I recently purchased an Alienware M14x and after doing some searching on the net I'm starting to second guess myself. I will be doing a lot of 3d modeling, revit and autodesk to be exact, and I'm not finding any good reviews with the Nvidia GT 555m. Is there anyway I can upgrade to the Quadro with my current setup?
here's my specs
Intel Core i7 2630QM 2.0GHz (2.9GHz Turbo Mode, 6M cache)
8GB Dual Channel DDR3 at 1600MHz
3.0GB DDR3 NVIDIA GeForce GT 555M using NVIDIA Optimus technology
500GB 7200RPM SATA 3GB/s
14.0 High Def+ (900p/1600x900) with WLED backlight
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OP how heavy of a CAD/ Revit user are you as Optimus graphics switching alone caused me a few hundred hours of nightmares.
as for upgrading to a Quadro, I dont not think AW has bios support for Quadros in the M14X. im not actually even sure if it has an MXM card like the M17X and M18X -
My M11x R2 ran autocad amazing. I'm pretty sure the GT555m in the M14x will run circles around it.
The M14x videocard is soldered onto the MoBO by the way.. It's not MXM like the M17x or the M18x. -
Graphics is directly attached to motherboard and not upgradeable.
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If you're having trouble with Optimus, just white-list 0.0
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I'm an Architectural Drafting student so I will be using revit, autodesk, and 3ds max quite a bit. Is there a way I can turn optimus off? What was your solution?
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Should I just cancel my order and go with something else?
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my solution after many months was sell every laptop with Optimus, but that may not be needed for your case. if your ot looking to game hard and it is in budget I would say look at a proper workstation unit. a W510 or Elitebook 8560W or even 8560P may be a bit better choice but will give you a hit on gaming performance as mot of the high end cards are in the 17" models that compare with the 6970 and 485.
I can not give you a perfect answer here as I dont know exactly how hard you will push it or what your precice work will be.
as for optimus being turned completly off I believe that only a couple of thinkpads have a hardware MUX for the dedicated card accessable in BIOS. I do believe a couple HP consumer models can do it with the AMD switching too.
Nvidia GT 555m and AutoCad?
Discussion in 'Alienware 14 and M14x' started by melman9, Aug 30, 2011.