M15x now with the 5850!

HOWEVER, the technician I'm dealing with is fairly certain that its DDR3. According to him and the development team they say that they will not be using DDR5 due to the heat worries. So, back to wondering. (they're still going to send it out tomorrow and we'll see what actually arrives).

 

Are you dealing with Asus?

Joking aside, I've never heard of Dell/AW making anyone send in their laptop before getting a replacement.

 

now that I think about this post. Maybe they were referring to Returning the laptop and re buying it with the 5850. Which would make sense if he's still within the return period.

 

Great new snag, appears the card inventory is not yet available for replacement, so I may have to wait until they release inventory for that.

So as it stands I have the request for replacement approved however i'm waiting on inventory. Hopefully by the time it becomes available there will be more information about the card running around.

 

yes but i talked to a rep who also 'confirmed' as to why it cost's less due to having tested each config with that card and yielding less in benchmarks and this comes from an aw tech

@s0ysauce45 well i may have accidentally.....no i couldn't have, the service tag came up with the right system lol

 

If its the GDDR3 version, I wouldnt buy it... The 260m handles great overclock while the 5850 is unknown..
I'd stick with the 260M I'm a nvidia fan anyway

 

i work with what is the best that's my motto

 

@hitokiri1 please keep us posted whenever the tech does come to do the replacement.

we all want to know and i think the only way we are going to get a positive answer that is completely indisputable is for someone to actually get it.

 

As soon as it becomes available for replacements they will send it out. Then well see if it's worth a damn.

 

Just in case anyone cared. Dell_Bill has once again reaffirmed that the card is in fact GDDR5, however I still don't know if the reason for the lower price tag in comparison to the GTX 260 is as a result of decreased performance or simply ATI's cheaper manufacturing costs.

Will update when it becomes available to me.

*Edited because of mistype of Memory type.

 

I am offended that you, of all people, doubt me. We go way back. J/K.
I talked to the AW graphics engineering lead on the phone yesterday, and have an email string with engineers and lead engineers going one click from the very top of the engineering chain in which GDDR5 was confirmed. If they do turn out to ship as GDDR3, it will be some kind of mistake that will be dealt with one way or the other. I am 99.99% sure it will be GDDR5.

 

Edited before the quote

But is there any way to confirm (before it actually ships out) if its going to be an improvement over the older GTX 260 or less capable?

Other sources assume it will be better but. Someone here (and I take this with a grain of salt) has a rep saying that its actually not performing as well as it was originally assumed it would. Hence the price.

 

The wattage is lower on the ATI GPU so I assume that the general battery life should but not as bad in regards to only really gaining maybe an extra 10 - 20 minutes but I could be wrong. When using the ATI and gaming on battery does anyone think the performance would scale back?

 

ATI has a power saving option built into the catalyst control center, (Powerplay) you can disable it under power management or in the CCC. This will make performance same as plugged in but decrease battery life.

 

Notebookcheck.com is showing some interesting results with the updated 5850 section. Especially when compared to the 5870.

check out the two side by side (and their benches)

Notebookcheck: ATI Mobility Radeon HD 5850

Notebookcheck: ATI Mobility Radeon HD 5870

GTX 260M
http://www.notebookcheck.net/NVIDIA-GeForce-GTX-260M.14559.0.html

 

You won't be able to game at all on the M15x on battery.

 

even the msi gx640 has a bench lower than my stock but its got lower cpu so we shall see

last 3dmark 06 with oc was 12958

 

Notebookcheck and Dell reps are the two most awesome sources of mobile GPU information on the whole world wide webs.


Click on the More Details link under the 3DMark Vantage and '06 scores and you'll see the individual marks for the GDDR5 version of the Mob. HD5850 vs. the GDDR3 version. ~2000 more points in Vantage and ~3000 more in '06 even though the MSI GX640 is using the dual-core 430M vs the Acer's quad-core 720QM.

Under '06 there's also a link to a review of the MSI GX640.

 

For the low price Dell is charging to upgrade to a 5850m with GDDR5, it's a pretty decent deal via EPP. It comes out similarly priced to a G73. A simple bios flash to 5870m spec should take care of the rest.

 

That is assuming you can expect the 5850 to OC as far as the 5870 though...most likely not doable as the GPUs are binned, the weaker ones become 5850s

 

75 mhz on the core is peanuts for Broadway, even on a binned part. Plus the voltage can always be pushed higher if needed. That entails higher operating temps but what can ya do. It's a very cheap upgrade.

 

The 06 score for the MSI beats my stock GTX score, with a lower CPU score. So all in all it Will be an improvement although slight. And since the switch will not cost me anything. I can't complain.

 

yea i talked to another rep but said can't do a swap so im wondering how you got yours swapped

 

This thing gets HOT under load
http://www.notebook4game.com/web/wp-content/uploads/2010/01/msi_gx640_Temp_Full_load.PNG

 

wait you got it???

 

Its probably because my system was a replacement and not a new order. And my original configuration on my Studio XPS 1645 was an ATI 4670 which he used as a point of reference to allow me to get the exchange to a "like" ATI card available for the M15x (In this case the current 5850).

That allows for my case to work I suppose. i know that there was an issue of the return card from the swap and the conflict of returning an Nvidia card in place of a "replacement" 5850 ATI card.

So in the end you and anyone else may have no choice but to go with a replacement system with a new configuration.

Even with them exchanging my card to the 5850 I'll still have the issue of original system specs showing the Nvidia GTX 260M rather than the 5850. This will cause problems if i ever need to do a replacement. (but not many problems since the 2 cards are so similarly specc'd)

 

from those temps im sticking with my 260m and gonna mod mine to the 5870 when i got the dough cause if im going to have those temps with only a slight increase rather go with the 5870

 

Lol, no my exchange is approved by i'm waiting for part availability. Dell_Bill B says its probably on a ship on its way from China and we should expect to see it within the next week or so. (the only available inventory is in the warehouse) there is no inventory available yet for replacements (although the rep system will show its available upon further investigation we found that all stock levels show 0). Seems to be a common issue with new inventory.

So. long story short. That screenshot was taken from the MSI review from Notebookcheck and i just posted it because 93 degrees is HIGH.

 

ok i was like what did you use to ship it so fast a teleporter lol

 

http://www.notebook4game.com/web/wp-content/uploads/2010/01/msi_gx640_Temp_Full_load.PNG

Youtube Video of MSI GX640 Directx 11 5850 GDDR5 playing Dirt 2

 

Heat is different from laptop to laptop....you can't guess the M15x's temps based on the MSI GX640's single fan that has to cool the CPU and GPU.

 

Lol, once its available. I'll have it next day delivered with a technician (I have next day on site repair).


Those temps you have to keep in mind are in a MSI notebook. Probably with some pretty garbage cooling in relation to a M15x, People with 5870's aren't even hitting that high.

 

yea but since im not going to get a replacement. im just going to save up and get the 5870 it does better than that in actual game play and i highly doubt ill oc only for benchmarks but ill want to see how well it performs in your system as you will be the first with it

 

Lets hope so. The powers that be at dell can always smack down my hopes and dreams, as they sometimes do.

 

http://forum.notebookreview.com/alienware/482224-ati-radeon-mobility-hd-5870-m15x-m17x.html

 

thanks for the link Dell-Bill. its awesome to see you going out of your way to get us the info. Much appreciated.

 

The US version os MSI GX640 actually has 5850 with GDDR5, Lee in xoticpc told me that and also you can see the confirm on GX640 thread I think, but the thing is GX640 is just so... ugly, I cannot accept it.

 

Notebookcheck has a link to the GX640 on the benchmark section of the 5850 card. Also someone's posted a youtube video of Dirt 2 Directx 11 test on that laptop.

A few pages back i posted a shot of the temps from the GX and they were way high on that notebook. Hopefully the M15x won't hit anywhere near 90+ under load.

 

So, you are saying Dell confirmed M15x 5850 with GDDR5 right? I am thinking of buying one, only if they come with GDDR5.

And for price, if you go to Gentechpc or Xoticpc comstomize some Sager laptops, eg, NP8690, the GTX285m cost $75 more than HD 5870, which make no sense to me but Nvidia's cards are likely to be more expensive.

 

Yes Dell has confirmed it's GDDR5.

 

Ok, so I made the purchase, i7 720m with 5850, I will confirm the graphic card when I get it. But I guess hitokiri will confirm first.

 

Gratz!, at least i'll have someone to compare bench's against I just hope they can hurry and get the cards in stock.

 

Can't wait to see your outcomes! I anxiously await

 

same here but pending on what you score im just going to save up some dough buy the card from dell sell the 260m and it should even out nicely if it does better than the 260m which is a no brainer if it has GDDR5

 

I'm so happy about this!! I don't like Nvidea, and now I don't have to give them any of my money!!!

 

Anybody know hows the screen of m15x? I just Know it's WLED but what about contrast ratio, Color Gamut?

 

its a great screen i have the 1080p and its great, lots of space

 

This review has some measured specs of the screen (under the 'Display' sub-heading) Notebookcheck: Review Alienware M15x Gaming-Notebook

 

Just in case anyone was wondering. DELL_Chris has let me know that the 5850 will require a new heatsink, the one from the GTX 260 will not work apparently.

Odd considering the 5870 seems to work just fine with the existing heatsink.

 

With some customization...