Will this do? m15x

Hello. I've finally decided to take the leap of fate due to the fact that I want a notebook now and no longer have patience to play voodoo's waiting game. Well I'll get to the point...

I'm going to order a m15x and was wondering what you guys thought of the specs. Also before I list them, I decided to order 1gig of ram and purcahse 4gigs on newegg (or wherever) and install it myself (never done any comp. tech. stuff so could anyone post a guide to installing ram?). I'm doing this to save me a good 200 bucks so I can purchase other goodies.

Well here are the specs (I plan to do some gaming, CoD4, UT3, etc. lots of movies and lots of downloading) Main question is can these specs do that and run smoothly w/o lag or being slow or a pain in the butt?

Design & Display: Silver Ripley Design
Display: 15.4" WideXGA+ 1440 x 900 LCD (720p) with Clearview Technology
System Lighting: Alienware® AlienFX® System Lighting - Indigo
Video/Graphics Card: NVIDIA® GeForce® Series - 512MB NVIDIA® GeForce® 8700M GT
Processor: Intel® Core™ 2 Duo T9300 2.5GHz (6MB Cache 800MHz FSB)
Operating System (Office software not included): Windows Vista® Home Premium with Service Pack 1
Notebook Tuners and Remotes: With Express Card Media Center Remote Control
Memory: 1GB Dual Channel DDR2 SO-DIMM at 667MHz – 2 x 512MB
Turbo Cache Memory: Intel® Turbo Memory (1GB) – Accelerate Data Transfer Speed
Available on Windows Vista Only!
System Drive: 320GB 7,200RPM (16MB Cache) w/ Free Fall Protection
Optical Drives : 8x Dual Layer Burner (DVD±RW, CD-RW)
Wireless: Internal Intel® Wireless 4965 a/b/g/Draft-N Mini-Card
Sound Card : Internal High-Definition Audio with surround sound
Keyboard Options: AlienFX® Illuminated Keyboard – Exclusive Design
Warranty: 1-Year AlienCare Toll-Free 24/7 Phone Support w/ Onsite Service
AlienRespawn: AlienRespawn v2.0 Recovery DVD – Windows Vista® Edition

 

My suggestion is to use that couple hundred bucks that you are saving on ram and get the 8800GTX. Also, ditch the turbo memory. It's pretty useless if you are planning on 4gb

 

http://4help.alienware.com/cgi-bin/alienware.cfg/php/enduser/std_adp.php?p_faqid=5664&p_created=1194370550&p_sid=Coiufjcj&p_accessibility=0&p_redirect=&p_lva=&p_sp=cF9zcmNoPTEmcF9zb3J0X2J5PSZwX2dyaWRzb3J0PSZwX3Jvd19jbnQ9NTcsNTcmcF9wcm9kcz0mcF9jYXRzPTAmcF9wdj0mcF9jdj0mcF9zZWFyY2hfdHlwZT1hbnN3ZXJzLnNlYXJjaF9mbmwmcF9zY2ZfNj0yMDUmcF9wYWdlPTEmcF9zZWFyY2hfdGV4dD1pbnN0YWxsaW5nIFJBTSBtMTV4&p_li=&p_topview=1

Here are instructions on installing RAM. Don't feel like you don't have enough experience to install RAM. It's a lot easier than it looks.

I'll also have to agree with this. The GTX's performance is a lot greater than the GT and the Turbo Memory does nothing for you if you have 4 GBs of RAM.

 

So what does turbo memory do? Also do you guys think the cpu is good enough?
Also will the gtx really make that big of a diff.

 

you should definitely get 8800 especially considering 2 8700s in SLI cant match the power of 1 8800. The warranty i recommend upgrading to 3 years sometime later or when you buy the machine. it will help you in the long run.

 

alright, I'll get the gtx, and yes I do plan to upgrade to 3 year in due time.

 

One more question. What type of ram should I buy, could someone link one that would do for the m15x. I want 4 gigs, so I guess thats 2gb x 2?

 

anything SO- DIMM DDR2 667 (PC2 5300 or 5400). You should buy 2x 2 gig sticks.

 

newegg has good prices? or is there another place I should be aware of? what about frys

 

Frys or tigerdirect is good.

 

i use newegg. i think they have great prices.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820231135

that one is nice and cheap. it also comes with a lifetime warranty.

 

alright, one last question, 2.5ghz should be good enough right?

 

yes the 2.5 ghz is more than enough. it is a very fast processor.

 

While you're at it, buy your own hard drive. You'll probably get a better deal from Best Buy or Newegg on a better HDD anyway.

 

Keep in mind that the 4gbs will do nothing for you unless you are running x64 bit op/sys. I dont think AW currently ships the m15x with x64, and I know for a fact they dont have x64 for the m17x.

With a 32bit op/sys, you will only have 2gb available. At best case maybe more. But based on the m17x, you ONLY have 2gb available no matter what you buy.

Just something to think about.

 

This is true. On the other hand, if your computer can utilize 3 of the 4GB of RAM (this is not likely on the m17x, which uses more than 512MB of video memory with SLI), it'll be worth having 4GB of RAM on the computer anyway to take advantage of the dual-channel configuration.

Also, someone here was able to get the m15x to work with x64 and has written a guide on it so if you desperately want to utilize all 4GB of RAM, you could opt for that. I'd say if you get the m15x with the 8800 GTX, get 4GB of RAM for it. Even though it'll "see" only 3GB of RAM, you can still take advantage of dual-channel.

If you're getting the m17x, on the other hand, I'm pretty sure 2GB of RAM would be enough. Having 4GB and having it read only 2GB of RAM is the same as a dual-channel configuration of 2GB (2 sticks of 1GB RAM.)

 

Even if he can only use 3 of the four gigs it is cheaper to buy from NEWEGG than alienware and look at the HOW TO forum for running 64-bit and getting all the features to work

 

Yea installing ram is simple as hell after you have installed 2GB on 7 different mac minis (those things are annoying )

 

Yeah. I realize that Zomb. I'm pretty sure he knows that too.

 

I got 1gig of ram, going to purchase 4 gigs (2x 2gb) at frys or newegg

right now its still on phase 1, I put in the order yesterday

 

Cool, congratulations.