m14x r2 worth it?

Well, around 2 months ago I got my first alienware, yay! beast of a machine My question however is...

Is the R2 that much better than the R1?

I picked up the R1 for the same price as the R2 (silly me) I saw it had one more gig of v-ram, me not knowing anything about video cards back then thinking it was the better choice... I like my lappy, but this is going to be my laptop for college and hopefully longer than that so I need something that will withstand newer games. I was debating over if I should sell my R1 and get the R2 with the 650m card. I know it is better, but how much better? I run bf3 native at low (I have to play at 50+ fps always!) so I heard some people saying they ran it native at high with the new card... I was wondering what kind of fps boost this would bring to games, or if it is not worth the hassle?

 

Well i think it is completely worth it. Not only is the R1 underpowered compared to the R2 it also runs a ton hotter. This is the reason i got rid of my R1. On the R2 from what i hear the CPU hits 75C and the gpu hits ~65C while gaming. Much much cooler.
Also the video card is much more powerful. The Cpus are roughly the same but since the R2's video card runs cooler the whole machine runs cooler.

Edit: On my R1 while playing BF3 my Cpu would regularly hit 95C while gaming. So you can compare temps.

 

Not sure about my CPU temps, but I get a max of 79c on my gpu playing any game. what settings do you run on with your r2?

 

The next revisions will be coming out this summer, you should wait. The performance of the 750M will be quite significant over the 650M because of GPU Boost 2.0, a new feature.

 

O hell, im taking mine off ebay then! no idea it was coming out that soon!

 

what might the price be for the new version?

 

Probably $100 more than what Dell are currently charging for the R2.

 

Oh, and please do more research in future. There are a lot of scheisters out there looking to take advantage over credulous people like yourself, be careful.

 

And to answer your original question: the R2 is about 60% quicker than the R1, there's a vast difference between them.

 

Thanks for the info! yeah it was stupid of me not do do my research, this thing was expensive and knowing O could have the r2 makes me sad :l keeping my laptop is great shape so when I need to resell I can squeeze every penny out of it. so if the new one has the gt750, how would that compare to a gt660 (my friend has one and seems to run everything on ultra just fine) or a 650?

 

It would be comparable to the GTX660M, just as powerful, I'd say. My friend did the exact same thing last year, he bought an R1 a month after the R2 was released without first consulting me, needless to say; I haven't been impressed by its performance, the GT650M is orders of magnitude above the tame and meek GT555M.

 

GT 750m is apparently the same silicon as the GT 640m-GTX 660m. The clocks are a bit higher than the GTX 660m so it should be a bit faster than that. Overclocking, with an unclocked Bios, you're probably looking at identical performance to the current 650m. Seeing as preitty much every one of these chips seems to clock to 1100 or more without issues I'm not surprised that they're releasing a newer higher-clocked version, unless they improve the thermal solution. They might do that. CPU wise, it will use less power, performance wise the CPU outruns the GPU by a mile so it doesn't matter.

 

Quix is spot on here. The 750m is just going to be a rebadged card, so it will probably have higher clocks, but not blow the 650m out of the water like the jump from the r1-r2. Cosmetically I think the r3 is going to be quite a bit different and that will bring hopefully some nice new features that haven't been seen before, but performance wise, the r3 isn't going to be a huge leap from the r2.

 

Exactly, we're looking at a 10-15% increase over the R2's GT650M.

 

Still worth waiting for considering we are less than 60 days away.

 

On a related note, what's the best way to sell your laptop? Looking on eBay and Amazon, there are only a few listings and they're only at $900-$1000, and I bought mine two years ago for $1550. Are these like cars in that they depreciate in value very quickly? You can sell an iOS or Android device a couple years after and not lose much, but here it seems you could buy two Xbox's with the money you spend on upgrading.

 

I had mine on ebay for 20 hours and it got 3 watchers, I probably could have sold it pretty easily, take a look if you need an example Alienware M14x 14 inch Gaming Laptop with EXTRAS | eBay

As for less than 60 days, is that public info or just a rumor?

Also, saw the "leaked" pictures of the R3 and they looked horrible, if they actually end up looking like they are on the thread, no way jose, I will not buy an ugly laptop lol

 

Meh you will always have people preaching to wait, but if you want the R2 now go for it. Honestly if you do some custom bios and oc your GT 650m like i have to 1100 the only difference will be the cpu and at that, the TDP is higher in the new cpus because they integrated a part of the power supply that is usually on the motherboard.

Then if you wait the 2 months and its a bit longer then nvidia is dropping the 800 series in 2014, so you are already half way through the year, wait longer! you are already half way through waiting just wait longer.

I don't understand these people.

 

so much waiting :0, I'm conflicted... I'm not going to wait for the R4, might skip the r4 all together and wait for the R5 (once I get my R3 of course)...
Here is my plan...
Summer 2013- R3
Summer 2015- R5

idk, I like to stay up to date, maybe I'll do the same thing with my R1 and just keep re selling them every new generation... too many options :l

 

I believe the current 'going rate' for an M14x R1 is around $600-700. A lot of eBay listings are utterly wishful as a used R1 isn't worth close to $1000. Eh, and yes, they depreciate far quicker than cars... cars don't become completely obsolete! And also, I do not think the GT555M is capable of rendering next gen graphics engines such as UE4 and Frostbite 3 which are due later this year.

 

Sell your R1 as soon as possible as it will depreciate further after the release of the next version. I also believe that you should stick to your original plan of buying/selling every 2-3 years. Selling a used laptop every generation will result in a large net loss and a negligable performance increase.

 

great tips, I will get on that this weekend, I bundled my laptop with a few other items, I'll ask 800 for the laptop, case, mouse, charger, manuals.

 

That's a good price, I would do the same. Sell it and get an R2.

 

On the other thread you didn't agree. Sigh.

 

A good guess based on what I have been told. New revisions always come out when new hardware is available to put in them, they won't sell an R3 with an R2's guts (if you know what I mean). June 2013 is when the next generation hardware is supposed to be on the market, so I expect there will be new revisions out in June. Even if I am a little early, we're talking a few months at the most, I wouldn't buy old tech that close unless I absolutely needed it.

 

Exactly. Haswell is just around the corner. I also expect to see a Geforce 750m. Maybe they'll use a thinner chasis, or they could just use the same one because Dell is hurting for money.

 

Haswell is only 5% more performance and its an extra 2 TDP because they built in power phases into the CPU.

The GT 750m is the 650m but with Turbo Boost 2.0 which will boost it just as high as you can overclock it with an unlocked bios.

 

For those wondering I sold the laptop, waitng for him to pay for it.... I have it narrowed down to a few m14x's, I'm a wee tight on budget so I staying below 1.1k and getting a refurbished r2, no way I would be able to afford the R3 when it comes out lol

 

That's great news. Be sure to compare refurbished components with new ones as, looking at the Alienware website, a brand new i7 is still within your budget.

EDIT: And don't forget to ask around for discount coupons, they can often save upwards of $100.

 

I'd try and get a phone rep from someone and say this is what i want and this is what i can spend, can you help me out?

 

I can hook you up with a good sales rep if you want to look at other options before diving into the refurbs market, send me a PM if you need some help.

 

Sounds good, I'm just about done saving, I'll pm you when I'm there