Viable to upgrade an Alienware M17x MLK R2?

Hi Folks

Looking for some advice from the knowledgable people on here. I purchased an M17x R2 in 2010 at a significant cost. I'm a bit of a crossroads whether to try and upgrade the laptop or go buy a new one. I have a custom build PC at home and need a gaming laptop as I travel a lot with work.

I have already upgraded the 7200 rpm mechanical hard drives to a striped SSD and noticed a huge improvement in peformance. I was hoping that i could upgrade the processor and gpu to boost the performance futher which would save me from splashing out on a brand new machine.

Currently it hosts a i7 620M 2.66 GHz and dual Radeon HD 5870M cards. Given the constraints of the machine in terms of socket compabitibility and size (and potential issues with overheating) is it possible for a significant upgrade?

Also if I could upgrade, how easy would it be to source the actual parts as maybe the gpus and processors are unavailable for purchase anymore. I'm capable of building my own pc but i have tinkered relatively little with laptops other than to upgrade the hard drives in my current machine. Is upgrading a fairly straighforward exercise?

Thanks in advance

Michael

 

The only additional hardware I would recommend is RAM - along with Windows 8/8.1 x64 Pro.

CPU and/or GPU upgrades are not straightforward - nor will you approach what you can buy today/now with almost similar cost/$$$$ in addition to enjoying the benefits of a new platform, warranty, and the latest combined technologies 'combined' (i.e. 'platform').


If you already have 16GB of RAM or more and running Win8 x64 - then the sane option would be to 'splash' for a new system.


Good luck.

 

Thanks. i have Windows 8 but currently using only 8 GB of RAM. You think its worth increasing to 16GB?

I had heard that upgrading gfx cards on Alienwares was a little more straightforward than your average lapop. I'd be willing to take the risk but need to know which gfx cards woudl be suitable. I dropped £2.5k only 3 years ago on the machine and I'm reluctant to do so again so soon.

 

Not sure (for your gaming needs) if going to 16GB's of RAM will help (sorry, I don't game at all...).

But I would sure be trying 2x 8GB 12800 Sodimms with a full return/no restocking charge policy to find out if my workflow/game flow would benefit. :^)


What you've spent 'only' 3 years ago is not relevant to what you 'need' today. Never has, never will (basic business knowledge).

If you can spend $$$ to upgrade; you're better off spending $$$$ to move to a current platform with MUCH improved performance over your 3/4 year old tech... Once you're setup and running on the new system - sell your old one to recoup some of the $$$ spent...


Finally, I would not be spending at that range (£2.5K) if you want sustainable playable performance over time (and you can't spend that amount indefinitely every two or three years...) - consider spending less each time, but getting a new system every year to eighteen months instead.


There are many 'gaming' systems available for less than $1K right now - I'm not sure how playable they are for the games you like, but I do know that they'll be a much more enjoyable and long term solution than upgrading an essentially obsolete* platform.

*Obsolete:
See:
PassMark - Intel Core i7 M 620 @ 2.67GHz - Price performance comparison

See:
MSI GE60 2OE-002US w/ Core i7-4700MQ, 8GB, 750GB, DVD+/-RW, 15.6in FHD, GeForce GTX 765M, Win 8 at Memory Express

See:
PassMark - Intel Core i7-4700MQ @ 2.40GHz - Price performance comparison



Yeah, I know these are cpu 'scores' I'm linking too - but all components (gpu/ssd/audio/etc.) in all platforms are throttled by the performance of the cpu/RAM combo/platform they're used in. This is especially true for mobile systems (which offer 70-200% less performance than desktop counterparts).


Hope this helps.


Take care.

 

Here check out this guide, also the M17XR2 still can run circles around most newer computers especially when it has top end components and a lot a lot of people still like to buy those machines over the newer ones, i also plan to upgrade my R2 someday too, it's like the M1730 a lot of people still use that one too, they just become classic amazing computers. Check out the guide to upgrade your graphic cards to AMD 7970's, you could also buy yourself the i7 840qm it's 200 bucks on parts-people.com, techinferno also has guides to keep the graphics cards cooler and the machine itself, and there's mods on here too, refer to the M17XR1/R2 owners threads for the guides. http://forum.notebookreview.com/ali...rex-ultimate-installation-tweaking-guide.html