*OFFICIAL* Alienware M11x Owners Lounge - Part 2

afk, I'm going to run GTA 4 at that low res and see what happens 1300x768 or something liek that?

 

@nuke with the buzz this laptop has craeted its hardly a suprise.

 

shut this thread down. from now on, the m11x doesnt exist. never heard of it, never seen it, no one knows about it.
KEEP IT A SECRET SO THERES NO SHORTAGES

 

i just did the lowest setting on my core i5 +330m\

lowest setting possible..but at 1366*768

i think this will have not much to do with what graphic card i have..

Frames Time (ms) Min Max Avg
2846 70574 27 55 40.33

this is with core i5 2.27 tho

 

M11 what you say?

 

Fans 1
Dell Manufacturing Team 0

 

Well put it like this, ive seen press mmaterial from dell (cant link as on mobile) claiming taht gta4 is one of the games that the m11x is capable of. On one hand i dont believe it, on teh other hand when you take into account the overclock function and the fairly powerful gfx paired with a low res i think maybe it can. I guess theres only one wya of knowing!

 

@ fuury, is i5 not still a dual core processor tho?

 

It'll be funny if that i5 is a 600/500/400 series. Cause those are dual cores. If its a i5 700 then... I smell something melting...

 

Thought everyone might be interested in a GTA 4 Benchmark I ran across today.

Statistics
Average FPS: 34.88
Duration: 37.09 sec
CPU Usage: 95%
System memory usage: 70%
Video memory usage: 97%

Graphics Settings
Video Mode: 1280 x 720 (60 Hz)
Texture Quality: Medium
Render Quality: High
View Distance: 25
Detail Distance: 37

Hardware
Microsoft® Windows Vista" Home Premium
Service Pack 1
Video Adapter: NVIDIA GeForce 9800M GTS
Video Driver version: 179.14
Audio Adapter: Speakers (Realtek High Definition Audio)
Intel(R) Core(TM)2 Duo CPU T5500 @ 1.66 GHz

Now looking up the T5500 is seems like a slower chip than the SU7300 OCed, and the 9800M GTS is only 60 something stream processors versus 72 on the 335M. Plus, I think the 9800M only got up to 512 MB, so that would mean a lot less vid ram. Unless I am missing something pretty huge, it seems like a old laptop with significantly worse specs ran GTA 4 at playable FPS on Medium High settings.

I hope not, that would be bad, very very bad. Hopefully, since I ordered early and never canceled I will be ahead of the mob and get my parts before they vanish into backorder abyss.

 

Don't worry yoda, i'm quite far down the queue. Ordered on the 8th. Just means that this lappie just owned Dell Manufacturing

 

will the m11x be able to play battlefield bad company 2 on high settings?

 

Haha no, not even my desktop can do that, and it is easily 4+ times faster in both GPU and CPU than the M11X.

 

2 physical core 4 thread..

when in gta 4 the cpu on 4 thread are above 80-85%

 

this is wrong.. 9800 series has 256bit memory bus
so it should be faster then the 335 which only have 128

edited....
also
the 9800mgts 's 60 unified pipe they run at 600mhz

335 's 72 unified pipeline run at 450..
so the 9800m gts is faster then 335m and have double the memory bandwidth..



by the way this 128bit memory bus is also one of the reason why the 335m and 330m in some area, not going to be that much different...
bottlenecked by it's own memory system

 

will it be playable?

 

dang~ i will be calling Dell to check on my status. *dialing and expect to hold on the line for at least 30 minutes*

 

But the 9800M GTS has fewer stream processors and half the video ram. Bus speed only goes so far, and is really more for things like AA and AF which eat bandwidth, not so much for textures and effects which require the video ram and stream processors. The slightly higher clock can't counteract 12 more stream processors. If anything I say the 335M still has the edge.

We can at least say it is an equal comparison, as the M11X should be extremely close to performance with that tested laptop. We are talking sub 10% difference AT THE MOST.

Probably, just have to tweak settings to see what works.

 

20% more pipeline vs 25% higher clock >>> ok lets say a wash..

but about the bus..
memory bus is really important!!!!!


go try on your desk top...
drop your memory speed down to half..
and then tell me it is really important in AA situation.

 

@furyagain
then simply turn AA off. We can't expect the M11x to play every game with highest settings and everything on.

 

ooo sorry 9800m gts is 64 pipe

oo by the way .

this is from notebookcheck 's 330m section

"
As with the GT 230M, the performance depends on the used graphics memory. With slow DDR2, the card can be up to 20% slower than with faster memory. "

 

As long as fps doesnt dip down to 25 for anything but very rare craziness I'll be happy. Avg > 30 is fine for me. I can detect the benefit of 50+ fps, but its not necessary for me. If I dont mind film running at 24 fps, why should I demand 2x as much from my video games?

 

Lol this is why this is the perfect on the go laptop for me. I'm not even looking to play Crysis or anything like that on it. That's desktop all the way, if I can't max out Crysis then it's really not worth it for me to play.

Here are the list of games I'll play the most:
AOE III (my favorite on the go game)
ME2 (though I may play it cause I'm bored, it's on desktop now)
Madden 08 (can't pass on the last good football game on PC)
MW2 (again if I'm bored, already beat it like 10 times)
Arkham Asylum (if I'm desperate to get low frame rates)

 

@wing = let us know what your rep says alrite? I'm almost sure I won't be getting this on time.

 

Except bandwidth and speed are two different things. Speed is separate from bandwidth.

Think of the bandwidth and bus width as the size of the freeway, then think of the speed as how fast the cars are moving. You can make a freeway 2 lane or 4 lane, but the cars move the same speed, just you can have twice as many cars in the 4 lane. Memory bandwidth only comes into play with AA and AF, multi sampling exponentially increases the amount of bandwidth needed. Which is why in almost every demo the M11X has AA low or off, because that is the 335M's weakness.

As for speed:

335M
Core Speed * 450 MHz
Memory Speed * 1066 MHz
Memory Bus Width 128 Bit

9800M GTS:
Core Speed * 600 MHz
Memory Speed * 800 MHz
Memory Bus Width 256 Bit

In reality the 335M has a very significant advantage in Memory speed, so turn off the AA and you will get a lot faster performance out of the 335M. Crank up the resolution and AA and the 9800M GTS could win out, but it is a moot point on laptops maxing out around 720P, and with the given benchmark being at 720P with no AA or AF.

 

hehe if you go lowest all setting in gta 4
and with at 1366*768
the memory usage is only around 260mb

and my core i5 with 330 give me

Frames Time (ms) Min Max Avg
2846 70574 27 55 40.33

 

@ abused

i know those are some of the most demanding titles. but i'm not really a gamer, so i don't really care how they look as long as i can play them when i get a chance. I'm more interested in fancy lighting and portiblity. lol

 

i have to say sorry ,,
the 335m in m11x is 790mhz
if you read hardwareheavens 's m11x review..

 

Dadadadeedop... Isn't she luurrvelyyy... Isn't she blunderful... I'd like to see if the performance of my "Awesome" can match or exceed my desktop C2D E6400 + HD4650

 

@villosa
I'll probably be playing one game, mainly, on my M11x.

Heroes of Newerth

Playing a game or two while laying in bed is going to be sweet. my desktop is there for hardcore gaming on a bigger screen. The M11x is sufficient for a night of lanning and certainly I'm not going to be playing crysis and such on it.

 

Then once again it is the same, and the argument rolls back around. The 2 laptops are as far as I can find and you can contest exactly the same aside from bandwidth, and the test didn't use AA or AF so bandwidth is not an issue.

Roughly same shader potential, more memory for M11X, same memory speed, then of course the SU7300 should be a bit faster, it has 3MB or cache and OCed to 1.73 Ghz will have a slight clock advantage.

If anything the M11X should perform better, but at the very least it will be the same. 35 FPS on Medium High is perfectly fine with me.

 

Here is a link to the english version of the NewGadgets.de review on Youtube from a few pages back.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kpkhuZo_APo&feature=video_response

@Nuke.. SHORTAGE OF PARTS... ARGH...

 

Games I will me maining on my m11x

L4D
L4D2
TF2
ME2
DA:O
BS2
MW2/BC2 (whichever I get the impulse to buy first )

EDIT: kissfan, we'll need to see what they tell wingzee...

 

9800M GTS [6]

* G94 core.
* 64 Stream Processors.
* 600 MHz core clock.
* 1500 MHz shader clock.
* 800 MHz memory clock.
* 256 bit memory interface.
* 51.2 GB/s memory bandwidth.
* 19.2 billion texels/s texture fill rate.
* 288 GigaFLOPS.

9700M GT [3]

* G96 core.
* 32 Stream Processors.
* 625 MHz core clock.
* 1550 MHz shader clock.
* 800 MHz memory clock.
* 128 bit memory interface.
* 25.6 GB/s memory bandwidth.
* 10.0 billion texels/s texture fill rate.
* 148.8 GigaFLOPS.


see these two .. if drop down from 256bit to 128bit..
you will drop from 51.2gb/sec to 25.6gb/sec

this will affect not only the AA performance..

 

Seriously man sometimes I hate sitting at the desk, hurts my back, bad posture probably lol. I wouldn't mind laying back in bed playing AoE III. Sweet!

 

lol I don't even think the translation was necessary. But thanks for the update.

 

ok i am going to try to ru nthe benchmark using the same setting.

mid in texture all other quality settign in high

 

fury, how do you have so much time on your hands?

 

mine r480

Statistics
Average FPS: 33.43
Duration: 37.42 sec
CPU Usage: 87%
System memory usage: 68%
Video memory usage: 51%

Graphics Settings
Video Mode: 1280 x 720 (60 Hz)
Texture Quality: Medium
Texture Filter Quality: High
View Distance: 25
Detail Distance: 37

Hardware
Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium
Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium
Video Adapter: NVIDIA GeForce GT 330M
Video Driver version: 196.34
Audio Adapter: Speakers (Realtek High Definition Audio)
Intel(R) Core(TM) i5 CPU M 430 @ 2.27GHz

File ID: Benchmark.cli

second run

Statistics
Average FPS: 37.78
Duration: 37.43 sec
CPU Usage: 90%
System memory usage: 68%
Video memory usage: 52%

Graphics Settings
Video Mode: 1280 x 720 (60 Hz)
Texture Quality: Medium
Texture Filter Quality: High
View Distance: 25
Detail Distance: 37

Hardware
Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium
Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium
Video Adapter: NVIDIA GeForce GT 330M
Video Driver version: 196.34
Audio Adapter: Speakers (Realtek High Definition Audio)
Intel(R) Core(TM) i5 CPU M 430 @ 2.27GHz

File ID: Benchmark.cli

 

whats this about parts shortages? is there a legitimate way to see if you're affected?

 

just like you ... i have my laptop with me at work...

running the benchmark for second time

 

Dude, bandwidth is used primarily for AA and AF, for shaders, textures, etc even a 128 Bit width is plenty wide without multi-sampling.

Anyway, I am not arguing with you anymore, you can believe what you want, I found a benchmark that was 99% the M11X and it shows fine performance, in addition Alienware themselves have made similar claims. Your buyers remorse for picking up a lesser notebook should not mean we all have to suffer with your constant badgering.

 

Yup, you can be sure the m11x will be able to meet or surpass those benchmarks. Looks like >= 33 fps for gta4, thats playable without compromise in my book.

 

ok...fine

my benchmark turned out to be 37 fps average...

 

I highly doubt he has buyer's remorse. He just likes to post benches, so unless the admin has a problem with it, I'd say let him be.

 

Anyone have any thought?

 

It has been covered pages back, but configure your machine on Dell's main site, save the cart to your account, and then call in to Dell's EPP hotline and have them apply the discount.

 

Nope all we can say is goodluck they most likely have hundreds of orders via EPP with all the discounts stacking so now due to demand they are raising prices to make more $. Simple Economics.

 

After watching the newgadgets.de youtube video, I am confident in my decision to get the black

 

Me too. The black looks a bit shiny though, I'd prefer matte black.