Purchasing Alienware 17x R4 tomorrow! - Couple of Q's?

Hello.
I am planning on purchasing an immaculate (I have viewed already) 1.5 year old Alienware 17x R4 Laptop.

Specifications:

Intel i7-3630,
AMD 2GB radeon 7970,
16 G ram(2x8)
full hd 1080p (60hz model)
128 G samsung ssd pro
756Gb HDD.

1. Can I expect this system to perform well running multiple applications at the same time?
Photoshop, Adobe Premier, Chrome, big movie watcher.

2. What price £GBP would you expect to pay this machine (Its never actually been used for gaming)

3. Will this spec be good for running design and development software for a few more years?

This is a desktop replacement therefore I do not mind the size and weight.

Anything else I should be aware of please advise as I would really appreciate it. Bit of a noob on spec's.

To point out my current system is (below) and I'm having lag issues running photoshop and sometimes too many Chrome windows open so I am hoping this spec will vastly improve.

Dell XPS 15" L5o2x
1080p display
2nd gen i5 processor 2410m. 2.3ghz
Nvidia 540M Graphics - I think 1gb
4gb ram
500HDD

Thanks

 

Well your current machine barely has enough RAM and a dual core i5 processor. The R4 would blow it out of the water, the processor is alone + 16 GB RAM easily outclass your old laptop, and the 7970M beats a 540M to a pulp, but these are 2 different classes of laptop. One if a consumer oriented "premium" laptop, the other is an extreme gaming notebook. Also the R4 has a SSD drive while your L502x has a spinner. The screen might be a downgrade as the 1080p screen on the L502x should be like 70-80% color gamut B+RGLED.

I don't know the used laptop prices in UK, but that spec R4 should easily yield 1600-1700 USD. Is it in warranty?

 

Thanks for your reply! No warranty unfortunately. The screen is actually a big deal for me. Will the downgrade on screen be very noticeable? I do really like my current Dell screen.

 

Agreed. You're moving up significant in quality and functionality. And with 16 GB of RAM, you should have no trouble at all running the two applications + Chrome simultaneously.

If you're a serious Photoshop user you should consider purchasing an additional color accurate external monitor for viewing photo results when it really matters.

I just got mine nearly a year to the date of my laptop purchase. But that was not a problem since it took me that long to learn enough be able to tell the difference away.

 

The R4's panel is just a WLED, it's a pretty big downgrade IMO, I think the B+RGLED is a pretty high color gamut, I don't have the exact numbers.

 

Thanks. Picking up tomorrow now so guess I will test out then.

 

Personally, I think the display is pretty good... Much better colours IMO compared to my G73JH one...