Let's share upcoming upgrade plans for the M15x beast :)

Worked in both of mine.

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I figured it would im just saving the little money i do have for something reasonable. Toying with outting a quadro m6 in my main unit and building custom cooler for an 880m for the m15x

 

The 880M runs really hot. Not sure this is a great idea?

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i have someone on here hooking me up with an M290x when i get the money together lol so forget about the 880m lol i'm sellling that once i get my 980m

 

980M is much more powerful but when running full bore with no throttle it is just as hot as a 880M card.

The M15x struggles with the 980M. Without access door on a cooling pad amd with fans at max I get gaming temps hitting 87C max at stock clocks with an undervolt @ 1V. This using liquid metal on the die!

You are warned

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I'm dropping the 980m in my AW17 the 880m is being sold to pay for a 970m for my m15x

 

This seems like a good course of action to me. Well done!

 

I bought another M15x off ebay. This one has a 940XM and 8GB RAM so I can definitely skip the CPU upgrade and RAM should be enough for gaming.

I will probably be getting another 970M in this one. I think I need to see a doctor... Hahahahahahaha

I mean... I am fine. Really.

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Keep it this time??

I would keep it gpu less and wait for pascal/polaris updates. News is due fairly shortly.

A M15x with 940xm and a new chip with similar tdp to the 970M could be pretty beastly.

Failing that you could always get another 970M and then a reduced price



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I was watching a used 970M on ebay and it's up to $405 already. So that one is out.

This new one has a GTX 260M so it's better than either of the other ones. ROFL!!!

Yes, I am keeping this one.

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i just got a 280m for an old frankenware for 8 bucks lol so yea i don't blame you upgrading

 

GTX 260M and 280M still great cards to hold as a spare card just in case. Holding GT 240M in safe place ^_^

 

Man... that USED 970M on Ebay went for $425. That's crazy. A new one in the box can be had for $460. There just isn't enough savings in that for me to spring for that used one.

 

I have two GT 240Ms as spares. Both out of the two previous machines that I bought. This one is mine!

My precious...

 

My current precious needs moar pawah!

I'm have a buddy who put gskill 1600mhz 4 gig sticks in his m15x it friggin flys

 

Fantastic stuff! Then I formally welcome you to the M15x owners club

260M is ok for older games I guess. I often find myself playing games that the 260M could probably handle at 1080p flawlessly at max settings!

 

So now I am official. I have bought 4 Alienware laptops now. The M18x R2 isn't going anywhere. Ever.

The M15x machines I got prior to this one were just for fun. Then I realized they could be serious machines for gaming. My Daughter in Law sent me a text a couple of days ago telling me how much she loves the M15x. This was very cool.

So I decided to to get another one for myself. The M18x R2 is really nice. It doesn't have a scratch on it anywhere. But it's 12 pounds! So it isn't a lot of fun to carry around.

The M15x isn't small, but it feels tiny compared to my Sager and the big AW.

The M15x will be here this week. I just checked and it is already at my local post office. The new palmrest waiting.

 

And the M15x is the most likely to work with a new polaris or pascal part out of the 3 laptops you own!

This potentially makes it more powerful tham the M18x R2!!

I tested the 920xm. At 3.6ghz you will cpu bottleneck at no less than 70-100fps depending on the game. Pump up the settings and use some dsr and you can keep the performance under the cpu ipc limitations and slaughter modern bga crap!

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Perhaps. The 3rd gen Extreme CPU has a lot of muscle and throw in SLI and it's pretty potent. Not to mention dead sexy. But like I said, these are different machines and sometimes I just don't feel like lugging the M18x around.

And... it's out for delivery so I should have the M15x today.

 

Dont get me wrong 3920/40xm is super powerful and with a superior overclock ceiling to boot can probably get about 50% more performance than my super ocable 920xm.

Still 980M is 2x 680M and that is same manuf process!

1080M if it works in the M15x and not the M18x it tips the scales in the M15x favour heavily especially as many games dont support sli well.

Also a minor voltmod could allow 4ghz on good xm chips this would be aircoolable...just! I played the entire wolfenstein new order at 4.2ghz with a massive +200mv. Temps were in the 90s but never hit 100C.

Good performance indeed! Tweak the voltage to say +50-100mv and the gap can be closed somewhat

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Haven't been following the Pascal thread for a while now. Not sure when it will be available and that thread has just gotten ridiculous. When do you think it will be available?

 

Ddr5x just entered the mainstream and both teams have working GPUs using it so I'm guessing after Q2.

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probably will wok with 1080/1070 mobile, problem is bottleneck with new games since CPU is only 1st gen


oh wait, games don't use CPU over 1 core. silly me!

 

I got the M15x today. It is the best one I have bought so far. All it needs is and SSD, GPU and a replacement palmrest (already have the palmrest). It came with a 9 cell battery that holds a charge. w00t!
The optical drive works as well.

There was an issue when I boot the laptop. I get this message, "ME Fw failed, please try to flash your BIOS..." Reflashing A09 took care of this problem. If you don't answer the EC firmware with a capital "Y" the it bails out and the EC doesn't get flashed. All good now!

 

Lol sounds like you have a nice setup going on. I'm hoping to have a new gpu in my 15 soon. what is everyone using to vbios flash out of curiousity?

 

Nvflash or atiflash using a dos bootable USB drive.

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From maxwell onwards though flashing is taken care of via windows! So easy!

Pascal news out? I must take a look...

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From maxwell onwards though flashing is taken care of via windows! So easy!

Pascal news out? I must take a look...

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Well, crap. The display I bought for my DIL was labeled as a 1080p display (even the Dell P/N on the back) but the actual display is a 900p. There is only a $20 difference between them. She likes the display so I am just going to get a refund of $20.

 

GTX 970M for 900p display is a overkill ^_^

 

Had the same thing happen to me from an e-bay seller. Sent me a 900p panel instead of the 1080p that I paid for. Decided to keep it and I have to confess that I actually prefer the 900p over the 1080p. Then again I'm getting old and my eyes ain't what they used to be

 

I have both displays and both are very good.

 

970M needs heatsink for the vram chip in the back of card?

I found some 300~ish 970M on ebay, going to wait till pascal comes out and the value drops.


backside heatsink?: http://www.ebay.com/itm/Alienware-G...613642?hash=item2caa5a6c0a:g:8nQAAOSwKtlWqVCl


was thinking of doing division on ultra (but 900p) on 970M (either svl7 or prema vbios), possible 60fps+?

 

No heatsinks on the back of the cards. Not on my 880M nor did the 970M I purchased from RJTech that came with a heatsink for an P170SM-A.

How did you come to this conclusion?

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I saw some x bracket that have vram cooling on the back

 

I know that Clevo does not put them on. Where did you see this?

 

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Alienware-G...613642?hash=item2caa5a6c0a:g:8nQAAOSwKtlWqVCl


btw, what recommended ram should I buy for the M15x? I'm looking at 16GB capacity (2x8GB) but not sure if the machine can take higher frequency chips.

I remember that KOI said to get 1600 CL9 so I can run 1333 CL7 but not sure what else

 

Good price on the back plate. Thanks for posting that. I run the 970M at stock so I think it will be fine without it.

I can't answer your RAM question. I know it has been answered before.

 

What I'm not sure is if the backplate will fit on the M15x's 970M

Because it adds a bit of height on the back of the card, bend pcb or mxm port.

I'm going to buy svl7's bios or use prema's bios from his website, unsure which one is better for hardcore OC.

 

When I installed 970M in my second M15x I had to remove two of the foam rubber pads nearest the connector so that there wasn't so much pressure on the card.

 

I'll take a note of that, thanks.

Probably better to hold out for pascal 1070 at this point though... thoughts?

 

just read up a bit on pascal can't wait to get a mobile version for my system.

 

Looks like only top cards will be with HBM2 memory. So, we can even not see big improvement for 1070m over 970m or 980m

 

Mind revising your words on that last bit lol?

As always, if HBM does limit the heatsink usage of the M15x (if 1070/1080m is HBM), maybe svl7 can help us with his custom cnc heatsink lol.

 

Eh, that is a personal decision. I got the 970M for my daughter in law's machine because it was the best option available at the time. It was for her birthday and I couldn't wait for Pascal.

With my M15x I can wait. I have other machines including an already upgraded M17x R4 that is in route.

 

Actually not really. 970M is the perfect fit for 900p. Some games can be truly demanding. Then there is dsr. I always use it now it is kind of like AA but better

As for HBR it is not important. 980M doesnt max GDDR5 yet.

If they use GDDR5x then that is more than adequate.

 

Oh I see! And who told you about DSR? Playing old games in 4K is glorious!

 

I will have to try that.

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Manage 3D settings > Global settings > DSR x4 and smoothness off or <15%.

 

Thank you, kind sir!

And.... this only works with 900 series, which I do not have at the moment. Ha!