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is alienware m14x worth buying or not?


spr193

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If you plan on going with the R1, an "easy" fix to the overheating CPU is to set the maximum processor state to 99%, which essentially turns off overclocking. Rather than going through the BIOS, you can create 2 identical "Power Options" profiles and then set one to 99% and one to 100% and switch it on aand off for games that cause your CPU to overheat.

Doing this my CPU has never gone over 80C. It used to go up to 100C. Just a thought if you're still considering.

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i dont have heating issues. I do have a monster cm storm sf19 cooler. Still on stock mustard paste. Pros are small lightweight and powerful, Cons are battery life. I have since upgraded to ssd. Getting my posts up so i can get the bios fix for sata 3 speeds!!!! Cant wait

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If you plan on going with the R1, an "easy" fix to the overheating CPU is to set the maximum processor state to 99%, which essentially turns off overclocking. Rather than going through the BIOS, you can create 2 identical "Power Options" profiles and then set one to 99% and one to 100% and switch it on aand off for games that cause your CPU to overheat.

Doing this my CPU has never gone over 80C. It used to go up to 100C. Just a thought if you're still considering.

yeah, I set my max processor to 90%, it has decreased my CPU temp by about 5-7 deg. C.

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I've had no heat trouble with my m14x R1 that said i dont use it for much gaming, mostly video editing and processing. With a ssd its plenty fast enough for anything i do and offers a decent battery life while not being too bulky, you can pick one up for around $700-800 haven't seen many R2's under $1100 recently.

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I have an alienware m14x r2 and I can run most games at medium-high settings and some on ultra but I would recommend getting the New Alienware 14 which I regret buying mine without waiting but I am happy with my purchase and I know you will be to :)

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I've had my r2 for about a year now and I love it. It's been so amazing to go play BF3 at friends houses when before I was pretty much stuck to my room where my desktop is. Powerful little machine, especially when you unlock the VBIOS and overclock your GPU....

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The only main issue I have with the M14x is the low, low throttling temperature on the GPU. 67 degrees Celcius is not very dangerous...

To fix the issue and also for safe overclocking.

http://www.**************/t/1267918/guide-nvidia-inspector-gtx670-680-disable-boost-fixed-clock-speed-undervolting

Read the guide carefully for locking pstates to prevent throtling

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I have an alienware m14x r2 and I can run most games at medium-high settings and some on ultra but I would recommend getting the New Alienware 14 which I regret buying mine without waiting but I am happy with my purchase and I know you will be to :)

The GPU in the m14 is just an overclocked gt650m with almost the same cooling options so i dont think there is much of a difference as my m14xr2 gpu is overclocked. The CPU is the only difference and its not that big a deal to me...its clear that we didnt buy this machine for its cpu

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I feel like the M14x is pretty solid, however it is not very good for its price range, compared to something like a Sager notebook where you can get over double the performance at around the same price point. And the M14x doesn't offer a very strong cooling system or the customization options you would expect in the larger alienwares. Don't get me wrong, After over 2 years of overclocking, dropping, tweaking, tearing apart my m14x isn't showing any signs of slowing down, I do not believe its a particularly good notebook at the price point.

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I don't believe that it will run it more than like 25-30 fps on ultra, but that is a guestimation based solely on what I've seen of the graphics and physics, not based on requirements and so forth. That is also based on the fact that I am running BF3 at 35-40 fps on ultra OC'd right now. So I can imagine it would drop about 10 fps at least.

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I own an r1, i've reached high temps before due to the fan radiator being blocked by dust which is pretty easy to clean out. No "overheating" issues apart from that, it would be worth buying 2 years ago, but now we have 4th gen intel processors and nvidia 700 series gpus, there are so many newer alternatives you're better off buying as the r1 would be considered outdated in a few years. I personally disagree with people saying that an alienware is overpriced, true you can get a laptop of the same specs for a lower price but for the cosmetics and lighting you'd expect to pay more. At this point in time, no not worth buying lol

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I feel like the M14x is pretty solid, however it is not very good for its price range, compared to something like a Sager notebook where you can get over double the performance at around the same price point.

The original M14x has higher-end Sandy Bridge CPUs. The current generation Haswell CPUs are only about 15-20% "more" than their Sandy Bridge predecessors. Similarly, nVidia's Kepler GPU architecture in the R2 and not-R3 is only about 20-30% "more" than the Fermi GPUs in the R1. You won't find "over double the performance" for any price point. Such electronics don't exist.

The original M14x probably isn't worth it today. On the other hand, I'm not convinced that AW14 is worth it compared to R2. Haswell + Kepler isn't significantly better than Ivy Bridge + Kepler. Haswell + Maxwell, nVidia's next generation GPU architecture, will be but that's not happening until next year.

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The original M14x has higher-end Sandy Bridge CPUs. The current generation Haswell CPUs are only about 15-20% "more" than their Sandy Bridge predecessors. Similarly, nVidia's Kepler GPU architecture in the R2 and not-R3 is only about 20-30% "more" than the Fermi GPUs in the R1. You won't find "over double the performance" for any price point. Such electronics don't exist.

Well, Definitely not in raw CPU power, however in a straight up 3Dmark Benchmark sager does offers laptops with the same CPU but with a GPU that offers a little under twice the pushing power of an AW14, and definatelly doubling all previous m14x models. I believe it was the NP8235 (i7-4700MQ, 770m GTX) if you are interested in me reference, most sites seem to offer it at the same price as an AW14.

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  • 2 weeks later...
The GPU in the m14 is just an overclocked gt650m with almost the same cooling options so i dont think there is much of a difference as my m14xr2 gpu is overclocked. The CPU is the only difference and its not that big a deal to me...its clear that we didnt buy this machine for its cpu

well my geforce 650m gddr5 2gb is actually better than I thought, I can play far cry 3 on ultra setting at a stable 40-50 fps :) crysis 2 runs on very high at 50fps stable, better than the desktop I have hahaha

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