New to Alienware M18X

[EijiKurihara]

Just placed my order through AAFES which is a website for military only. Also means no tax and free shipping!

Now I'm regretting placing my order since I'm hearing of the release of the M18x R2.

Here are the specs.

tem Description	Quantity	Unit Price	Ext Price
System Color;Space Black Anodized Aluminum	1	$3,429.65	$3,429.65
Processor: Intel® Core™ i7 2960XM (2.7GHz,3.7GHz with Turbo Boost, 8MB Cache)
Memory: 4GB Dual Channel DDR3 at 1600MHz (2DIMMS)
A/C Adapter: Alienware M18x 330W A/C Adapter
Display Panel: 18.4-inch WideFHD 1920 x 1080 WLED
Video Card: Dual 2GB GDDR5 AMD Radeon HD 6990M AMD CrossFireX
Hard Drive: 1 TB RAID 0 (2x 500GB) 7200RPM SATA 3Gb/s
Nameplate: Personalized Plate (Eiji Kurihara)
AlienFX: Quasar Blue
Operating System: Genuine Windows® 7 Home Premium, 64bit
Adobe Reader Acrobat SW: Adobe Acrobat X Reader
Optical Drive: Slot-Loading Dual Layer Blu-ray Reader (BR-ROM, DVD+-RW, CD-RW)
Sound: Soundblaster® X-Fi™ Hi Def Audio - Software Enabled.
Wireless and Bluetooth: Killer™ Wireless-N 1103 a/g/n 3x3 MIMO for Gaming and Video and Bluetooth 3.0
Security Software: No Anti-Virus Software Selected
Hardware Support Services: 1 Year Basic Plan
Standard Nameplate Trigger: Thank you for Purchasing Alienware

I get a huge discount for ordering through the military. I also ended purchasing the 3 year advanced protection from AAFES which has the exact same coverage as the Alienware version for only $179.99 for 3 years.

So now I'm wondering if I should cancel my order and wait for the M18x R2?

[svl7]

Hi and welcome to T|I! Great specs...

The R2 is due sometime during the summer, but there's no release date so far. Might be early May, but could as well be late June... no idea. It's not even official yet. Still, this is definitely one of the few moments when you really have to ask yourself whether you want to wait some more months, or whether you want to get a system now. (A system which is very high-end, probably not as good as the R2 is going to be).

JI'm sure you can still cancel your order, but keep in mind that AW might not offer the extreme CPU in the R2 from the very beginning, at least it usually hasn't been available from the first day in past machines if I remember correctly.

[Brian]

Welcome to T|I! Personally I think Kepler will be available by next month as will M18x-R2. If you can cancel the order, I would do so. The reason is that brand new technology built on a new process (Kepler/GCN/Ivy Bridge) is almost here and it will run cooler and faster than current tech.

This is especially true on the CPU side since Sandy Bridge (e.g. 2960xm) can get very hot when pushed through overclocking. Ivy Bridge will be faster + run cooler and so will Kepler/GCN. If you had ordered this system 2-3 months ago I'd have said keep the order but not this late in the game.

[wbabt007]

Welcome to TI !!!Great Laptop, but if I was you I would listen to Brian And Svl7.

With the M18x-R2 around the corner I would personally wait for it to be released (Trust me I know is hard, I cancel a pretty awesome m17x-R3 3D to wait for the m18x) and to be honest it has yet to disappoint me(besides some occasional hiccups in battlefield 3 due to the low memory i order with). At the end is your call, but if you looking to have the best of the best I would wait. Hope it helps.

[mw86]

Ivybridge will be whole new ball game and eat all gen before it for breakfast. Period. M18x R2 > m18x R1 no bias ... i own R1.

[Jimbo]

I didn't think anyone was projecting huge gains from Ivy? Maybe 5-10% gain at lower TDP, with the IGPU getting a big boost.

EDIT: I would also say wait at this point, those are very worthwhile gains.