Why is alienwares gpu a 860m?

Was looking at these and noticed standard card is a 860 are 860s that good?

 

Good is subjective because different buyers have different uses for GPUs. The base cards will always be lower end because they want you to spend $$$ on the upgraded versions lol.

 

Not really sure what you´re on about. Are you under the impression Alienware only offer the absolute top-end components?

Like BaoTCP says not everyone is in the market for that, we all have different needs and budgets. As for the 860M it´s a decent midrange, there are several threads here about it´s performance.

 

"Good" is all relative to the buyer. Most Alienware buyers tend to want the best performance, and well the 860M is just the mid range card for the 17/18. If you want the 880/870M, you can clearly see they cost more.

 

If only they used the "right" GTX 860M...

 

Right... because a board soldered Maxwell is better than the old MXM Kepler... Yeah board soldered chips are garbage in a gaming machine man. How pissed people would be to see everyone else upgrading their Alienwares and they find out that they can't because they went with the base model to upgrade it later...

 

That's why you do your research first before buying anything.

 

Considering that the manufacturers don't dump out which core is being used and the 2GB vs 4GB isn't always true, that's easier said than done at times. It shouldn't all be put on the consumer to know exactly what they're getting and its not like Dell customer service would even have a clue either.

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Who said it was gonna be soldered? I surely didnt....If Alienware used it, it would obviously be on a MXM board.

Maxwell 860M is not only faster but also cooler than the 128bit Kepler crap they use in Alienware machines.

 

I understand your point, Ethrem, but wouldn't a person who bought an AW with the intention of upgrading do their research first?

For the average tech user...well...they'll probably just sell it and get the newer model

 

Tons of people who buy notebooks with soldered graphic cards and buy new ones when they want better because they prefer a new notebook with many new things instead of just upgrading the GPUs.
I buy a new notebook pretty much every year despite it being upgradable for both CPU and GPU.
That said, I still prefer to have the option to swap out parts if I want.

 

From my understanding all 860M Maxwell chips were board soldered.

Even being well informed, I guarantee you that people can still think 860M = 860M, you know, because that makes sense. Stupid nVidia.

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I concur. Even 860M and 860MX would go a long way toward alleviating confusion.

 

There's also user reviews, like what can be found in the OEM subsections here on NBR. And, if no data can be found as to if a particular model is MXM or not, then simply don't buy that model and go for one that is confirmed to have MXM.

I agree that OEMs should put out more information about their computers to help make an informed choice. However, if someone buys a computer without doing the proper research and later complains about Feature X not being present, that's on them.

 

Good points all around. And Cloudfire, I didn't mean offense to calling all who buy soldered GPUs and then sells them, average. The majority of average users who don't bother to research do, though. But yes, poor choice of words on my part

 

I'm one of the people who got screwed with 880Ms after doing research because early reviews put them as being better than 780M but nobody went into the heat. I bought my machine and then found out that compared to a 780M, I was severely crippled and it just so happened that when I got the money to get my machine, everything was just getting switched to the 880M from the 780M and the only machine that still had 780M was the 9570.

In fact, I had ordered an M290X crossfire Alienware 18 originally before I canceled it and got the Sager with dual 880M and I'm seriously thinking that I might have been better off not listening to everyone on NBR who told me not to get the M290X and go for the 880M. Everyone *assumed* that the 880M would turn out better than the 780M and so did I because that's what made sense.

The problem is that when the new chips come out, you aren't given a choice. Us notebook users have very little control in what components our machines ship with. If I had it my way, I'd have dual 780Ms in an Alienware 18 with a 3940XM and 32GB of DDR3-1866 but Dell doesn't offer that because both Haswell and the 880M are around.

There is only so much that a consumer should be held accountable for doing adequate research on. As soon as new parts come out, you have no choice but that new generation unless you get a barebones and build it yourself at an exorbitant cost.

The 860M is another example of the consumer potentially getting screwed without knowing it. I don't think its the consumer's responsibility to research and make sure that a company didn't release two versions of the same chip and called it the exact same thing any more than I believe that a company should be able to get away with rebranding existing silicon and selling it as a new product.

 

Yeah, I hear your pain. Things didn't used to be this way with Dell either. I remember just a year or so ago, even when GPU updates were out, they still stocked machines with the older gen GPUs. I do feel that with these newer models, it's the whole take it or leave it attitude, which sucks. Then we have users, like yourself, get screwed over.

 

So you can't upgrade the gpu on the 860m? Only the 880m?

 

Yep and its not going to change because it is the business model that gets them the most money.

You can if you have a Kepler GPU. Alienware only uses Kepler MXM cards so they can be upgraded as long as the new card is MXM. At least the 17 and 18 are Kepler.

 

Doing research is easier said than done. Depending on how tech-savvy and OCD you are the research process could be never-ending. I spent literally a month and half before finally deciding on the Clevo in my sig, only to realize 9 months down the line I should have sprung for the P570WM based on my <del>needs</del> wants and usage habits.

But that's what I mean when I said it's never-ending; I still learn new things everyday, and it took 9 months for me to realize what quirks I could tolerate in a laptop, and what sacrifices I'd be willing to make.

 

There is absolutely nothing that would stop any OEM from putting that GM107 chip on a MXM card.
Except Nvidia`s policy.

What policy is that?
A) To remove GK104 inventory
B) To be able to offer both Kepler and Maxwell 860M at the same time without any of them cannibalizing the other.

Just wait and see. Wouldnt surprise me that the 900M series is when they finally approve to put GM107 on MXM cards. They will have depleted the GK104 inventory by then and suddenly its possible to even SLI them.

What offence man. There is no doubt that most people who buy soldered notebooks fall in to the average category. Soldered chips are usually mediocre in performance too, so naturally there are more Average Joe`s buying them

What did you expect? 950MHz+ vs 850MHz would result in less/same heat? That notebook GPUs tend to max out at 100W but a 125W chip would not be stretching the limit? GTX 680M was said to be 100W. I think it is in average a bit lower, but say it is 100W. Then 780M comes out with more cores and higher clocks. Naturally you would assume that would go above 100W. Then 880M with even more clocks. I mean, at one point you surely must have thought that the chip would run hot?

So many possibilities why 880M have problems:
Lower voltage than actually needed to keep the heat from going crazy. Result in throttling and all sorts of problems. Which is why a custom vbios with higher voltage helps.
Silicon lottery where you might be lucky or you get a unreliable chip
GPU Boost getting in the way due to its thermal and power control

Who knows. I didnt like 880M, or 870M or Kepler 860M from the moment they were announced. All three are a downgrade from 700M and 600M series

 

Lol, my thoughts exactly. Damn that NV policy...It's all about the $$$

 

It wouldn't surprise me if in the not-so-distant future, socketed CPUs and GPUs on cards become a thing of the past in laptops altogether :|

 

MSI have already started putting soldered CPUs in their gaming series notebooks, the newest GT72.
Wonder what was their reasoning for doing that?! Better margins? Because the notebook is still $2500+ (with 880M) depending on the SKU

 

Its obvious why they did that - to make sure you have to buy a new machine if you want to upgrade.

I'm afraid that is going to spill out across the industry.

 

That's exactly it, companies now will always try to cut off upgrade potential when and where ever possible because it doesn't bring them any profit. It'll be a dark future soon

 

Guess its a good thing that the consoles of this generation are so weak after all... :|

 

Whatever the case, I'm highly reconsidering NOT selling my M18x-R2 now...the GPU upgrade path for that system seems endless.

 

Until Pascal.

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I have to brush up on my GPUs soon, I'm a bit behind on the times lol.

 

nVidia showed a board with Pascal that was not MXM.

Nvidia updates GPU roadmap: reveals Pascal GPU architecture | KitGuru

 

I blame Asus and their G750. Soldered CPU + proprietary GPU, I'm surprised they didn't go with soldered ram as well.

 

CPUs isnt the worst to have soldered though. They rarely bottleneck a single GPU. Will be worse for SLI/CF notebooks or people who use the notebook for work and need fast CPU though. That said I do not support it, always nice to have a fast CPU for CPU bound games too.

I think it will be a while until they do soldered GPUs, if it even will happen in the future.
I think MXM Sig still have big influence over the development of graphics for notebooks.
Hope they stay away from graphics in the future.

 

Nothing is as bad as the MBPr where everything besides the WiFi and massively expensive SSD are soldiered lol.

Oh, battery is removable I guess...

 

Ah, I knew I read or saw somewhere that Pascal won't be MXM, guess this must've been it.

 

That Nvlink, only if Intel, IBM, Microsoft and rest OEM's nod for that then only it will get into mass production plus the AMD Radeon needs to built a similar slot for this to become real as it's a replacement for PCle or MXM for us. Tech spec says its 80GB/sec while PCle is 16GB/sec Bandwidth boost is too much btw.

I hope there won't be such a massive changes to the industry...Only time will say it.