Buying M18x

[Sajin]

Hello guys,

I was thinking about purchasing a new M18x from dell with the following specs...

System Color	Nebula Red Anodized Aluminum
Operating System	Genuine Windows® 7 Ultimate, 64bit
Processor	Intel® Core™ i7 2960XM Overclocked Turbo Boost to 4.0GHz (8MB Cache)
Memory	8GB Dual Channel DDR3 at 1866MHz (4DIMMS)
A/C Adapter	Alienware M18x 330W A/C Adapter
Display Panel	18.4-inch WideFHD 1920 x 1080 WLED
Video Card	Dual 2GB GDDR5 NVIDIA® GeForce® GTX 580M – NVIDIA® SLI® Enabled
Hard Drive	512GB RAID 0 (2x 256GB) Solid State Drive SATA 3Gb/s
Nameplate	Personalized Plate (Maxed Out M18x)
AlienFX	Mars Red
Adobe Reader Acrobat SW	Adobe Acrobat X Reader
Optical Drive	Slot-Loading Dual Layer Blu-ray Reader (BR-ROM, DVD+-RW, CD-RW) with Roxio Creator 2011
Sound	Internal High-Definition 5.1 Performance Audio with SoundBlaster MB Software
Wireless and Bluetooth	Killer™ Wireless-N 1103 a/g/n 3x3 MIMO for Gaming & Video and Bluetooth 3.0
Security Software	No Anti-Virus Software Selected
Hardware Support Services	4 Year Advanced Plan
Your Tech Team	4 Year North American Phone Support by Your Tech Team
Pre-Installed Software	Steam and Portal™ Factory Installed
Alien Wallpaper	Alien Red Glyphs
WirelessHD	ZyXEL AeroBeam WHD6215-R Wireless HD Receiver with Internal 60GHz WirelessHD Transmitter
Standard Nameplate Trigger	Thank you for Purchasing Alienware
	AW:$6,059.98

TOTAL: $6,019.98

My question is do you think I should go ahead and buy the M18x or wait for the r2? I know the new processors & video cards are right around the corner and was thinking maybe I should wait? I also know that the new processor will be using the same socket as the 2960 which is FCPGA988 so upgrading should be easy as popping in the new cpu and updating the bios, with that being said will the new video cards be this easy? pop out then pop in and off i go?

Thanks, Sajin

[Brian]

Theoretically it should be as easy and plug and play with the new CPU and GPU. Problem is Dell has to allow it with a new bios update so even with pin compatibility, it is still dependent on the OEM. As for waiting on the M18x-R2, that depends on your own needs. I don't see the R2 showing up until around March/April or possibly later so if you can wait that long, then go for it. If not, then the setup you have is fantastic.

[Sajin]

Theoretically it should be as easy and plug and play with the new CPU and GPU. Problem is Dell has to allow it with a new bios update so even with pin compatibility, it is still dependent on the OEM.

Do you think dell would allow it or would they force users to buy new laptops?

[Brian]

Do you think dell would allow it or would they force users to buy new laptops?

Its hard to say, sometimes they simply issue a bios update if they feel it doesn't pose a technical and resource challenge and at other times you have to opt for a new system. As long as the ivy bridge CPU is compatible with our M18x, I'd lean on the side of them issuing a bios update and allowing it. As for GPUs, that is a whole other ball game and depends on marketing desires + technical challenges. Usually Dell likes to EOL (end of life) a prior version when introducing a new series of GPUs so they can make more money. I've seen them support notebooks with 2 generations of GPUs before moving on to the next platform. So even if our M18x can handle the AMD 7000 series or nVidia's 600 series, Dell may not necessarily give us official support to run those configurations.

That doesn't mean that our end users can't get around that limitation, look out our resident genius @svl7, he got the 6970/6990/470M etc. working in an M15x. Others have 6990 crossfire working in an M17x-R2 which was definitely not designed for 100W GPUs so anything is a possibility. The only downside is that you would have to depend on community support rather from Dell itself but that's why Tech|Inferno exists.