2 down so last resort the 18

Hi Bothers , well i know have 2 dead laptops an. mx18 R1 and now my R2 , both card related , god i hate amd with there inferior products , anyway been offered an 18 with a 4930mx and 780m sli at a fair price , problem i have is getting parts (philippines is more fun ) definately not the case if you own alienware laptops , anyway my question are :
1. Whats the first thing i need to do with this system as i am hearing all sorts of horror stories ..
2. Related to the 780m sli is there anything i need to do as to be honest very rusty on nvidia , havent used since maybe 4 years .
3 . Bios what is the one i need , will stick to a mild overclock , poss 4ghz on all cores will do
4. Last question i have been also looking at the msi titan gt80 980sli which scores nearly 23k in standard form on 3dmark 11 , thats available in march here , would i best wait for that and skip the 18 ? , i just want a good system with some reliablilty as like i said getting parts here are really a big joke , the time you get anything they double the price with import tax and that is if your lucky you actually get the parts before getting screwed over by customs ......anyway please please give me some advice and always any comments or assitance will be greatly appreciated ....

 

Why you don't get the 780m for your R2? it will still be better than the 18 with 780m

 

The problem is i can not get anything here , the customs are a joke , no paypal support with any bank here so cant use ebay , so basically can only get what is available here , when i go back to Uk will get the parts then and sort both the r1 & r2 , but could be a while and i need something now , living here is quite cheap but everything else twice as much ...

 

Talking about difficulties to import stuff. Hopefully everything will be fine wit

 

experience on your warranty in philippines?

 

Alienware 18 is better than GT80.
GT80 have soldered CPU. AW18 does not. GT80 have poor CPU cooling. AW18 does not. AW18 is beautiful. GT80 is not.

You can overclock the CPU through the BIOS btw. I have better experience with that than using Intel XTU.

Not much you need to do with a new computer really. I repaste mine with a good paste like Gelid Extreme. Both GPUs and the CPU. I also format the drive and install a fresh Windows system with just drivers and the programs I need.

 

If you have access to the GT80 I would highly recommend it, there several benefits to the machine over others with great performance. Especially if you can get local parts since they are still being sold they might be easier to resource later down the road.

 

I have many years experience with the mx18s , but the 18 is nothing like them , all i hear is power problems , bios issues , fan issues , i need a reliable system the 18 sounds more like a george forman grill from post i have read , i suppose my love of the alienware M18 is making my decision harder ....so still undecided...no point having an upgradeable cpu if the system cant power it ..my place is getting like an alienware graveyard hahaha , but will think on it ...cheers for the reply Bro .

 

Yeah i am edging that way , the cpu on the one i am looking at is the 4980hq soldered unfortunately seems the way everyone is going now , even the 4gb 980 m are soldered , so need to stick with the 8 gb version at least thats upgradeable and thats what is fitted to the titan , the only issue is time , could be looking at another few months until they get here ..and then the support from what i hear isnt the best , so could involve shipping to the US for repairs if required , so not sure if i can wait that long ...going to check this 18 out this wkend and decide from there ...cheers for your input bro ..

 

I've owned M18x/M18xR2/18 and they are all fine systems, and about the 18, as long as one isn't going for a world class benchmark score and overclock on an Intel EE, it's perfectly fine.

Really, the 18 is fine.

 

Try to put what you read in to context a little

- Power issues: If you are gunning for really really heavy overclock. You are bound to hit a power block yes. 4.0GHz? No problems at all

- Fan issues: That doesnt exist. Only with GTX 970M or GTX 980M at this moment. This may be fixed in the future. M18xR2 have the same issues because its a Dell problem. With 780M you will have zero fan problems.

Alienware 18 have great cooling. it can cool any component you choose to use. Even the hot 880M. GT80 have great cooling for the GPUs. It stops there. You can forget about overclocking that 4980HQ to 40x on 4-core. Not happening. The notebook would melt and throttle because its a 47W CPU. The CPU cooling is too poor for that. 4930MX is a far superior CPU with unlocked multipliers and 57W TDP. And it will be attached to a proper heatsink with a dedicated fan. And you get BIOS overclocking.

GPU wise the GT80 blows your AW18 with 780M SLI. No doubt about that. So if you get both at the same price, the GT80 will have much better gaming performance.
But AW18 with 980M SLI and 4930MX would blow GT80 with 980M SLI and 4980HQ out of the water if/when proper 9 series support arrives

 

Just so he isn't misinformed , MSI GT80 post number 452, 4.2ghz firestrike test 14023 with 11966 physics so not too bad with no throttling. It does well and I would say is a good competitor. The CPU will not hold 4.2 for eternity but it will long enough to get the job done in this instance.

 

from what Ive seen and read gt80 are solid performer, despite soldered cpu, gpus are totally upgradeable. Id say Eurocom/Clevo/Sager with desktop class socket for CPU and a pair of 980m's and you'll fare well