*OFFICIAL* "All Powerful" M17x-R2 Edition Owners Lounge!

That would indeed be something very interesting to see...

 

I get a 3dmark score of 11083 with sli 260m, is that good?

 

Thanks, I ran Crystaldisk and it seems to be the correct drive (7200rpm).

+1 rep.

 

Right, ok looks like my memories of Crysis were either highly jaded, or I the previous drivers I used were much worse with Crysis. Either way the scores are about even at DX10, 1920x1080 High, however the 5870m does pick up a few FPS lead at very high, if Quad's 17-18fps average was correct.

So for any confusion I apologise, it looks like for Crysis at least, these cards are much closer than I remembered, with a lead to the 5870s. We will need to try and get some other games tested though, as Crysis has always heavily favoured Nvidia setups.

I am using a X9300 vs a 720 I7 however, I believe Crysis is only dual core optimised, so that may account for a little of my lead. (3Ghz core Duo vs 2.4Ghz I7 with turbo boost for 2 cores IIRC).

Single GTX280 results:

[Very High]


[High]

 

At stock clocks, 3dMarkVantage GPU scores are roughly 7,500 (5870) vs 11,000 (4870 Xfire). So the Xfire is about 46-47% faster than the single 5870 based on limited results for the 5870.

 

Thanks

well then Dell would be nuts not to offer the 5870 in XFIRE...

 

Wow. Justin at XoticPC said he just overclocked the card to 799/1200 from 700/1000 and he hit 8900 in Vantage.
These things GO overclocked.

http://forum.notebookreview.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=44604&d=1265482038
*** 8500 VANTAGE GPU SCORE****

Haha, hes saying average temps are around 60 degrees. Not even too hot.

These things are going to be awesome once the clockers can get hold of them in dual setups

 

I hope the 5870 is more than just a benchmarking star. The max OC seems to be 799/1200 right now. Highest vantage score was 8913 or something around there which is quite impressive but I'd also like to see more real world gaming numbers from it before I draw any conclusions. Getting very tempted to grab xfire 5870's but I think I'll wait until June for nVidia's response.

 

No disagreements there, we've seen before were benchmark prowess doesnt hold true to real life gaming. Once we see these in dual card setups, across various games, with overclocking as well, we'll see what the real performance step up is like, although we're obviously looking at some sort of improvements.

That said, from the looks of the ASUS these things do run MUCH cooler than the current laptop GPUs...69 degrees maximum temperature when overclocked? My GTX280s can hit ten degrees higher than that at stock, and they've both got an individual fan, heatsink etc.

 

I'm not betting on Dellienware, I am betting on the troubleshooting acumen of the posters here... for at least a work-around

 

Hmmm... sounds like you might be deciding to camp for the Xfire 5870's while the smoke clears...

 

I should be getting my 720xm R2 any day now. I already have a Intel G2 Hard drive a Blu-ray player, Kingston hyper-x ram and a 920xm processor on hand to install.

I am kind of at a loss for how I should proceed with this 920 issue. I would hate to install all the above to have a big stuttering issue and have to rma the machine in the end.

 

It's not a 920 issue. When I ran RE5 benchmark out the box, there was a lil' stuttering...and not major flickering where it never crossed my mind.

After install a fresh OS and did the bench again, There was a night and day difference of flickering. MOre flickering after a fresh install.

I'm saying that it's a driver issue. Either a new bios or driver update would fix this.

 

I thought it had be fairly universally established that it was in fact a 920xm issue. Hopefully Joker or the AW QA Rep gives us some news on the subject soon. I'm sure those AW engineers will take Jokers m17 apart and have an answer in no time. Maybe they have a solution, maybe not, but at least we would know what the problem is. Btw does anyone think these issues would force AW to hold production till they have a solution?

 

Lol. Apparently you haven't been to the M17x-R1 Owner's lounge...

 

i'm still waiting for them to get my M15x so i can order one of these and be unhappy with flickering and stuttering etc....all you guys are lucky. seriously though i hope it's something thats fixable and cheers to all you guys trying to figure out how to fix it, if i could help i would.

 

Now when I startup, I get the black screen numlock thing.
Also, when I actually get it to start up, it beeps and says: Your power adapter is not a dell power adapter, or something to that extent.
And when I unplug the adapter everything freezes.

 

Did you do a fresh install of the OS or are you running the pre-installed Windows AW provided?

 

Yes pre-install. Can you tell me how to put it into raid 0? I know how to do it in the bios but anything else involved?
Also, will alienware take it back if its in raid 0?

 

Man I'm glad I dodged the R2 bullet. Still waiting for new GPU's. Even then I might wait till other owners get it. This is bumming me out to the point where a three HDD Sager is looking good. Although I need to head over to the Sager forums and figure out whats wrong with those laptops

 

Ok the system has just been picked up by Alienware. I should have an answer by Wednesday of what's going on with it.

 

Great!
10char

 

So far it seems only 920, hoping the 820 is ok....

 

Yea thats what I was gathering, but I'm a "go big or go home" kinda guy so I'd end up upgrading later.

 

Yes, they'll take it back even if you set your disks in a RAID config.

Besides setting it up in the bios you need to hit ctrl-i when it starts up. That will be the RAID config utility. You will have the option of setting it to RAID 0 or 1 by creating a RAID volume. Once you are done you'll need to reinstall the OS.

 

I tried that with a rep and pressing ctrl-I did nothing though.
Also, why do you want me to reformat? Are people reporting success?

 

If RAID is enabled in the BIOS ctrl-i will pop up as an option during the boot process. If you don't see it check the bios again.

I don't want you to reformat. I believe it was Rengsey who said after doing a reformat things got worse.

 

Yah...a fresh install made the flickering worst. At first I thought...those guys are hella picky... a lil' stuttering and start crying. But not till then when I did a fresh install of OS and then I knew why they were cryin...

 

I haven't seen any stuttering in games yet, but I'm not overclocking either.

So far, the toughest task I have given the new ride is Age of Conan on max, no stuttering so far, but there is probably a driver issue that is giving some ugly shadows in game. I'll be playing without shadows until I find a good driver.

 

Whats the consensus then? Is the M17x-R2 in good shape for all those who didnt get the extreme proc?

 

Why does alienware have to take someones laptop for testing if all the 920's are having the same problem?

 

That depends if Nvidia has anything to respond with... look how long it took for them just to get the GT200 derivative mobile cards out..

 

It's the way Dell's capture policy works. Plus they get to see a problematic system right off bat.

I'm pretty sure they will have something to compete and be announcing new products at CEBit. Personally I much prefer nVidia mobile solutions to ATi.

 

Right, but what will it be based upon?

Right now Fermi is 6 months late to the game, and if the rumors are to be believed, they can barely get the 40nm process for it done properly

They've re-branded the GT21x cards to the G 300M series but there's no GTX 360M or 380M on the horizon yet... hopefully this isn't a repeat of the G 1xx series

 

I used to be a nvidia fanboi, but the whole rebranding/naming fiasco turned me WAY off.

ATi is currently in the lead and that's where my money goes (for now )

 

Yeah. I will probably wait too, I just hope we will beable to drop in the new cards and not have to buy a whole new system to use them.

 

Probably nothing more than a bios update that will be required. I'm still not impressed with ATi after using 4870's for a few days. I hate having to depend on mobility modder and not being able to grab the newest drivers. Plus there's 9.12, 9.12 hotfix, 10.1, 10.1 hotfix etc. And yet people criticized nVidia..I had no problems using nVidia drivers at all when I had the M15x and the performance was always consistent in all my games.

 

My thoughts exactly. They're powerful cards, no doubt, but the driver issue is obnoxious. I don't quite understand how a company can just "give up" on support for a current product.

 

I see. This will be my first ATi card to be honest. Lol. Any hints when getting my system? Mobility modder must be a pain to use every time you want updated drivers.

 

Mobility modder is really easy to use, just point to the proper directory and click. The problems arise when it's no longer compatible with the latest released drivers and you have to wait around for the author to update his tool. This shouldn't be necessary at all, AMD should be releasing notebook drivers on their website. Their excuse of OEM's not letting them is a bunch of b.s. as well, how is nVidia able to do it then?

 

Lets hope they start shipping these 920's and dual cards with 300W PSU's, in fact they should just ditch these 240W PSU's for 300W ones (full 300W ones).

 

Yeah. Kinda lame excuse to not make Notebook drivers.

 

if they start shipping with 300W psu's they better send us with 240W psu's 300W...

 

Tell that to bloke with the contract, if they have a contract to supply specific drivers, and to allow the OEM to control driver support, then they cannot break that without mutual agreement or face sanctions.

Whilst its a pain for us, you guys should well know that companies like Dell do like to control driver support etc, and its contracts with guys like these they are worrying about.

They wouldnt have bothered to add it to the expected features for 2010 if they didnt believe they might be able to come to an agreement. Money is also likely involved at some point.

 

I am not a heavy gamer. I like gmaes but dont live for them. I guess I am a casual gamer. I also am not at all interested in benchmarking. My specs are in my sig. I was just curious. How would my system do with Crysis? My brother recently bought the game and is bringing it over tomorrow. He insists that gaming is for desktops. So I am wondering if my machine will run this i high settings. I wanted to wait for the 5870 to come out, however I decided to just buy while I could get a good deal. I fricken love the lcd. Its is so bright and rich. It was worth it just for that. I may add a bluray drive. Other than that I love this thing. I mostly surf the net and and play WOW. Sorry to hear about the issues you are having with the extrem CPU or driver/bios whatever is going on.

 

are these 1gb per 4870adding up tp 2gb? or 512 per 4870 adding up tp 1gb?

 

Dual 1GB, meaning its 2x1GB cards. Not 2x512mb Cards.

 

Combined total of 1 gig.

 

maybe some one can point me to another thread with how to use this mobility modder and something with some directions? i heard there is a performance increase from the dell ones so im all for it.

 

Turn off UAC and download the 9.12 drivers and mobility modder. Run the driver setup as though going to install but come straight out once it has extracted the drivers. Run mobility modder and point it to the right directoy (something like C:/ATI/9.12_vista7_whql) and run it. Once this completes go to the extracted directory and run the setup for the updated drivers like normal and upgrade your old drivers, no need to uninstall or driver clean. Nice and easy