Thinking of buying the m17

I have been lurking the forums for sometime now and doing some researching for a new gaming pc. I have been reading up on some good things on the m17. Iam currently running a ibuypower pc with the following. AMD athlon 64 x2 dual core 5000+ 2.60ghz. 2.00gb ram. 32 bit vista operating system. sound blaster 5.1 card, asus motherboard, and some nvidia geforce 512mb graphics card forgot which model but cost me about 100$ when i got it. The pc performs descent, runs cs:s at about 50-70fps, and runs wow on high at about 15-25fps. Iam wanting to get the m17 with the option of dual 512mb ati"s and the wireless option. Iam going to be straying away from my console most likely so my question is will i be able to run all the high end new games coming, and will i see increased performance from my desktop pc? Will i have the option later to upgrade the m17 to play higher demanding games when the time comes? I dont want to be dissapointed if this laptop isnt much better than my desktop i have now.

 

I dunno because I dunno the GFX card, but I doubt it will do better. It all depends on your M17 config but it should be able to play high end games.

 

I believe it is the NVIDIA GeForce 9400GT 512MB, iam just trying to see if it will be worth it to ditch the pc i have now and go with the m17 with dual 512 ati's. If it is not going to out perform my pc by much and my pc i have now can play the same games it can then it will be pointless.

 

So have I. However, I've also read so horror stories here about AW products, and their support reputation is abysmal. All I can say is, at this point, more research is needed.

Hmm, numbers don't always tell the whole story. I'd like to know as well?

If it doesn't it should. This is something laptops at this level should be known for.

Do you intend to get rid of your desktop?

 

i just did a video stress test with cs:s my avergae fps during the test was 96. I may just keep my desktop also, i just always have wanted an alienware laptop, i just dont want to be buying a paper weight i cant play high end games on. I basically want to upgrade to something more powerful and the numbers on the m17 look to outpower my pc i have now.

 

Im ditching my desktop, turning it into a media center, theres a idea for you.

Also, Its most likely the m17 will blow away your pc.

 

Thats actually a good idea also, i was thinking of using my desktop for just emails, web, and things like that, and have the m17 strictly gaming.

 

The horrow stories of AW products have mostly been from the m15x line which has had a faulty hinge. The M17 has had very little problems.

-Roswell Customer Service is much better then AW service. The last three times I called them, they were great.

 

Well thats good to know they have good CS, iam still comparing mine against the m17 and with the dual ati's the numbers dont lie.

 

ok tell us what games you have now and what config you are thinking about getting for the m17 and then we can help you. to compare.

 

i currently iam playing on and off, WoW, cs:s, half-life 2, the games i want to play are cod4, cod waw, tf2, left 4 dead etc, with the m17 this is what i was thinking of getting http://www.alienware.com/customize/M17-notebook.aspx?SysCode=PC-LT-M17&SubCode=SKU-DEFAULT

 

your going to have to type it out beucase it is going to give us stocked options if you were to click it.

 

k the only options i was going to get with the m17 were Dual 512MB ATI Mobility Radeon™ HD 3870 - CrossFireX™ Enabled!
and ternal Intel® Ultimate N 5300 a/b/g/Draft-N Mini-Card with MIMO Technology

 

You might want to get a better CPU and get more Ram from Newegg (because its cheaper)

 

what cpu would you recomend?

 

t9400 min or the q9000 if you are going to overclock

 

What he said.

 

Thanks and with the t9400, and the dual ati's it will outperform my current pc? Another question i have is that in the future will i be able to upgrade the graphics card and other hardware if need be?

 

the cpu is easy to upgrade. gpu is up in the air right now,. but gaming performance right now is great.

with the t9400 stock and very bad drivers. if i really put some work in it i could get 40-45 average. maybe.

dmc4 the it is a gpu game. cpu doesnt matter.

 

Yes it will!! If it doesn't, sue me

Its still unknown if the 4870s will be available for the m17 or not. Most other hardware you can upgrade like cpu,hdds,ram,wireless card.

 

The t9400 and Dual 3870's WILL outperform your current PC for sure for the games your referring to. If it doesn't send the M17 back and come back and yell at me for two months straight on the forums

 

wait what res are you getting? please say it is 1920*1200?

 

M17 is a great notebook, but if you read my posts i strongly suggest against buying it at alienware.. buy the arimaw840di at some other reseller.. like the ocz whitebook and configure it yourself.

Alienware uses crapy subpar thermal paste, they broke one of my screws on the gpu coolers, their bios causes audio and video stuttering and doesnt allow for overclocking - and their support is very bad.. if you read my post youll understand what i mean.. i still didnt get an answer from them after two weeks and it was a question for a simple thermal spec number.

Just my advice.

And if your buying it dont do it like me; i got the default cpu at start (p8400) and i swapped it after a month.. i got q9100 now and i already got a qx9300 on way.. dont buy the q9000 in any case.. it has only half the l2cache (6mb vs q9100 or qx9300 with 12mb) which makes a huge difference. If you dont overclock i suggest the p9400 minimum or q9100. If you do i suggest nothing short of a qx9300.
Dual 3870 are a must, and so is 1900x1200 resolution.. trust me if you spend so much on graphics power get a better screen.
Intel wireless is also good.. i have it.. but dont expect miracles, its good not great..
And with ram get at least 3 gigs if you dont feel youll need more..

 

As you can see you're going to get a lot of different opinions.

A lot of vendors use a generic thermal paste. Get a tube of Arctic silver 5.

I have experienced zero audio or video stuttering on my M17.

When you purchase the M17 get the least amount of ram and instead get 4 gigs at Newegg. It's dirt cheap there.

The quad core will increase synthetic benchmarks, some apps and some games. Most games are still not optimized for four cores though. My X9100 is stable up to almost 3.6 Ghz. If you can afford it go for the QX9300.

It's super easy to overclock the CPU in the M17. You just use Setfsb which overclocks the CPU, front side bus and memory at the same time. When you shut down everything is reset to stock clocks. And you don't have to mess with the bios.

As mentioned above, you really do want to go with the 1920x1200 res screen. The difference between the two screens is night and day. I've had both and there is no comparison.

 

it was so well said i will pass it off as me saying it

hard to though because he is better then me with grammer usage

 

Good advice from Rob.. just a sidenote to upping the fsb.. this can not only fry your cpu but also your ram and motherboard.. if you can get one with the ocz bios upping the multiplier is alot less risky..

 

.....i have BSoD'd 30-40 times not doing any damage

you real worry when useing it is heat just keep a eye on it

u could get Whitebook and get a m9700 lid off of ebay and screw it on fits perfect

 

i ended up getting the 8600 cpu just because of the cost implications, and i dont have any problems with voiding my warrenty with upping the cpu later with a x9100

after all the problems i have heard about quad cores i want to wait until that is ironed out a little

although you can get cpus nice and cheap on places like ebay if you are happy installing yourself

Getting the cheap ram is a good tip (only wish i had thought about it before i ordered the ram from AW *facepalm*

its also worth noting that it has been confirmed that the m17 will be receiveing the new 4870 cards at some point in the future

Pete

 

Pmanuk, if you still didnt get it cant you change the setup? Call AW and ask.. i strongly suggest to get a T9400 at least instead of ram from alienware since it hase twice the l2cache.. you wont see any real gain from p8400 to p8600 +0,14ghz but the cache will help more.. A friend of mine called in 1 day before shipping and they changed the config for him. But even if you get it like you ordered you can upgrade later.. this lappy is a solid solution anyway..

 

They had already shipped it when i called them, its not that much of a drama really, i will be changing the cpu to either a top end dual core or a quad nearer xmas, have watched and read quite abit about changing the cpu and doesnt look that bad on the M17 so i feel confident i can do it with no harm coming to my new beauty (when it finally gets here, due today but not here yet!)

will be watching closely for the 4870 Xfire reviews as well and might look to change to them as well at some point

(whenever AW release them lol)

Pete

 

Thanks alot for the help and advice guys, looks like i will be making the swap from desktop gaming to notebook!

 

@Mr.Moo,

Man, if you only knew how many times I google a word just to spell it right. I keep my browser open in two windows when I post.

@HellCry,

Yeah, I keep an eye on temps with HWmonitor and all temps are good. I only use Setfsb once in a while cause I'm very happy with the performance as is.

 

@ rob
lol i usually do for some words ......

 

you wont regret it mate, mine arrived today and it is simply awesome!

 

Sweet cant wait to order mine!