Pull the trigger?

Alienware M17x Space Black - Anodized Aluminum Unit Price $1,699.10
Estimated Delivery Date 6/10/2010
System Color Space Black - Anodized Aluminum
Operating System Genuine Windows® 7 Home Premium, 64bit, English
Processor Intel® Core™ i5 520M 2.4GHz (2.93GHz Turbo Mode, 3MB Cache)
Service 1 Year Basic Service Plan
Video Card 1GB ATI Radeon™ Mobility HD 5870
Display Panels 17-inch WideUXGA 1920 x 1200 RGB LED (1200p)
Memory 4GB Dual Channel DDR3 at 1066MHz
Hard Drive 250GB 7,200RPM SATA-II HDD
CD ROM/DVD ROM Slot-Load Dual Layer DVD Burner (DVD+-RW, CD-RW)
Wireless Wireless 1520 802.11n Half Mini-Card

Basically the stock i5 config + RGB screen. Am I going to do any better?

I have no use for blu-ray.

Don't think I'll see the difference between the i5 and the quad in real world use and I can always put one in myself down the road right?

I plan to put an SSD in place of the hard disk though I'm thinking I might want the 500 for storage. This thing has twin HDD bays right?

I can add a second 5870 down the road right?

Thoughts? Suggestions?

 

personally i'd get the 720 at least since adding down the line is a pain. Secondly if you dont get the second drive now you wont have the HD caddy to install the second drive into later. Finally Yes you can add a second 5870 but it might cost you more in $$ and time/hassle down the road. I'd get it now...as you can see i did (sig).

I have a spare hd caddy myself and will be adding a 256SSD in mine when it arrives next week. I also will be adding 8gb 1333 ram

 

not bad, but to me M17x should have i7 CPU, dual video cards, RGB screen at least.

 

Not afraid of the install, just want to confirm that both the 720 and 5870 installs are even possible.

 

Possible and painless. I personally, don't see a reason (yet) to go with a quad CPU as even a 520M is sufficient for 99% games. There's no point of paying extra now, two months before the x40 CPU refresh. I'd upgrade to 840QM or even 940XM (3.3 turbo) down the road.
But the RGB LED is a must!
Also, unless you are Nvidia's fanboy and waiting for GTX 480M SLI, - go for 5870 CF, it's not that expensive.

 

The RGB screen is honestly the only reason I'm even looking at this laptop so yeah it's a must.

Getting an updated quote with CF but frankly the stuff I play works fine on a single card and adding the second card was going to scratch the upgrade itch in a few months for me.

EDIT: Adding the second 5870 also adds a week to the build time which sucks.

 

Actually, you're right! Adding a second card shouldn't be much more expensive and you really don't need 2 right now to run almost all games on max settings. So if it's delaying the order and you're in a desperate rush - go for a single GPU.

 

The GPU isnot a pain at all to add in the future. but the cpu seems like it might be a pain. Most games right now wont see a big increase in the dual 5870s cause there isn' alot of support or it yet. But in the future it will help. Im waiting a year or more to order a second 5870 for mine.