Finally gave in. Bought this beast.

@w3ak3stl1nk:
If you mean Haswell, i think that's gonna happen 2013.

 

Nothing there that really justifies a 6 month wait.

A 6 month wait for new tech is justified by A) a significant improvement in function, or B) not needing the new tech yet in the first place. The 680m will not be a significant improvement on the 7970m for non-CUDA users, Xfire and SLI support will be driver-based, not sensitive to when you bought the computer, and 2nd-gen IB will be a marginal bump but hardly worth waiting for when IB itself just came out. As for Windows 8, you can upgrade your Windows 7 installation without breaking the bank.

 

That makes the most sense to me. Unless another game that is equivalent to Witcher 2 comes out on PC, anything higher than a 485m seems to be a little overkill.

 

Great for Crysis 3? No.

 

also good if you want to play in ULTRA 1080p for games like BF3, Crysis 2 w/high res textures, Skyrim, Metro etc

 

I am talking about Dual GPU's. Not seeing any other laptops on the market right now that sport dual 7970's. just dual 675's at most. and a dual 7970 setup shreds that and eats it for breakfast. A decked m18x r2 has actual desktop performance.

 

What makes you say that?

 

Sorry, I meant what that guy was talking about:

 

The Crysis series has been known for super high end graphics at the time of each release. I remember when the first game came out it was one of the few times in history even high end PC users were having a hard with a game.

Luckily we are now prepared . your config will be able to play any game that comes out in the next year, perhaps even 2, at max settings, including Crysis 3.

 

I would either say "only B", or "both A and B", but not "only A".

If you needed to replace your old tech, and a significant improvement was coming in 6 months, you would be out for six months if you waited. That might be OK for some, but not in general.

 

It's coming out in Q2/Q3 of next year, which means there will have been one if not two new series of AMD/Nvidia GPUs, and Crytek will be targeting them for the max settings. They'll also have the next-gen consoles in mind, which also guarantees the hill is steeper.

The 7970M will do ok, but specifically targeting Crysis 3 with it, one can't say it will max the game.

 

A is a bit sketchy there, to be sure. I'd agree that B has to be present - if you have to upgrade, you have to upgrade. If you're on the border, though, and you know there are some huge leaps coming in six months, like what a lot of people expect from IB to Haswell, or what we've seen from the 6xxx/5xx GPU series to the 7970m, then you might want to wait that extra half a year for an extra year or more of relevance for your new computer's specs.

 

OP: great minds think alike (see sig)

 

Not really. Crysis 1 was probably more demanding than Crysis 2 when it launched. Crysis 2 is demanding, but it ran pretty well on contemporary GPUs.

Dual 7970ms should be able to play Crysis 3 just fine.

 

LOL, I know. Great set-up by the way.

 

So if I'm getting 60 to 80 fps on Crysis 2, I should get probably 50 to 70, right?

 

I am sorry but Haswell(ivy replacement next year) will be a big jump both in cpu and igpu power.

This is according the tick tock scheme that Intel has.

 

I don't recall saying Haswell. I said second-gen IB (Ivy Bridge), using the terminology of an earlier poster, which refers to the second wave of Ivy Bridge CPUs, in keeping with Intel's recent trend of releasing new CPUs twice for each architecture. It's usually a small jump - i7-820m to i7-840m sort of thing.

 

IMO about 40-60 fps with everything maxed out

 

Sounds great to me.

 

I envy you AW owners.

You guys are ballin'!

I'm still too poor to afford this beast.

 

I'm not gonna claim to be an expert here, but Alienware laptops have always looked like total cr*p to me. I'm sure they blow most things out of the water with what they can do, but why do they make them look so awful? They look like a really unfashionable car from the first few fast and furious movies.
The spec looks great however...

 

This is exactly how I feel!


They're well made and powerful, but the looks are just too much.

 

Well let's just be happy we have Sager/Clevo and Samsung.

 

I love Alienware's look. Looks sexy alien tech.

 

The keyboard that Alienware use, oh man, looks like something a 5 year old designed

 

boy you guys complain alot. If you don't like the lights, you turn them off. Now you have a regular looking laptop.

but what's the point in getting an alienware and you shut the lights off

 

Shure disable a feature that looks cool on other notebooks.
The alienware keyboard still looks cheap without the lights on

Oh well I shouldn`t really complain. Gaming notebooks in general looks like something designed specifically for 5 year olds

 

Yet Clevo, MSI, and Samsung are quick to copy them. The AW keyboards are of higher quality than the junk you find on Asus/Clevo/MSI. So I'm not sure where you're setting the bar because I've had experience with all of the aforementioned notebooks and AW's keyboard blows them away. Furthermore, looks are subjective, I think Clevo designs some of the most boring fugly notebooks on the planet--they're square bricks. Asus notebooks are cheap imitations of AW and MSI are cheap Taiwanese junk.

 

Don't take manufacturer loyalties too seriously. They don't care about you and me.

 

Lol, someone woke up on the wrong side of the bed. Everyone always has a different opinion on all kinds of things.

 

I don't have any manufacturer loyalty but my bias isn't hidden. I buy products I feel have the best design and service and thus far, nothing beats AW. Looks are subjective and are in the eye of the beholder.

 

I will agree to you on the service, nothing will beat Dellienware's service. I am actually thinking of getting one just because of the warranty. The design is too much for me though.

 

trust me, having an m18x r1, now a m17x r4, your going to have a blast with your new toy. Just think, you will kill most desktop gaming rigs out there, worth every penny to me

 

must admit.. you are quite correct such power man