*OFFICIAL* M15x Owners Lounge - Part 5 (see post #1 for links)

You can simply check the timing using CPU-Z. I would advise just getting a matched pair of 2x4GB to be on the safe side. Either way, if both sticks run at the same speed, latency, and timing, you should still be running in synchronous dual-channel, which is what you want. Otherwise if there are differences, you'll still be running in dual channel, but asynchronous. Chances are you won't notice a difference, but again, I feel that matching pairs, i.e., same exact manufacturer/model is ideal.

 

You need the 204 pin model.

 

crysis 2 beta if anyone is interested:

http://www.geforce.com/#/News/articles/crysis-2-demo?cid=Demo_Crysis2_Email

 

nice... inap what do you game on now?

 

xbox and ps3 keeping me busy for now. kinda sucks i can't play my favorite pc games atm, but i hope the wait was worth it. hehehe

had to get use to the game controllers all over again, hehehe

 

Anyone got Bulletstorm? Not gonna go as far as to say "Best game ever" because it ain't but its definitely one of the most fun games around. Hilarious dialogue.

 

yeah the game looks awesome, kinda holding off on it till i get a new pc.

 

Come on inap I wanna see a x7200 at your hands. Man I want one of those so bad.

 

if they can somehow make it less fugly then i would consider one, hahahah
was seriously considering one for awhile, too bad they don't take dell dpa for payment. hehehe plus i love the dell warranty too much to move over to another brand.

 

So anyone notice that the 1536 (MB) NVIDIA® GTX460M GeForce®
is now an option on the M15X

 

^^ yeah about 4 months ago!

 

^^^^ LOLLLL.... this made me laugh

 

Ok OK, so I have been hanging around the 17 inch forum.

It still has not been an option on the Canadian Dell Site

 

another thing is the 460m for the M15x is down clocked vs the r3 460m which is not.

yeah!!! r3 is back up, specing one out right now, hope they gave me a good deal.

 

Oh, yes you're right inap, the r3 returned... but no 6970m or 2920xm in sight...

 

6970 is an option but is alittle over priced imo and sadly no xm chip. thinking of getting the 2630 and getting an es 2920xm when its available.

 

Good news is that the 6970m is an option. Bad news is the 2% EPP discount. $2,781 with i7-2820QM/6970M/8GB DDR3-1333/750GB HDD/1080p/3 yr. Basic Warranty. Then have to upgrade to SSD. Maybe. Might have to wait for the discounts to improve.

 

Oh, I must have looked at the 3D version.. of course I only saw the 460m as option... lol.
It's pretty pricey for a single GPU system imo... wondering what these will be in Europe, haven't seen it on the local site so far.

 

yeah i guess my rep bailed on me, hasn't called me back yet. baawww

the pricing is a bit high for the system, especially without an xm chip. i was hoping to spend around $2.5k for a max system with 4 yr warranty.

 

I'll wait for you to beat 'em down.

 

Does anyone have any info on the M15x's R3 revision? I'm wondering what Dell is going to do from an options standpoint. Do you guys expect to see the same stuff (CPU options, etc) with a little bit of downclocking on the GPUs, or what?

 

I don't know, I'm pretty sure the Alienware team is pretty much focused on the M18x.. I doubt the M15x will get a revision before June or something.
I'm guessing a sandy bridge update, and new generation GPU (nvidia 5xx and AMD 69xx) along with switchable graphics.
Well that's if Dell does not decide to stop producing the M15x. Since the M17x R3 is pretty similar to the current gen m15x..

 

I thought the M15x was once called "best seller" on the AW site... so if that was true I highly doubt they will kill the 15 incher... However, a 6970m or anything with similar power is unfortunately very unlikely to be officially available in a M15x.

If I remember correctly the 460m in the M15x is already downclocked...
But of course with all the powerful 15 inch systems from all the clevo resellers an (even more) high-end M15x should technically be possible.

 

Yeah but I doubt alienware wants their 15 incher to be more powerful than the R3, after all the R3 is the flagship single card at the moment. Maybe all us folk should start a petition and threaten to move to Clevo if Dell don't refresh the M15x (jokes...)
Edit: Dell may stop the M15x and make a M14/13x with a 555m GT or something to fill the mobile range that is larger than the M11x.

 

Yeah widezu thats what I was thinking..
svl7; Actually i'd bed surprise if that was true, there are waaay more talking about the m17x and the M11x lately.. The M15x is not so popular anymore..
Alienware might now want to put something super powerful in the M15x (so it won't actually compete vs the M17x)but it has to be powerful enough to maintain his reputation..
If Alienware is is to pull out a M14/3x, I would probably buy it in a heartbeat!

 

Yeah, maybe it was marketing or maybe it was true a while ago... no idea. But they need to have something between the M11x and the M17/18x, really. I love my system (platonically )

 

yeah i think widezu is right on this one, most likely the M15x is at the end of its life. prolly M14/13x taking its place. i think that would be sweet spot for it, but sadly i think they are going to dumb down the gpu for it. hope i'm wrong on that.

 

ok guys just made the leap to the r3, nothing special.planning on upgrading the cpu later on so i didn't get the 2820.

2720
6970
1080p
everything else is stock pretty much.

 

Hehe, congrats... 6970, cool, hope it lives up to the expectations.

 

its really overkill for the games i play. but i love overkill hahahah

 

Hehe, I can totally understand that...

 

Nice bro! Dont know anyone with the 6970m yet... cant wait till you get it... its gonna be a beast!

 

Congrats...i hope it is good enough to play TF2

 

^^^^^^^^^ hahhaahahah ... Love it

 

hahaha yeah its been tough living without my favorite game. hopefully this baby comes fast. been dying here. the M15x has spoiled me to much, now everything else i use feels so slow. don't think it will be plug and play, but willing to gave it a go.

 

Close to what I'm looking at, sorta. Did you hold on to the SSD and memory out of Old Yeller? My main problem is that I still really enjoy this M15x and hate to part with it. I'm excited for you and can't wait to see how a cranked up 6970 performs.

 

Yeah I still got the ssd, memory and WiFi card from old yeller. Rev are you planning on making the move yet?

 

Not yet. I'm still perfectly happy with the M15x, so feel no pressure to jump quickly (other then the fun of early adopter benching and debugging). I'd like to see more on performance and temps with the 6970m and the power envelope at the limits. Questions surround the i7-2920 -- why not offered?, power restrictions?, heat issues?, is it overclockable? I have the luxury of time and plan on taking advantage of it. All of this could change on a dime of course if the excitement factor kicks in. Plus Sager/Clevo is clearly the S.B. notebook performance king for the moment with the 2920/485m combos (not even counting the x7200). It will be interesting to see how all of this develops.

 

Apparently the 2920xm has unlocked multi's but also has a TDP roof that Intel has put in place.

 

I really wonder how Throttlestop works with the 2920xm... I mean it is the most fantastic tool you could think of for the 920/40xm and unclewebb said it should thoretically work with the new generation, but nobody tested it so far... I'm especially curious about the TDP/TDC values (adjustable or not?).

 

Yea the answer to that is a real deal maker or breaker for the new gen of extreme CPUs.... If thy have a tdp ceiling/limit that won't allow them to OC too high... Then sadly the 920/940 will outperform the 2920 by quite abit...

It also has to do whether the bios will allow it I remember uncleweb saying... And of it doesn't, then it will override and prevent any modding done on the software level (throttlestop included).

Fingers crossed... Im really hoping to see the 2920 OC to over 4ghz on each core

 

man i can't wait till some es chips become available.
i really wanna see a head to head comparison between the 2 cpu, with both oc'ed.

but the stock performance of these new chips are really nice.

 

I thought Mandrake reported in his early review of the R3 that TDP was BIOS adjustable up to around 100W (forgotten exact level, not sure Mandrake was certain), which suggests at least that the multipliers are locked down tight.

 

I've just been on the phone with a Dell rep because of my failing GPU (and some crackling).

They will replace the video card in the next days... so I askd him about a possible upgrade to a 5850. He said it could be done but would need to be done seperately (after changing the 260m??) and it would cost about 460$ (converted)

I asked him if he could only sell me the card and I'd put it in myself... the answer was yes but the warranty would be void afterwards (for the whole system).
As he had my service tag I wonder whether he would have made a note about the warranty in case I would have bought the card...

How did you guys buy the card from Dell? Did you call the sales departement?

 

dang $460, man i feel bad for everyone living outside of the states. you can order through sale or even the tech support can sell it too. i'm sure it will be warrantied with the system, but let them send the tech. once you get the tech contact number you can call them and ask for them to drop it off and you can install it yourself.

just remember the support team is not a reliable source of info. call around i'm sure someone else will tell you something different.

 

Ok, thanks, I'll make some calls tomorrow. What annoys me is that I would have to pay for the tech upgrading the card... and if I only buy card and put it in my warranty would be void. Well, that's their good right of course, I'm sure it's written in the warranty contract... but as it's absolutely no problem for me to exchange the card it bugs me to pay for the tech.

Well, I will see whether I can get my hands on a card through a different way, I'll call some other Dell numbers tomorrow, thanks.

 

doing it this way, your card will be warrantied so you can sell the 260m to make up the difference. buying it else where will not get warranty, so you may have to keep the 260m in case you need something done with warranty, like a system replacement.

 

That's a good advice, thanks, I didn't think about this. Question is what I get for a 260m.... let's ask google

 

Just wondering if anyone is having the same trouble i am having. Just recently my DVD drive has been acting up. When i insert a disc in the drive it takes quite a few minutes to read the disc and i have not been very successful with burning DVDs either. What could be causing this? I used to be able to burn a movie in like 5 minutes or less, but now it takes over 30 minutes and thats if it works which it hasnt.

 

Just get Dell to replace it.

Back when I had my XPS M1530, my disc drive stopped working as well. I tried reinstalling the firmware/drivers, using different disc utilities, and other things which wasted a good amount of time. Then I gave up.

Edit:

I just took apart my M15x to stick in a better wireless card I had lying around (an Intel 6300 instead of the Dell DW1520, the connection is much better now), and THERE WAS SO, MUCH, DUST! I opened the bottom panel first, and got huge dust bunnies out of both the CPU and GPU grills. I'm glad I messed up and opened the bottom (the wireless card is actually located under the keyboard).