the same thing as SKU? could you BOM it down? xD
213-15807

 

Stupid question, but: What exactly did you mean by "BOM it down"?

Does that mean I originally did not have the Ivy Bridge update slated in my order before this process?

 

Invalid SKU. I guess the part numbers that are customer facing are not the same format. If you PM me your order number, I'll look it up and post back the master part description.

BOM is an industry acronym. Wiki!! Essentially, what all this means is we were under embargo but wanted to launch before the embargo lifted. We knew we were going to ship Ivy Bridge, but could not sell it. So we "sold" Sandy Bridge, but on the back end we made the agent and customer facing SKU's show a Sandy Bridge part. If you take that SKU number and put it in the tool that breaks down all the child parts (sub parts, the screws, the thermal paste, anything that needs to ship with that part as a kit), you get the real part number for the CPU with the real master description. Front line agents don't make this connection. Only those very familiar with how we stock parts and manage inventory would think to use the BOM tool to find the correct description. To those front line guys, all the BOM tool is used for is if they want to order only the screw, paste, or whatever child part ships with the parent part. So they don't think of it as a tool to see the master description of the parent part.

 

For anyone needing additional reassurance, I just received my M14x R2 which was ordered with the i7-2860QM. I booted into the BIOS and found i7-3820QM. My order was placed on 4/19 shortly after the announcement.

Len

 

Well furthering the 7970m issue, apparently theres no way of pausing production, you can only cancel and start again, however they are more than happy to keep a hold of your money ironically this is the one situation where this is helpful, cba fanying about with waiting 3 days or such for clearing.

For some reason the Dell rep covering my guy (Oh yeh, hes ill btw, feels bad now ) believes the 7970 is coming to the 18x on the 5th, lets see what happens with that.

Congratulations! Enjoy.

 

Bill of material

 

TL;DR he's checking what part you have using his resources at Dell. BOM is lingo, but if I remember correctly it means Bill of Materials.

No, you had it all along. Bill is just awesome, and is doing his beat to reassure you guys.

Edit: Woah, I got ninja posted like 5 times in the time it took me to peck that out on my phone.

 

Very cool, thanks Bill! So now that it's official that I'm getting Ivy in my system, how does this affect my ETA?

Edit: Thanks for the extra clarification Washu, appreciate it.

Bill, you rock.

 

Bill can u check my order as well I'll pm u thanks!

 

Are we seeing a pattern yet? Bill says all M14xR2, M17xR4, M18xR2 will ship with only Ivy Bridge. Orders with Sandy Bridge SKU's, when BOM'd, are coming back as Ivy Bridge. Fun stuff, really.

 

I think I am not the only one who would love to get a quick bench and game play performance of this new machine. Also pics...

BTW - when did you order your laptop? I ordered on the date that you ordered, 4/19 literally 15 minutes after the refresh.

 

In short, it doesn't. It was intended to go into production with IB all along. Not to get your hopes up if you're far back in the line, but Dell is really good about under promising, and delivering early.

If The Bill tells you something, you best listen.

 

Copy/Paste from the IM session with my co-worker who looked this up for me:

"No svc tag yet; hasn't shipped"
"kk"
"well, officially
looks like it is about to ship"
"nothing anywhere says "ivy bridge" on it yet?"
"not on the components
looking in a diff place"
"kk if we find something we can screen shot, this case is over"
"do you think if I BOM the proc it would show?"
"perhaps. i'll bom"
"319-0590"
"got rsl open now
sec
boom!
email me a screen grab of where you saw that sku, plz
and it's over
easy close for scott"
"huh?
Do we need to do anything else w/this one?"
"nope"

 

Whoever just received their m14xr2......benchmarks please!!!!

 

You guys want benchies? Why didn't you say so? We've been running an internal beta with guys and gals from tech support for a couple of weeks now. I'll ping them for some screen grabs.

 

Bill. You are my hero

 

Can you ping them for M17x R4 benchs also?

 

And Dual 7970's

 

Dear Bill_B, your participation and performance here is nothing but AMAZING!!!

As a very long time client of Dell ( without any major issues), I'm very glad ( to say the least!) to read all about the way Dell and you are positively 'filling gaps & holes' to solve questions and issues by providing something that no other computer producer ( as far as I know) is ready to do. Keep the AMAZING work on!

BTW: Hope your child is already feeling ok and the suitcases are ready for your next week vacations.

 

Feel free to show it off in the Owner's Lounge. Yes, it's up

http://forum.notebookreview.com/alienware-m14x/660277-official-m14x-r2-owners-lounge-thread.html

 

Does this mean that my order is about to ship!?

 

@ Dell-Bill_B

Can you check this part number for me Bill Please ??? 319-0582

Just to be reassured

 

Awesome! Did it ship on time? I ordered shortly after, but have a May 24th delivery date.

Enjoy the new machine!

 

I sent a blanket request for benchmarks and system configs. I cc'd the program manager. If he puts the kibosh on the request, I won't have anything to post, but if he's ok with it, I'll post all I get back.

Not 100% sure the beta team has that config, but I'm pretty sure there was at least one with 7970 in CFX. (or is it CXF?)

Happy to help out, but I will have to step away at some point today to knock out all my deliverables that will come due while I'm on vacation. Little Tommy is doing ok. His fever broke late Friday night, but he still has some sores healing in his mouth. Makes it tough to get food down, but when he's really hungry, he eats. Gatorade fills in the gaps. Thanks for the well wishes!

I think so. No visible ETA just yet, but we should be able to see it in a few days. By the time we see it, it'll be on a FedEx truck, though.

N5NVJ MOD,PRC,IVB,I7-3720QM,2.6,ANW <-First 5 characters are the Dell part number we would use to dispatch. Rest is the master part description.
V9KPP MOD,LBL,INTEL,NB,CI72 <-Ditto

 

CrossFireX --> CFX

 

Hi everyone,

I been following this thread for some time and after the IB announcement I make my mind to buy an Alienware. So I want some advice in:

1. M17X or M18X
2. Single or CrossFire 7970m
3. Get after market upgrades.

I'm a Web Application Developer so I would use for work as well for games. Since is common for me to have 2 VM open. And as for gaming the main games I will be playing would be Diablo 3, Guild Wars 2 and some FPS games like BlackLight. I also have a PS3 but recently I found myself playing more in my PC.

My preference is on base M18X + 7970M + i7-3720QM. And later upgrade to a 2x SSD Raid 0 + 16GB RAM Corsair 1866MHZ. And leaving a CrossFire config for when games get more demanding.

What do you guy thing? I know I could do with a M17X, currently have a G73JH, but I think M18X is more flexible as "future-proof"