Went from M11x to M15x and now, I am thinking M17x...

Let me just say I just adore the community on here. You all seem so friendly and knowledgeable, and that's fantastic to see on an internet board; unfortunately, not all places on the internet are as great! I'll get down to my story for now, though.

I originally started looking at new notebooks as I wanted something nicer than my XPS1330M which has done very well for me these past few years but it needs replacing as my needs are no longer being met by it. I saw the M11x and fell in love. I was thinking "Hey, I can get that awesome Alienware computer I've always wanted for a considerable price and with some great battery life as well... so I can even take it to university lectures and take notes! Damn, I can even play games on this thing pretty darn well".

Then I remembered that I could take a pen and notepad to university, and that I keep my current laptop plugged in all the time anyway (this is due to battery life not being amazing, but you know...) and I WOULD like some thing to replace my desktop with, too.

So I started playing around with M15x configurations. I really like the look of this laptop, and as gimmicky as the lights might seem to some (I am sure no one on this board in particular thinks that way!) it really is a selling point for me - I don't think I am a superficial person, but it makes the laptop experience so much cooler. As far as I know you can only have the few set colour schemes and no changing quarters of lights on the M11x =P. The price is great and I have the money, so it seemed like I was going to be rocking the lovely M15x.

Then I said to myself "Well if I am going to go all out on something I would probably just use at home and take to a friends house every now and then anyway, maybe I should go a bit bigger".

I've decided the M17x is definitely the way to go, but I am having problems deciding on specifications. I am trying to meet an $3,000 Australian dollar budget and I seem to keep hitting $3,500 and that's alright, too.

The specifications I would like entail the following:


Processor: Intel® Core™ i7-720QM Processor (1.6GHz,4 Cores/8 Threads,turbo up to 2.8GHz, 6MB Cache)
OS: Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit
Screen: 17.0" WUXGA 1920 x 1200 - Beyond HD (1200p) - RGB LED
Memory: 4GB 1333MHz DDR3 SDRAM (1 x 2GB + 1 x 4GB)
Hard Drive: 500GB 7200RPM SATA Hard Drive (500GBx2)(Raid 1) (pretty sure this means 1TB as you can get a 1TB option for the same price and it's just the one drive on a different Raid setting (that, and this says 500GBx2, please correct me if I am wrong! I may just consult this with a Dell phone rep otherwise))
Optical Drive: Slot Load 8X DVD+/-RW Drive with DVD+R double layer write capability
Graphics Card: 1GB ATI Radeon Mobility HD 4870 x 2
Battery: 9-cell lithium-ion

Total: $3,334.80 (With the 3.06GHz processor, it comes to $$3,759.40) with three years warranty added onto the price.

Now, my main question would be should I just go with the 4GB RAM and get the i7-820QM processor instead? I do use things like Photoshop but very rarely, and this machine would mainly be used for heavy gaming, document processing (Word and Excel), music listening, web browsing and other computer-like things. It may not even be worth my money upgrading the processor, as it is a $424.60 upgrade (Damn Australian pricing!) and may not make that much of a difference in a realist sense and only in a benchmark sense. I may not need any more RAM, either. I know if I say I can't justify the price, then that means I shouldn't be going ultra-expensive but I am not the type to purchase something and want it to be outdated all too soon. I also understand that that is how the world of technology works and that I should be happy with a purchase made, especially one as nice as this and that it won't get THAT outdated ridiculously soon. I know that if I haggle over the phone that I will get a somewhat cheaper price on this machine as well (if done properly, of course).

Another thought that came to mind is that if I did get the upgraded CPU I could upgrade the RAM later if need be =).

So I have come to those who I think would be able to determine this for me. I've read so many threads on whether or not there is much difference in the i7-720QM and the i7-820QM processors and how there is so very much debate over clock speeds in RAM, and I've read and watched so many things about these machines that I really am quite confused as to what I need vs. what I want, and what price is reasonable in accordance to those things. I honestly just need some straight forward opinions in what direction I should be heading in.

I apologise for the length of the post and thank you in advance for reading this if you did and any responses given towards it.

Take care!

-Ridinkidonk

 

Hey, welcome to the forums! The machine you built will be more than enough for gaming, photoshop or anything you throw at it for that matter. 4GB is more than enough, the only reason to buy 8GB is if you're a developer and working with a number of virtual machines and some other cases that you haven't mentioned in your description. Since you are close to your budget i wouldn't worry at all about the processor, it's a solid choice (ask anybody here that has it )
You can definitely upgrade your processor/ram later on, for faster ones, that would also cost you much less than buying it from Dell now.
If i were you i'd also consider buying the cheapest available HDD from dell (one) and buying a aftermarket SSD for one of the best performance boosts you can make to your lappy.

So bottom line : get the 720 + 1 HDD + 1 SSD (a lot are being sold here in the marketplace).

Cheers!

 

Welcome! If your trying to meet a budget, check out the link in my sig. As well as the middle link in mfractals sig. Perhaps if you have a friend or somone in the states you can pull off an even better deal. I agree with mfractal. Unless you do heavy multitasking or mess with large CAD or photoshop products, 8GB would likely not be beneficial to you. You biggest performance boost is going to be from an SSD. Right now there are some crazy good deals on the SSD's in the marketplace section of the notebookreview forums. That will speed up all your load times significantly. Use it to install your operating system and your applications. Then you can get a 640GB HDD and use that to save music, documents, pictures, movies ect to.

 

Just a reminder though, if you go with the M17x, be ready for a LONG wait time.

 

Oh yeah. 5-6 weeks seems to be the average

 

Hey guys! Thanks for the awesome replies, it's really making my day =).

I am deciding to go with the 720qm and the cheapest HDD option like you said (in the Australian process that is the following: 640GB 7200RPM SATA Hard Drive (320GBx2)(Raid 0)) and the cheapest 128GB SSD I can purchase is a Kingston 128GB SSD for $319... I was wondering if the 64GB would be enough for OS and games, perhaps? I know some games go up to 10GB in install files so perhaps 64GB isn't enough. I used to do some 3D modelling and would probably play around with it still but the extra RAM won't really make a difference if I just about never do such a task so I am glad to hear that 4GB is more than enough! We can't order a single drive option on the Australian website for hard drives unfortunately, but maybe if I called and went through the process with Dell I could?

I considered for a long time about buying from the US Dell site and following those instructions in that given thread, as I DO have friends in the US who I could get the machine sent to although I am unsure if any real money is being saved in shipping and what not... it might turn out to be the same price. The only upside of it is being able to customise the plate on the bottom of the machine, having the games pre-installed, being able to order the single drive option Also, a funny thing about the Nebula Red - it's free to go to on the Australian website as opposed to the $99 on the US site.

If I get the same options from the US site, both prices of relatively the same system look like this:

$2,977.00 USD = $3,214.29 AUD for the system with the single drive of 640GB (US site).

$3,260 AUD for the system with the two 320GB drives (AU site).

As you can see there isn't much difference in price at all =/. I can get a 500GB HDD for $95 if this makes any difference at all from the store I would buy the SSD from.

Thanks again, sorry for all the hassle I really do appreciate you guys helping me out here!

EDIT: I just called Dell and the consultant told me they can sell it to me with only a 500GB HDD in it which works just swell for me, really which means I can go and buy the SSD elsewhere .

 

Again this depends on your needs. If you just want a PC that can play games and it's not portable, then a M17x would be the best solution, but DO note if you are not moving around, you can get the same specs on a desktop for at least 50-60% of that price. DO not forget M17x is a desktop replacement, carrying it around classes is INSANE and not practical. Plus it only last for 30-45 minutes on battery charge.

If you want a trade off between size and gaming then the M15x is a nice, you can still take it to lectures (if needed, it has roughly 1 hour life on battery), the only thing why I do not like it , it's that it's native res is 1920 x 1080 and a Nvidia 260 trying to play certain games at that resolution isn't very good. You can turn down the resolution but again due do LCDs being of a certain size and pixels, it might look ugly when you drop the resolution other than the native screen. But again if you are not going to take around you can a similar spec machine on a desktop for far far less.

If you dont want to muck around and stuff would recommend a Studio XPS 9000 desktop which has 5870 and i7-920 for less than 2 grand.

Edit: I really recommend you to have a look at the M17 at a showroom if possible , IT is huge and it's very big....

 

Hey, about that ssd.. 64 gb is enough for os and a game or two. I personally would not recommend anything under 128 GB. I also would not buy the cheapest one if I were you as you will spend lots of $$ and will not see such a performance increase. There are intel X25-M 160GB being sold here for not much more (like 360$) in the marketplace, have you considered it ?

 

I am fully aware that it is a desktop replacement, as it will be replacing my desktop =P I am saying goodbye to my trusty old 320mb nVidia 8800GTS :'(... that's probably the only thing I would keep in it! I also understand the size and weight of these things as I have used laptops of this size and weight before - I am very easily pleased so it's all good.

I would definitely want an 128GB SSD as well, I agree. That has to do with my next query!- Ohh, by the way... I went and ordered the laptop just earlier, haha. It has all the specs that I wanted which I have explained here in my first post although I took the 640GB Raid 0 array because it was cheaper to do that than to get a single 500GB HDD in it. I will definitely consider that Intel x25-M drive if I can get my hands on one, the only other thing is what 500GB-640GB HDD goes alongside with it and works inside the M17x? I just don't want to purchase some drives that don't work, is all! What do you suggest would be the best bang for buck SSD+HDD combo that works in the M17x-R2?

Thanks again!

-Ridinkidonk.

EDIT: "Your Estimated Delivery Date for this order is on or before 02/06/2010", not too terrible... she did say on the phone it would only just be 2-3 weeks but even if it is that long it's all good, gives me time to save for some hard drive action.

 

it'll work beautifully, you have nothing to worry about.
You'll need to swap the HDD to be slave and put the SSD instead of it.
Make sure they send you the caddy for the HDD as it seems they always "forget" to include it.. see here.
i have a guide on what to do with the SSD when you get it here

 

Excellent, thank you so very much for the links!
Only thing is I did end up getting the two 320GB SATA HDD's that make up the 640GB space in total, so what you're saying is I can just pull the main one out and leave the slave one and have the SSD in the main slot? I'll need to go buy a single caddy if that's the case.

 

If you are ordering it with two hard disks, they will install both caddys for you. I did exactly what you did, buying 2X320GB, i figured they might not install the second caddy, so i got two hard disks in my system, and replace them later down the road.
BTW nice choice with the i7-720qm.

 

Oh, excellent! It won't be a problem, then =). Great to hear you're happy with that option, and thank you for the reassurance of the processor. I was unsure at the very start about the price difference and performance difference between the i7-720QM and the i7-820QM but I am confident with my purchase now after being around these boards for a bit.

Thank you again.

-Ridinkidonk.

 

Just when u install it don't forget to break the raid array as the os will still recognize the remaining hdd as a raid And will not be able to read it even if u change the mode of work to ahci in bios.
Other then that you are all set!

 

I don't know about the performance difference between the 720QM and 820QM however the 720QM I have in my M15x is excellent, no processor type issues encountered at all under heavy gaming.

 

I've been looking up some information about those hard drives, and the two that I am really looking at within the 128GB range of SSD's are the following:

- Kingston SSDNow SNV425-S2 128GB for $319 AU
- G.Skill Falcon2 128GB for $399 AU

Now, I've been told go with the Intel x-25M but both of these drives have quite good reviews from what I have seen, and to be honest even though it is the cheapest option, the Kingston drive seems to do the job pretty darn well - some real bang for your buck, type of thing. The Intel SSD's are just a bit out of my range, and not just in price - I can't seem to be able to find any anywhere, let alone any that are decently priced.

I found an Intel x-25M 80GB SSD on eBay from the US for $253.33 AU from a seller that does in fact ship to Australia, but I'd probably be better for paying that little bit extra for something that comes from here and is double the capacity anyway, in this case... the Kingston drive.

Any thoughts?

EDIT: With even more of a search, the places that do sell the 160GB Intel SSD's sell them for nothing less than $750 AU... Man, do we get screwed for pricing here!

 

There is a x25-m being sold here in the marketplace by babyhemi. Take a look.

 

Thanks, messaged babyhemi - hopefully babyhemi is willing to ship to Australia.