Jumping over from M17x R2 to?

[mav]

Hey guys,

I need some help with buying an new Alienware

After all I spend into my M17x R2 (buyed used for 1300€) the price within upgraded Display and Processor stands now at 1825€

2 Weeks ago I've transferred again 525€ (this were then 2325€ [2924$]for my M17x R2) for the new 7970m, but upgradeyourlaptop didn't response of my mail a week ago so I decided to cancel this order.

Well, now I want to ask you what would be the best to get? Ive played over nearly 2 years with only an 4870m graphic card, so I don't must have the maximum details of every game.

Which size? 14,1" or 17,3"?

With my desired configuration I came with those prices:

M14x r2: 1290€ (1623$)

M17x r4: 1809€ (2275$)

So are these 600€ really worth for MY claims?

Before you scream: I have an 24" screen with ofc FHD (16:10)

My actual games: F1 2011, Crysis 2, a little Battlefield 2, Dirt 3 and PES

Love you all.. x)

[svl7]

Well, by far the cheapest option would still be to get a 7970m and keep your system.

Else... you can try to sell your system to get some of the money back, but you won't be able to sell it for a high price unless you're very lucky...

When properly tweaked and overclocked, the 650m of the M14x R2 thrashes the GTX 660m So, the performance is very good, especially compared to your single 4870m. If you don't need max settings, the M14x is definitely a good option.

If you want max settings, get a 7970m and keep your system

R4 is cool as well, but not sure if it's really worth all the money when you say you don't really care about max settings.

[mw86]

Great advice SVL7. Much agreed best bet is probaly keep the R2. If youve got the RGB screen you definately have a nice setup then. Adding the 7970m will add a lot of performance and if your worried aboutstability issues on 7970m in single card config they are working fairly

[unreal25]

You may find you need quite a bit more power than M14x to game on higher resolutions (on that external monitor). I am not liking the new Alienwares tbh, nothing interesting for me.

[mav]

So far i don't have the RGB Screen.

And what kind of power do you thinking unreal25?

I think that the Ivy i7's are faster than my 920xm and with the Graphic card there are small differences to my current one.

Ofc, the improvement of that 7970m is SO KICKASS that I want to grab it.

[unreal25]

Graphic card power if we're talking about gaming. I mean.... M14x has a native resolution 1366x768 or 1600x900. When you play something at say 1920x1200, the computer has to deal with 120% or 60% more pixels. That will translate into a bit of FPS loss. Unless the CPU is something pretty old, it will make about zero difference in just about any game that is not a crappy console port (i.e. GTA4).

My opinion on M14x, is that its half way between a portable laptop (such as M11x) and a powerhouse (such as M17x/M18x) and neither portable or powerful... or it can both, depending what you accept as portable or powerful for yourself. For example, if you bike literally every day (like me), there is no way in hell I'd carry M14x (or any other laptop with that weight) daily in my backpack. On top of that it is missing a lot of other features I prefer and some of its components would be a big downgrade even for my Thinkpad (screen and keyboard for example).

But you have to see for yourself whether an how you plan to carry it around (M17x becomes very portable if you drive a car ). If it's just going to sit on your desk all the time, might as well just get a desktop. M17x is the better choice if you don't care about portability and M14x if you want something more portable.

[mav]

UYL respond on my mail and I will get my money back in a few days.

Would you recommend to get the i7 3720qm instead of the i7 3610qm?

And: Killer-Wireless-N 1202, no more latenz issues?

And also: Can I expand the drive to have a second hdd? [White not whether the place for the 256gb ssd is sufficient.]*

*Totally translated from Bing

[mav]

Couldn't find this out: Is it anodized aluminum??

Is my M17x R2 anodized aluminum? LOL

[mw86]

Oh yes it sure is bro! M17xr2, m18x r1/r2 are all anodized aluminum.

[mav]

The M14x r2 also? YUNO wrote him

[mav]

Finally decision: Keep my anodized aluminium M17x R2, buy the 7970m and upgrade in some years in a 2nd one

[svl7]

Hehehe, cool. Did you already order one?

[mav]

Yep.. glad that UYL made these circumstances with.. it was a back and forth these days :D

He's shipping them this week. Now what kind of preparations can i make? Never switched an graphic card.. only processor but that was more an plug and play :)

[svl7]

It's similar... uninstall the GPU driver, swap the card, install the driver.

When you already changed the CPU I assume you're familiar with applying thermal paste and cleaning the heatsink before remounting it.

Ah, and never forget to do a power drain before doing something like this.

[mw86]

Nothing really to add Marco covered the majority of what you need to do. Id say you wont need new paste if its direct from dell... the thermal material they are using is top notch and for durability and temps seems to beat or match the top most rated third party pastes out there. So that will make it even easier as you wont need to get the paste application just right as its already on the heatsink in shipping if you bought the 7970m through Dell/Alienware. Cheers nice choice. I hope to hear of your endeavours.

[mav]

Thanks.. the mailman messenger already rang this morning at my door.. so lazy i am i didnt open and must drive now with my bicycle to that store on Monday..^^

Ordered from upgradeyourlaptop with X-bracket and matching screws, a set of thermal pads for VRAM and this tube of thermal paste (Diamond7).

[Brian]

Nice let us know how it turns out.

Sent from my GT-N7000

[mw86]

Yeah if youve got them in now how did install go for you. What do you think so far?

[mav]

Hehe, didnt thought that I missed that thread.

I really love this card, will play Battlefield 2 Bad Company these Days much more often than ever (Maybe buying BF3)

Didn't came too much for testing, just with standard clocks, will try now to find a sweet spot with my overclocked cpu (is 26x with standard BIOS and 0mV too much?) - In times of power issues

The installing was easy, when you know what youre doing, pasted a little "x" on the card and cpu.. what I really like is that the temps don't go over 50°C in idle

Ok, there are little questions:

Why there are no temps at GPUZ "Sensor Line"? Also I have much more less Informations, only Memory Usages and GPU Load atm.

And: Is it normal that when the card is in idle the clock goes down to 300Mhz?

[mw86]

Hehe, didnt thought that I missed that thread.

I really love this card, will play Battlefield 2 Bad Company these Days much more often than ever (Maybe buying BF3)

Didn't came too much for testing, just with standard clocks, will try now to find a sweet spot with my overclocked cpu (is 26x with standard BIOS and 0mV too much?) - In times of power issues

The installing was easy, when you know what youre doing, pasted a little "x" on the card and cpu.. what I really like is that the temps don't go over 50°C in idle

Ok, there are little questions:

Why there are no temps at GPUZ "Sensor Line"? Also I have much more less Informations, only Memory Usages and GPU Load atm.

And: Is it normal that when the card is in idle the clock goes down to 300Mhz?

Yes idle clocks are 300/150 and 0mv on 920xm got me 3.57ghz. But most would reach just under that muli at 0mv. Some start to need more volts like 75mv at 3.5~ghz. @StamatisX @svl7 would be even more informative as they both have the same type of cpu currently.

[svl7]

With only one card you won't run into power issues, 26x is nice if it runs stable... but to get 26x running properly (no throttling, load at 100%) you have to crank up the TDP to about 93-95W if I remember correctly... this can get very hot in some games, you have to see whether it doesn't overheat, I can't tell.