Alienware M9750 First Look (video)

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The dual-graphics card, dual-hard drive, dual-core processor packing Alienware m9750 has finally landed, and it's in our office. The 17&quot; m9750 is a gaming notebook that combines power with style, and somehow manages to stay relatively thin even though it's choc full of components and power.

Alienware M9750 (view large image)

 

Video First Look

For those of you with the patience to watch a 5+ minute YouTube video about the Alienware M9750, we present the following:

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First Impressions

The glowing eyes (view large image)

After recently taking a look at the Sager NP9260 / Clevo D900C gaming notebook I was prepared for another monster sized box to be dropped off by a FedEx delivery person who would be hunched over with the excruciating weight of the Alienware M9750 box and its contents. I was wrong though. The Sager NP9260 weighed about 12 pounds, but this Alienware M9750 weighs a comparitively light 8.5 lbs. Furthermore, it's as thin as your normal 15.4&quot; screen mainstream laptop. The Sager NP9260 is 2.4&quot; in height while the Alienware M9750 is 1.5&quot; in height -- that's the same height as a Dell Inspiron 1520 15.4&quot; screen notebook we have in our inventory of laptops at the moment.

The M9750 sticks out its optical drive and says, &quot;ahhhh&quot; (view large image)

Now, to be fair the Sager NP9260 does use a desktop chipset and processor platform, so they really had to make things bigger to accomodate the extreme power of that machine. The Alienware M9750 meanwhile uses a mobile processor platform, the Intel Merom Core 2 Duo (no, not Santa Rosa). The Alienware M9750 has dual Nvidia 7950GTX graphics cards, just like the Sager NP9260 does, so you're going to get extreme gaming performance. Well, that is so long as you have Windows XP that supports SLI, at the moment Vista does not but will once drivers are available.

A look at the beautiful WUXGA screen on the M9750 (view large image)

The build of the M9750 is extremely nice, lots of magnesium is used in the construction to give it a very solid feel and also keep the weight down. I love the ribbed look of the lid, of course done in a manner to give it a slightly UFO kind of look (at least as us humans imagine a UFO looking). The all black look is also attractive, and the silver Alien head and glowing blue-eyes really stand out agains the all black lid.

The M9750 has ports galore, from a modem to DVI to digital optical audio out (view large image)

The unit we have has the follow specs:

• Intel T7600 Core 2 Duo 2.33GHz processor
• Dual NVidia 7950GTX graphics cards, 512MB memory each
• 2GB RAM @ 667MHz
• 2 x 160GB hard drives in RAID 0, 7200RPM
• 17&quot; WUXGA glossy screen display
• Dual Layer DVD Burner
• 802.11 a/b/g/n

It's a stacked system in terms of specs, that's for sure! The only high-end option we're missing in this notebook is Blu-Ray. We'll of course be doing benchmarks and providing a full review in the coming weeks, our resident gaming notebook expert Charles Jefferies, better known as Chaz in the forums, will be doing the review duties for this bad boy.

(view large image)

 

 

Andrew, once again, very nice exterior review. I'm very amazed and surprised that this notebook only weighs 8.5 lbs with those specs. It looks like from the video/pictures that Alienware did a great job with this notebook. Although, I bet the heat will be an issue when gaming, considering that the notebook is amazingly thin.

 

Very nice! Saw the video on youtube ... then saw the link to your review in the Alienware section. Looking forward to the full review by Chaz!

 

I don't think heat would be a big issue since the 9700 was cool enough to use on your lap. I'm so psyched about this laptop...

 

Great review. Thanks for the video showing off this incredible notebook. If only my budget allowed....

 

Wow, SLI 7950GTX+a notebook processor and only 8.5lbs, its so...alien

And i am too waiting for the full review by Mr. Jefferies.

 

Hmmm.... looks very cool! like a big black bad Macbook with Monster spec! but i still can't get the fact that its just a rebadge Arima (arima right?) and it looks the same as one sans the badging and colouration.

 

why would anyone want to pay that for a notebook that is not even dx10 compatible????

 

I was thinking that to be honest.

The specs are fantastic but they needed this out two years ago..

 

theres quite some space in the palm rest area which should be welcome for most typers the mouse buttons are not differentiated only just summat like the macbook
waiting for the full review by chaz to get the full picture!!

 

That is such a cool-looking notebook . . . great first looks article Andrew, I like the video!

Even though the M9750 does not have Santa Rosa I don't think that is a problem. Performance should be more than adequate with the available configuration options Alienware offers.

 

Cool Review. Thing is people when they need power for fast setup High end laptops tend to take the cake. I like smaller but that laptop only a lb bigger then my 15.4 inch laptop.

POWER IS EVERYTHING.

 

Great review! Monstrous laptop.

At a time like this when high end DX10 cards are about to hit the market it seems kinda wrong to buy this beast.

 

They were actually demoing it at CES in January, it took them 7 months to get it out after they first showed it, so your comment is sort of on target. Still, the wait appears it might have been worth it.

In regards to the heat concern comments by others, the notebook does get warm underneath for sure and the fans blow out some wicked hot air (think hair dryer) but we've yet to really push it hard. I'm going to let Chaz find out and report on how hot it gets after some serious gaming.

 

The thing is that is is rather smart in a business sense for Alienware to release this now with the dx9 cards because as soon as the 8800m's hit the market all the people who were too impatient to wait will have to upgrade (and Alienware will be more than happy to allow them to send their computers in and charge an arm and a leg for parts and labor).

 

I personally hate how that looks... So much wasted space. Plus, it looks like you would need to rest your entire for-arm on the thing to type on it. They should bring the keyboard forward, or add something useful to that extra space. Maybe a small wacom tablet? Or bring it all the way forward and incorporate a small "sideshow" LCD near the top of the base(maybe if the notebook makers incorporated vista only hardware in these things, it would motivate microsoft to push that SLI Vista patch out a bit faster)

 

Is the DVI port dual-link? If not, what mobile video cards have dual-link? (in order to drive 2560x1600)?

 

It's the same way with the big Clevo D900C. In my opinion a better approach would be to place the keyboard about halfway down the chassis. It would be easier to type on that way (possibly more ergonomic).

Yes, it is dual-link (DVI-D).

Just about any modern mobile video card can drive DVI-D but the problem is that basically no laptops come with DVI-D ports.

 

But if you don't have those mega wrist wrests, you can't use your mouse on them while the notebook is in your lap!

(desperate times make us all creative )

 

can't wait for the review.

 

This is incorrect. DVI-D just means that the DVI connector is digital. A DVI-D port can be either single-link or dual-link. I am interested in the dual-link. See:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_Visual_Interface

Does anyone know if it is truly dual-link or single-link? I would like to use a 30" 2560x1600 LCD with it.

 

LOL the power brick is literally the size of a brick. It's massive.

 

Try asking Alienware directly. And you are right, DVI-D does not mean dual link.

 

Damn you Andrew! Always teasing with that 1520. "And here it is next to the 1520, which I will shed no information about for some strange reason."

 

If the wiki is indeed correct, then the port on the m9750 should be a dual link port. If you look at the wiki again, you'll notice that though DVI-D can be either single or dual, they do have different pin configurations, and if you compare that to pictures of the DVI-D port on the m9750 - it appears to be a dual link port.

I would definitely contact Alienware if you have a 30" screen at home before buying... I had this same question as well... oddly if you look in Alienware's knowledge database on their site, it reports that none of their current laptops support 30" screens...

*EDIT* I reread what it says in the Alienware Knowledge Base... and it states: "Some of our mobile systems have a physical Dual Link DVI port; however, this port works electrically as a Single Link DVI port. You will be able to physically connect your monitor, but it will not run at its native resolution."

 

I'd like to know if there's a lot of heat coming from the place where the base of your palms rest. My PowerBook generates heat in this area, and I find it very irritating. My Thinkpad doesn't do this because the battery sits under the palm rest area.

 

I think it looks hideous, but then again, I've never liked Alienware's notebooks. Too tacky. They're the Pontiac Grand Am GT's of portable computers (style wise).

I mean, c'mon, the lid is "ribbed for her pleasure".

 

I love the "We're here broadcasting from Mar's"

LOL, I cracked up hearing that.

 

I like the design, but i like my m7700 better even though it is much bulkier and heavier. I don't care much about gaming, just an average web browser kind of human. I was looking at one of those earlier, but the price tag is just out of this world - well, alienware.
My m7700 may be older, but for me more than enough and the blue shiny look, iluminated alien head and name is the coolest I've seen on any labtop. True, it's a bit hot at times, but my X-Pad is doing an excellent job to keep enough space to breath. would not change it for anything currently available.

 

Has anyone been able to determine if the dvi port on the m9750 can support dual link. On my machine, the port will take a dual-link cable. But, internally is it really dual-link?

The reason I ask is because I have a 30" monitor and cannot get the full resolution. I have no idea if this is a driver problem or if it is a limitation of the m9750.

When I called Alienware support, they told me that it is definitely dual-link but could not get my machine to display 2560x1600 pixels on the external monitor. It is only something like 1200x900. We tried all versions of the available drivers with the same result.

Z

 

Correction, I get only 1280x800 on the external monitor which supports up to 2560x1600.

 

Here's an article that may explain things. But, according to this, I should be able to get 1920x1200 on the external monitor, which doesn't seem to be the case with me.

http://4help.alienware.com/cgi-bin/alienware.cfg/php/enduser/std_adp.php?p_faqid=5348&p_created=1166729861&p_sid=-Oy-9I7j&p_accessibility=0&p_redirect=&p_lva=&p_sp=cF9zcmNoPTEmcF9zb3J0X2J5PSZwX2dyaWRzb3J0PSZwX3Jvd19jbnQ9MSwxJnBfcHJvZHM9JnBfY2F0cz0mcF9wdj0mcF9jdj0mcF9zY2ZfZmFxcypjPSZwX3BhZ2U9MSZwX3NlYXJjaF90ZXh0PTUzNDg*&p_li=&p_topview=1

Z

 

If anyone at Alienware actually reads these, I am very disappointed to find out that the DVI-D Dual Link output on the m9750 puts out a Single-Link signal. Not only I am out $1600 for a 30" external monitor that won't play with the laptop. But also, I was told when I bought the machine a year ago that it supported Dual-Link and now all my dreams of connecting to a hi-resolution projector in the future have come crashing down. Why on earth would you put a dual-link output port on a laptop that only supports a single link signal??? This is misleading and should have been documented in the specs!!!