Alienware m11x

Looks like the M18x with its wife and child.

Has anyone come across a good review of the M11x r3 comparing its performance to the r2? I can't seem to find much.

Chairman_Mao wrote:

Looks like the M18x with its wife and child.

Has anyone come across a good review of the M11x r3 comparing its performance to the r2? I can't seem to find much.

I havent either.. the GPU got a nice bump.. its not double the speed or anything crazy like that but its still easily the fastest GPU in its class of notebook

http://www.notebookcheck.net/NVIDIA-...

Is the old r2 GPU

http://www.notebookcheck.net/NVIDIA-...

Is the current r3 GPU.. as you can see its a DX11 GPU with more of everything (pipelines.. shader speed etc..)

Grr. Ok, so per the above post, my hinge finally gave out - I called tech support, and they sent a guy out with a replacement panel - who managed to break the entire computer. Won't power on at all. Now Alienware's been faffing around for almost a day and a half after promising to send me a replacement computer. Their email says that the delay is because they're trying to match the parts of my old computer - which is more than a year old. Seriously, you've f*cked my computer up - just send me a f*cking new, upgraded one. Don't waste your timing trying to send me a Frankenstein monster made from whatever scraps you have leftover.

Now this is the kind of specs I've been looking for. Bet it's more than I want to spend.

LG: NVIDIA GT 555m, Sandy Bridge i7, 13.3", 3.6 lbs. Coming Sept.

The fact that it has an SSD makes me think it will be $1500.

re-computered. Plenty of Female Doggoing on the phone & twitter and I got my new system 9 days after Dell support broke my old one. Instead of a refurb, I got an r3 with the i7. Runs cooler than my r2 did so far.

MannishBoy wrote:

Now this is the kind of specs I've been looking for. Bet it's more than I want to spend.

LG: NVIDIA GT 555m, Sandy Bridge i7, 13.3", 3.6 lbs. Coming Sept.

The fact that it has an SSD makes me think it will be $1500.

wow yes I want

MannishBoy wrote:

Now this is the kind of specs I've been looking for. Bet it's more than I want to spend.

LG: NVIDIA GT 555m, Sandy Bridge i7, 13.3", 3.6 lbs. Coming Sept.

The fact that it has an SSD makes me think it will be $1500.

Yeah...that looks really nice.. not a fan of LG laptops but I definitely be keeping an eye out for this in Sept.

Any of you guys hooked an m11x R2 up to a tv via hdmi? My friend has one we tried it on the weekend however I couldn't figure out how to get it to switch over from the intel card when we had the tv out working.. Any suggestions?

Mysteri0 wrote:

Any of you guys hooked an m11x R2 up to a tv via hdmi? My friend has one we tried it on the weekend however I couldn't figure out how to get it to switch over from the intel card when we had the tv out working.. Any suggestions?

I've done it, but only to watch 2d movies, so I dunno about gaming. I'd imagine that setting the nVidia to be the always active card would do the trick, though.

Tanglebones wrote:

I've done it, but only to watch 2d movies, so I dunno about gaming. I'd imagine that setting the nVidia to be the always active card would do the trick, though.

I thought so as well, but when I try and launch steam it always says that the intel card is running even though I've told it to use the nvidia card for everything.

Mysteri0 wrote:
Tanglebones wrote:

I've done it, but only to watch 2d movies, so I dunno about gaming. I'd imagine that setting the nVidia to be the always active card would do the trick, though.

I thought so as well, but when I try and launch steam it always says that the intel card is running even though I've told it to use the nvidia card for everything.

Stupid question - are you using the latest drivers for the video card?

Mysteri0 wrote:

Any of you guys hooked an m11x R2 up to a tv via hdmi? My friend has one we tried it on the weekend however I couldn't figure out how to get it to switch over from the intel card when we had the tv out working.. Any suggestions?

I don't have any suggestions, but I can tell you I have done this connection regularly without any trouble. Nothing special in my setup. Just plug the HDMI in and it automatically does it's thing. I played most of my Steam games almost exclusively on my TV for the first month or two of ownership until some of the new wore off.

Hope you get it worked out.

In the R1, the HDMI would only work if the nVidia card was running. Seems like Optimus is not working properly or not playing nice, at least, with Steam.

I wonder if the card is active and running and the error message is wrong? Or possibly right and it just stays inactive until a game launcher is kicked off?

Can you launch a game? How about outside of Steam?

R3 upgrade question - mine has 4 gigs of ram - is it worth it to upgrade to 8 or more?

Tanglebones wrote:

Stupid question - are you using the latest drivers for the video card?

I believe so, looking at the website the newest drivers are from last year, is there somewhere else to look for more up to date Optimus drivers?

heavyfeul wrote:

I wonder if the card is active and running and the error message is wrong? Or possibly right and it just stays inactive until a game launcher is kicked off?

Can you launch a game? How about outside of Steam?

It's possible, I set the global setting to use the nvidia card and to use the performance mode not compatibility mode.

I did try to launch Civ 5 but it just seemed to sit there at the steam game launch dialog.. I have to try messing around with it some more..

is it worth it to upgrade to 8 or more?

If you're on Win7 64-bit, more RAM means more drive cache, so the hard drive will feel faster, but the power for the extra RAM will reduce your battery life somewhat. An SSD will actually MAKE your drive faster, instead of partially hiding the slowness of what you have, and won't impair battery life at all.

If an SSD is within budget range, you'd probably like that better in a laptop. If it's not, then more RAM means trading a little battery life for a fair bit of perceived drive performance.

Mysteri0 wrote:
Tanglebones wrote:

I've done it, but only to watch 2d movies, so I dunno about gaming. I'd imagine that setting the nVidia to be the always active card would do the trick, though.

I thought so as well, but when I try and launch steam it always says that the intel card is running even though I've told it to use the nvidia card for everything.

Close the lid. I've found the Optimus has an issue pushing Nvidia on one screen and Intel on another. It may just not support using both at the same time.

This CNET review suggests the r3 will run Unreal Engine 3 games much faster than the r2, at least:

http://reviews.cnet.com/laptops/alie...

about a 50% speed increase.

Hemidal wrote:

Close the lid. I've found the Optimus has an issue pushing Nvidia on one screen and Intel on another. It may just not support using both at the same time.

Ahh okay I'll give that a try..

Mysteri0 wrote:
Tanglebones wrote:

Stupid question - are you using the latest drivers for the video card?

I believe so, looking at the website the newest drivers are from last year, is there somewhere else to look for more up to date Optimus drivers?

heavyfeul wrote:

I wonder if the card is active and running and the error message is wrong? Or possibly right and it just stays inactive until a game launcher is kicked off?

Can you launch a game? How about outside of Steam?

It's possible, I set the global setting to use the nvidia card and to use the performance mode not compatibility mode.

I did try to launch Civ 5 but it just seemed to sit there at the steam game launch dialog.. I have to try messing around with it some more..

There should be much more up to date drivers directly from nVidia: http://www.nvidia.com/Download/index...

Yeah you can't do that, those drivers are for laptops that aren't using Optimus.. from the notes section on the Support Products for the newest Verde drivers..

1. Notebooks supporting Hybrid Power technology with Intel chipsets are not supported by this release.

Mysteri0 wrote:

Yeah you can't do that, those drivers are for laptops that aren't using Optimus.. from the notes section on the Support Products for the newest Verde drivers..

1. Notebooks supporting Hybrid Power technology with Intel chipsets are not supported by this release.

Hybrid Power and Optimus are two different things, apparently.. I'm running the latest Verde's on my r3, and they're purring along beautifully

I just ran across this while looking for a laptop for a friend. I have the imported model from last generation (ATI GPU) and it is a nice little unit for those on a budget. Its significantly faster then my girlfriends MX11 i7 ULV. You can usually get Acers well below the MSRP once they have hit retail so this should go for under $700. I'm glad they finally started to smarten up and bring the dedicated graphics 13 in models to the US.

http://us.acer.com/ac/en/US/content/...

EvilDead wrote:

I just ran across this while looking for a laptop for a friend. I have the imported model from last generation (ATI GPU) and it is a nice little unit for those on a budget. Its significantly faster then my girlfriends MX11 i7 ULV. You can usually get Acers well below the MSRP once they have hit retail so this should go for under $700. I'm glad they finally started to smarten up and bring the dedicated graphics 13 in models to the US.

http://us.acer.com/ac/en/US/content/...

Amazon's got it listed (I've been looking at it).

Haven't seen a review yet.

I was thinking about getting it with the free Xbox tie in for college students (helps to have a college student around you can exploit for some of these deals).

That Acer is great in size and specs. Any Acer I've tried has felt extremely cheap and had subpar trackpads, though, so I wouldn't get one unless the reviews were very positive on the quality.

The timeline series is Acer's premier line and I have last years Canadian model. Its not build like the MX11 but with the aluminum plating it certainly feels more solid then all then your typical HP, Dell, or even the older macbook pro (pre-unibody). I hate trackpads in general and use a mouse most of the time. I haven't had problems when Ive had to use it though.

My main gripes are that the screen is real glossy and can be tough in the sun. Acer claimed 8 hours battery life but I get close to 4:30 - 5 with typical use.

Edit: Also, I'm not a fan of the floaty stile keys keyboard that they use either. Its easy for stuff to get under them.

meh.. you get what you pay for...at $750 you just wont ever get something with the build quality of a $1500 laptop... especially with those spec's listed. I would almost expect there to be some serious compromises (like its held together with bubblegum). I've never personally had many positive experiences with the $600-$800 laptop arena..

Still $750 for that laptop vs $1200 for the Alienware M11x is some serious savings.

EvilDead wrote:

I just ran across this while looking for a laptop for a friend. I have the imported model from last generation (ATI GPU) and it is a nice little unit for those on a budget. Its significantly faster then my girlfriends MX11 i7 ULV. You can usually get Acers well below the MSRP once they have hit retail so this should go for under $700. I'm glad they finally started to smarten up and bring the dedicated graphics 13 in models to the US.

http://us.acer.com/ac/en/US/content/...

This CPU throttling thing sounds very damning if true.

yeah...Acer will need to fix that asap.. unless some third party addon can do that for them.. but sounds like its for cooling purposes.

TheGameguru wrote:

yeah...Acer will need to fix that asap.. unless some third party addon can do that for them.. but sounds like its for cooling purposes.

I'm not sure it's not the CPU overheating and automatically doing that. I think somewhere in the notebookreview forum thread somebody mentioned the last gen having two fans vs the 3830's one.

There's also some battery complaints about new laptops reporting that battery life has already dropped by 10+ percent.