Looking into a M18x for 3D rendering.

Before I posted, I took time to look around the site and I have to say I was blown away. There is soooooo much information on here and you can tell that people on here actually know there stuff and are willing to help with any chance they get. Seeing this made me want an Alienware even more. Now to my question. This would be my first time ever purchsing an AW. I am an architect student and I work with a lot of 3D modeling programs and photo editing programs. The main ones are Revit 2013, Adobe Creative Suite, and 3ds Max 2013 with Vray for rendering. I figure the AW would be a good choice seeing as they are excellent for gaming. (Also they are BEAUTIFUL). After doing some research, the biggest aspect of the AW would come down to the GPU, initially I was looking into the GTX 680M, but I was told that with the programs I would want to stay away from a Kepler based nvidia GPU. So with that warning I opted for the GTX 675 being that its Fermi based. Of course I will upgrade the RAM and HDD myself being that Dell charges an arm and a leg for it. Any suggestion and advice would be greatly appreciated. Thanks in advance.

 

Why not Kepler, and why Fermi?

 

I'm not really sure, that was a suggestion giving to me.

 

If you or anybody else had any insight, that would be greatly appreciated. Also if anybody else uses the same programs that I do, if you could share the configurations you have and how its working for you that will also be greatly appriciated.

 

It comes down to whether you actually need the CAD performance as a student. I learned the hard way that having a fully maxed out laptop was meaningless in engineering classes that never had any significant amount of CAD work. There is a difference between what you are actually working on in terms of performance needed. As a student, you probably won't get the experience of having to deal with an assembly/project that has had hundreds of people designing parts for one item. Having huge assemblies/projects is where the firepro/quadro line shine. You can get away with making smaller and less complex designs with a non professional gpu. But quite simply, I doubt you will run into work while at school that requires the use of a professional gpu. And don't expect a company to allow you to bring in an alienware, precision or elitebook and use it as your work machine. You will most likely get stuck with what they give you and that's that.

That being said, will you be using this laptop exclusively for CAD or will you be gaming on it? If you only do CAD then buy an elitebook or precision. But be wary of the fact that you might not get the opportunity to show off what a mobile workstation can do unless you are in industry.

 

More CAD then gaming, but the CAD type being BIM programs. The way I figured is if its good enough for hard core gaming then it should be good for what I need from it. Truth being told the main programs that I use are BIM programs, biggest one being Revit which would require a good graphics card. Also as stated earlier 3ds Max with Vray and the Adobe Suite are other programs too. I love the fact that the M18x comes with an 18" screen which is great for what I do.

 

I have read that Fermi's compute performance is better than Kepler, and from what I have read the Fermi GPU would be better suited for 3D CAD and similar function. It's rare to find a situation where AMD does something better than NVIDIA, but this is an area where the 7970M (if you don't have a defective GPU and can find a decent driver, LOL) spanks 680M. Even the 580M seems better than 680M in this respect. For gamers, that's largely irrelevant.

AnandTech - NVIDIA GeForce GTX 680 Review: Retaking The Performance Crown

I think the 680M is very awesome, but I was disappointed to see NVIDIA focusing on reducing power consumption with Kepler. I wish they would have focused exclusively on brute performance and ignored the urge to jump on the popularity bandwagon for power saving technology.

For 3D rendering, a Quadro-based system would be better. It won't game as well at 680M, but it will do a better job of the compute-intensive work.

 

Well I've read that the 7970M has had a bunch of problems relating to drivers and other stuff. Would the GTX 675 be a good choice being that it is Fermi based?

 

^^^I think so... I am not an expert on specs that best support 3D CAD, so I would compare the minutiae of the specs on the 580M against the 675M first to be sure they did not gimp something important somewhere that is obscure or unimportant to gamers. I'm mainly into gaming and benching, so it would not be something I, personally, have have a great deal of interest in. Or, you could buy a Quadro GPU to install, or get a Dell Precision with a Quadro already in it.

Yeah, believe most what you've heard about 7970M. It's a beast when it works right, but it frequently does not.

 

Can a quadro GPU be installed in an Alienware. When i was on the phone with xoticpc he really didn't answer the question for me? Also what specs in particular should I compare? Also thanks for the link. It looks like the 680M isn't that much better than the 580M. Another note, it seems that the 675M is the as the 580M but with some improvements.

 

You would need to do it yourself, or have xoticpc do it for you (if they will). It has already been done successfully. See this thread:

http://forum.notebookreview.com/alienware-m18x/632619-have-m18x-2xgtx580-need-quadro-cad.html

The 680M is much more powerful for gaming and benching than 580M. Overall, it's the best GPU available for gamers and benchers right now (until the next NVIDIA beast displaces it). One 680M is equivalent to 580M SLI in terms of performance. But, for what you are looking for, maybe not so much.

 

Hi man,
i am CG Artist specialized in rendering, I worked for Passion Pictures, Ilion Animation Studios, Ubisoft and Square Enix so more or less I know what you need.

If you want a M18X for rendering then just get the best CPU you can afford and 8GB Ram, better if you can afford 16GBRam. The speed of the RAM is not important for 3D softwares. Any good graphic card is going to do the job so don't worry too much for that.

Of course don't expect to have a rendering machine, render farms are the only rendering machines

 

It should be possible with the right modified drivers. I'm currently experimenting with flashing my 6970m into a firepro m8900. But if you are that inclined to having proper CAD performance, you might want to look into building a desktop. The amount of money it takes to modify a m18x into a real workstation is quite a lot. I do remember eurocom selling quadro's with their clevo line back in the day and I don't believe the x7200 nor the 17" line came natively with those cards. It is certainly possible to make a good workstation out of a m18x, but I feel you might not want to look at the price once you are finished.

 

Well I def was going to get 16GB or 24GB of Ram. After reading all the information everyone has supplied, it seems that the best decision would be to go with the GTX 675. Once again thank you Mr, Fox for the links. I also have questions regarding the processor of choice, but is that something I can post in this thread?

 

Can the Quadro 5010m be put in SLI?
Can the Quadro K5000m be put in SLI?

 

If you want the most powerful option, the 3920XM is the show stopper. For a tighter budget, 3820QM is a good option.

No, unless something has recently changed, Quadro does not support SLI. If I remember correctly, that was already kicked around in the thread linked above. I bumped that thread to the top of the forum a few minutes ago.

 

I should have read that thread first

 

Those two would be great to have, but I can't see myself spending a $1000 plus to get it. Maybe when the price eventually dropped I would. As or right now its looking like either the 3rd Generation Intel® Ivy Bridge Core™ i7-3720QM or the 3rd Generation Intel® Ivy Bridge Core™ i7-3820QM. The rep from xoticpc said that the difference between the two wouldn't be noticeable at all so just to go with the cheaper one.

 

XM cpus do not drop until end of life

 

He is either totally misinformed or doesn't know how to effectively tune an XM CPU, LOL. He's mostly right if all you know how to do is press the power button to turn it on.

This is true. When the price drops it will be old technology, and it will still be very expensive. Nothing beats an Extreme CPU, and they demand a commensurate premium.

 

Im sorry if I wasn't clear. He ment the difference between the 3rd Generation Intel® Ivy Bridge Core™ i7-3720QM or the 3rd Generation Intel® Ivy Bridge Core™ i7-3820QM. Also with the link you gave me, I see that he had to get a custom firmware to use the Quadro 3000m. Also he never stated where he bought it from either? Any suggestions on where to look?

 

Guys, he doesn't need a Quadro if he is not a movie scene composer specialist. People using CAD applications use cubes and premade objects, even if he wants to use voxels to render trees foliage or he just wants to make a scene unusefully heavy it's quite strange to have a Quadro because you always have to optimize the viewport anyway.

I worked on many games/movies/commercials as CG Artist and no one of us ever had a Quadro card just because CG is all about optimizing first the viewport and then the rendering settings.

Using a modded BIOS and drivers to make a normal card become a Quadro works well, i did it in the past, but don't forget that a Quadro card is made in a totally different way than a gaming card and there is a reason for that.

Anyway if he wants to waste money on a very powerful laptop just for CAD then go here and order one Work Station Specialists Workstationspecialist.com

Otherwise get a very fast gaming card and spend your money on the CPU, RAM doesn't even need to be fast for those kind of applications.

Just for example, i am using my M18X for renderings (and quite heavy ones too) and when i see that dielectric materials take ages to render i just fake the dielectric in some other way, and when I cannot use Photons or Final Gather i fake the bounce lights using proper shaders and area lights and then there are the render passes composited.

There is always a way to achieve a wonderful result even if you cannot afford a very heavy and time consuming rendering.

Just my two cents.

 

I couldn't resist without commenting, sorry:

Pretty much the same in terms of service. You don't need a tech, just get them send you the parts and do it yourself, better than any tech

How about the extra hard drive option, macro keys, extra headphone jack, higher quality speakers, WirelessHD....

 

What's the setup that you have on your M18X? Also while looking on xoticpc website, I noticed that the price between the i7-3720QM 2.6GHz and the 7-3820QM 2.7GHz is $200. Is this upgrade worth it? I also heard that you could overclock the i7-3720QM to run at the same speed as the 7-3820QM 2.7GHz. How safe would that be? Also they offer the gpu too "safely". How safe is it. I was looking into the GTX 675M since there's a lot of issues with the GTX 680M right now.

 

If you are looking for a rendering machine then go for the most extreme CPU like 3920XM, but it's gonna be expensive.

I really think that between the 3720QM and the 3820QM there is not so much difference in terms of power to be worth spending 200USD more.

Let's face it: 3.6GHz vs 3.7GHz is nothing even if the 3820QM has 8MB L3 Cache.

I don't OC laptop CPUs, on the desktop i can control everything with nice fans and air circulation, on a laptop what you can do is limited.

I would put that money on a nice 240GB SSD, the speed is so sweet that it's worth it (I have a Vertex 3 MAX IOPS 240GB).

I don't know about the problems with the 680M, i have two AMD 6970M and they work sweet as hell in Maya, Max, Nuke, Shake, Lightwave, Vue and so on.

I have a I7-2720QM, dual 6970M, 8GB 1600MHz Ram (the ram was the worst buy, you notice absolutely no difference between 1333MHz and 1600MHz), it is a M18X R1.

If I would like a faster CPU? Hell yes, but as i told you before some magic optimization here and there in the software and i don't feel like I really need something more powerful.

In short terms: Radiosity/Photons are for noobs.

 

Sorry for the confusion. I meant I read that there were a lot of problems with 7970M when it comes to driver supports for Max and what not. My configuration would be the i7-3720QM with Kingston HyperX 16GB 1600MHz ram. I was also looking into the SAMSUNG 256 GB 830 Series Sata III SSD.

 

7970M is a incredibly powerful graphic card with absolutely horrible driver support till now
If you want that card then you should wait for a proper working driver to be released.
Mr Fox can be of more help than me in this matter.

 

Well I'm looking into buying my M18X by the end of this month. Does anybody know if there is going to be any kind of driver update to the 7970M? If its a better GPU than the 675M and is around the same price, then its common sense to get that one.

 

It's not just better, it's 2x more powerful! And yes, I think there's a high chance of better drivers to be released in the very near future. I'm personally planning to grab a M18x with 7970Ms and for me, there's no question of what GPU to choose

 

I agree. It's seems like the decision is amlost given. The only thing is that the 7970M has so many people complaining about it. I wonder if it was just the first release that was bad. Maybe if I purchase it, I wouldn't receive the earlier ones.

 

If you get a pair of 7970M graphics cards that are not defective, I think you will be elated with them. They are incredibly powerful beasts, and they shred games and benchmarks something fierce. The AMD driver situation is sad, but I have been able to address all of the CrossFire problems with hacks and tweaks, so that part is not a huge concern if you don't mind tinkering with things. I know Brother Aiki is right and eventually AMD is going to release a driver that just works right for the 7970M without a lot of fuss. The Catalyst 12.8 is working pretty well for most of us with 7970M.

This really is not a change from the previous generation AMD video cards and drivers. Wonderful when they work right... very disappointing when they do not. Only a few of many drivers AMD released last year worked great, but there is no point in stressing about having a newer driver if the one you have does everything you need it to properly. Otherwise, the quest for a better driver is kind of silly regardless if your preference is red or green.

NVIDIA's frequency of hardware failures and driver problems is a lot less, but you have to pay more to get the combination of excellent performance, stability and driver support. If you are not prone to throwing temper tantrums and have patience, the excellent Alienware warranty will resolve your issues if you buy the less expensive AMD video cards and get defective ones. Just don't expect a lot of free upgrades, like an XM CPU, SSD drives or extra RAM for having to be patient after paying for the less expensive parts.

So, my advice is if you have the money, go with 680M SLI. If you don't, go with 7970M CF and things will either be really great from the start, or they will get sorted if there is a problem.

 

The thing with the 680M SLI is that it is Kepler based, which i was told would not be a good choice for what I want to do with the M18X (3D renderings and 3D modeling.) The choices would be between the Fermi based GTX 675M or the AMD 7970. Also I'm probably not going to need dual GPU's at this moment, might just be overkill in my particular case. From what I've been reading it seems that the problem occurs mainly to the GPU with Crossfire enabled? Correct me if I'm wrong Mr. EncyclopediaFoX lol.

 

The problem is primarily if you get one or both 7970M video cards with defects. I have the CrossFried aspects of my system working extremely well now and only defects in the cards needs to be resolved. I would say that going with 675M SLI would be your best low-cost option for acceptable performance while avoiding any kind of hassles or unwanted drama. The NVIDIA cards rarely have any defects and the driver support is generally better than what AMD offers. The performance of 675M SLI is almost identical to one 7970M video card. If performance was more important, I would say go with 7970M CF or 680M SLI, because 580M/675M is no longer the fastest kid on the block. They are, however, yesterday's fastest and the first runner up to 7970M and 680M for the performance crowns. They are respectable and offer very good results... just not the most your money can buy.

 

Does the 7970M not come with the option as a single GPU? Seems that every retailer that sells the Alienware M18X only offers the GTX 660,675, and 680 as a single GPU. This goes for dell.com and xoticpc.com. Im only interested in using a single GPU at this moment, since I wont be doing any serious gaming. From what I'm interpreting from you statements is that the 7970M will be the best choice for this over the GXT675M? Also over the GXT 680M being that its Kepler based and won't be ideal for my type of work?

 

I'm using the machine with 3Dmax....works a treat, been experimenting
with Octane Render (CUDA) with the 2 processors (Nvidia 675m) pretty darn fast...

I am overclocked to 4Ghz (Leve3) and have 32G of ram as I use After Effects as well..

Come and say hello on Google+

https://plus.google.com/u/0/101241183982769454084/posts

 

Let's clarify one thing since we didn't before: if you are gonna use that laptop primarly as CG Machine then you don't give a crap about 99% of the problems a driver can give because usually that's a gaming thing. If the instructions given to your GPUs are just coming from a 3D Software then those instructions are very simple compared to what a graphic card has to do to render games.

 

So that's a yes for the 7970M over the GTX 675??

 

No, you are reading too much into it. I would never recommend an AMD GPU to anyone because of all of the problems I have had with them. I have said things like "if you get a 7970M GPU that is not defective you should be pleased with it" and other similar comments. Those are true statements, but I am not out to smear AMD. The 7970M GPU, and especially in CrossFire, is totally awesome when it works properly. Had I been anti-AMD I would not have a pair of 7970M video cards in my M18x. I only care about what works best, runs the fastest, and lives to tell about it. I don't want anyone to make a buying decision based on something I say, because your mileage may vary. Even if my 7970M cards were good ones, I would not recommend anyone else take a chance on them given the inconsistent outcome we have seen in our community.

I can only tell you what I would do. Given a choice between 675M SLI and one 7970M GPU, I would choose 675M SLI because it has all the exclusive NVIDIA features, better driver support and none of the AMD issues. And, 675M SLI delivers performance very similar to, if not slightly better than, one 7970M GPU. Because I am a gamer/overclocker and want the fastest product possible for those purposes, yes, I would personally risk another 7970M CrossFried purchase over 675M SLI simply because it's a lot more powerful.

 

Sorry for the misunderstanding. So the only way you would choose the 675 is if it was the SLI enabled Dual 675 GPU. If it came down to choosing a single GPU, no SLI no Crossfire, 675 vs 7970 single GPU set up which would it be. When ordering mine in a week, im going for only 1 GPU and its going to between the 675 or the 7970. I figure if I need more power I can always order another, but I need something strong to start off with.

 

Yes, that's correct. Or, another angle of looking at it is that I would never choose 7970M again for myself if an equal or more powerful NVIDIA option is available. So, if you are determined to only buy a system with one GPU for 3D rendering, 7970M is probably the best choice to go with from the available single GPU options if Kepler is not going to serve your needs well.

 

Thank you for the answer. It sucks that you had to go through what you did with you 7970M. At least now people know who to ask questions to about fixes and tweaks for the GPU.

 

atleast from my experience nvidia has always done better in 3dstudio than ati. I have a decent desktop and my laptop does it faster. And the desktop has better cpu/amount of ram. And around the same generation video cards, well the desktop has one 6990 with the laptop having dual 560's.