AW M17 and M15X Refurbs now $699/799!

I know I was set back by it a little bit too when I ordered up but still, the total price for what you get for a brand new system is unmatched, especially if you're going to upgrade proc/mem/hard drive yourself. Get it with good "bones" ie, screen, graphics cards, etc.

 

dondadah88, I could see myself getting either one. I like the idea of the slightly more portable m15x, the nice processor, and its better battery life, but the M17 is probably more up my alley for what I value at the moment. Lots of upgrading can be done, lots of screenspace, and I like the dual hard drives. Like I said, on the fence.

To be honest, I would just build a desktop, but I might have to go to Australia for part of next year for work.

 

Really? Each 3870 has 320 shaders and the 4850 has 800. Looking at desktop benchmarks in some cases two 3870's win and in others a single 4850 wins. They are pretty much dead even with a slight advantage to the 4850.

http://www.tomshardware.com/charts/gaming-graphics-charts-q3-2008/compare,794.html?prod[2120]=on&prod[2116]=on

On the laptop the clock speed difference is 4% less, so that gives the 4850 the advantage. The 4850 laptop will weigh a little less, perform a little better, use less power, give off less heat, and have a quieter fan.

 

i see what you mean. i would prefer the m17 over the m15x becuase of the performance it gives over it. i am more of a laptop guy because i can carry it every where. but it's up to you.

 

I generally have been a laptop guy myself, for the same reasons. Its also why I'll probably get a laptop "just-in-case" I go to Australia. I'll sleep better with the decision when I have a concrete reason.

I'm also bargaining with a guy on craigslist over an M1730, I've got him down to $750 (single 8800 gts, WUXGA, T7700). Not my first choice, but if I can get him down another $100 it might be hard to pass up. Any thoughts, impressions?

Thanks for the thoughts though

 

Sorry mate doesnt quite work like that on the laptop cards, not even with the desktop cards to some extent. The 4850ms are clearly faster card per card compared to the 3870ms, but its not just shader cores that make a card faster, theres ROPs, bandwidth, clock speed and a whole host of other bits and pieces.

It IS reasonably close to be fair, but on average, the 3870x2 is faster than a single 4850. One reason for this is that the mobile 4850 is clocked around the 500Mhz core region, the laptop 3870 is clocked at 625 IIRC (and I believe the memory is slightly faster). It's not as efficient, especially on shader heavy games, but the clock speed boost (or the crippling of the 4850 dependant on your POV) really helps, and cuts away some of the lead the 4850 has, if the 4850 was clocked more evenly then yeah it would be severely faster.
A desktop 4850 card is clocked at 625Mhz by comparison, and unfortunately these ATI cards scale heavily with clock speeds, so the loss of clock speed affects them reasonably heavily. The 3870x2 mobile is basically a desktop 3850x2, a 4850 mobile is basically a desktop 4830. The 4830 on its own does consume less power, and obviously isnt crossfire dependant, but when crossfires working, those 3850s are faster, not hugely, but they are.

A 4850 *SINGLE* mobile card gets a bit over 5-5.5k in Vantage GPU score; the 3870x2 get about 6.5k.
When I was running my crossfire setup, a test 4850 crossfire core speed bump of approx 50Mhz gave me approximately 1000 points extra, giving me 10.5k, at the stock speeds they were hitting about 9.7k (so on average about a third to half again or so faster, depending on how shader heavy the game is, faster the more intensive it gets), so you can see how much faster equalising the core and memory clocks would have made the 4850s, if they'd equalised the clocks, I guess you'd have been looking in the region of 6.5k-7k for the 3870s and 11-12.5k for the 4850s.

To give an idea of performance/power difference between them in reality, the 3870x2 mobiles can run DX9 Crysis on high at 1440x900 decently, the 4850s in crossfire can do the same at 1920x1200.

 

it's fairly important, I'd want at least 3 hours.

 

I bought the M17 two weeks ago when it still started at $999. They dropped the price to $799 before my order shipped, so they told me they would give me the credit (which I'm still waiting to receive). Unfortunately, I received the laptop the same day they dropped it to $699. After using it for about a week, I started to have a little buyer's remorse. I kept having second thoughts about getting something more portable, like the m15x. After reading some reviews on the m15x, I came to find out that the case design was very poor and the performance didn't really come close to my M17 (dual 3870s, P8600, 4gb ddr3). So, the big cons for me (as a college student) is the battery life and portability, other than that...I love it!

 

Just so everyone knows the M17's are recertified units, meaning they've never been used. The M15x's are refubished so keep that in mind if you're trying to decide between the two. The M17 is cheaper, not used, and can be configured to be way more powerful than the M15x.

 

OMG - ordering one today. This is what i've been waiting for.

 

FINALLY! - Came up to $1427 TAXES/SHPPING in. And i'm in Canada - so with dollar parity right now I paid only 1500 toto CDN.

Video/Graphics Card: Dual 512MB ATI Mobility Radeon™ HD 3870 - CrossFireX™ Enabled!
Processor: Intel® Core™2 P8600 2.4GHz (3MB Cache, 1066MHz FSB)
Design & Display: Black Skullcap Design
Chassis: 17-Inch WideUXGA 1920 x 1200 LCD (1200p) with Clearview Technology
Keyboard Options: Illuminated Keyboard – Alienware Exclusive Design - Astral Blue
Operating System (Office software not included): Genuine Windows Vista® Home Premium (64-bit Edition) with Service Pack 1 plus Free Windows 7 Upgrade Option
Notebook Tuners and Remotes: Internal Digital / Analog (ATSC) TV Tuner with Adapter
Memory: 2GB Dual Channel DDR3 SO-DIMM at 1066MHz – 2 x 1024MB
System Drive: Single Drive Configuration - 160GB 7,200RPM (8MB Cache) w/ Free Fall Protection
Optical Drives : Dual Layer Blu-ray Disc Reader (BD-ROM, DVD±RW, CD-RW )
Wireless Network Card: Internal Intel® Ultimate N 5300 a/b/g/Draft-N Mini-Card with MIMO Technology
The World's First 450 Mbps Wi-Fi Adapter!
Sound Card : Internal High-Definition Audio with Surround Sound
Warranty: 1-Year AlienCare Onsite Service and 24/7 Toll-Free Phone Support
Alienware Extras: Alienware® Mesh Cap
Alienware Extras: Alienware® Mobile Binder
Alienware Extras: Owner Identification Card
Alienware Extras: M17 Protective Cloth Sleeve
Alienware Extras: M17 Keyboard Diagram Overlay

Any comments on the config? I tried to stay as budget friendly as possible with the processor knowing that I would upgrade it in the future - but I just picked the 2.4ghz cuz I knew I wouldn't do the upgrade soon anyway. Tell me what you think of the config.

 

It looks really good. Go for it It's a good price too! Are you planning to upgrade the hard drive yourself later on?

 

Yeah - hard drive is an upgrade I will make for sure. At roughly $70 for 320 7200 in the second drive bay that's an upgrade that has to be made.

Ordered!

 

I was looking at the same config, but without the Blu-Ray drive, the p8400 instead of the p8600, and the stock wireless card. Total to my doorstep is $1,228.77. Gosh thats a good price!

 

Congrats! Glad to see people are really taking advantage of these offers!

 

yeah this is truly an incredible offer - honestly can't be beat in terms of what you get for what you pay. I've been through 7 laptops in the past 3 years and none of them have been as good a value as this one.

I'm and almost dead sure that this is probably the first time we've ever associated value with alienware. One for the history books.

 

Doesn't the 3870 have AA problems?

 

Its not got great AA performance but thats not a real issue here, a crossfire 3870m setup will still play anything going at medium settings.

 

Deal is over, recertified/refurbished section no longer on AW website.

 

They still have some prebuilt models on their ebay site however

http://shop.ebay.com/alienware_corporation/m.html?_nkw=&_armrs=1&_from=&_ipg=25

 

sheesh. that was quick!

 

yeah, as far as i know...two weeks?

 

One and a bit more. They were a "steal" in the eyes of tons of people.
Alienware, THE brand for gamers, for that low. lol

 

they were indeed - can't believe they came and went so fast. I honestly just came back to this forum to check for a deal on a mouse and I ended up buying a laptop! lol

 

You did?!?!?!?! hahahahaha
Sorry, but that is hilarious!

 

LOL - yeah I think it's ridiculously funny as well

 

I had almost the same problem.
I came here looking to spend less than 1K, and I a getting either a 1645 (already ordered) or canceling and ordering an HP E15