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  • rsandoz - Monday, October 3, 2011 - link

    What about the case?

    I believe the m17xr3 is plastic.

    The m18x has an aluminum case. I actually own this with 6790 CF. This one was of the deciding factors as I have own the m17xr1 and m17xr2. When I saw the r3 had a plastic case much like my m11xr1 with cracking hinge problem, I decided against it. Didn't want to talke a change on cracking hinges again. Probably not the case, but an aluminum case feels much more solid.
  • rsandoz - Monday, October 3, 2011 - link

    <<Wish I could edit posts. Spell corrected.>>

    What about the case?

    I believe the m17xr3 is plastic.

    The m18x has an aluminum case. I actually own one with 6790 CF. This one was of the deciding factors as I have owned the m17xr1 and m17xr2. When I saw the r3 had a plastic case much like my m11xr1 with cracking hinge problem, I decided against it. Didn't want to take a chance on cracking hinges again. Probably not the case, but an aluminum case feels much more solid.
  • Dustin Sklavos - Monday, October 3, 2011 - link

    The M18x's case only has an aluminum plate on the lid and aluminum trim, at least as far as I can tell. I honestly didn't find the build quality to be radically different enough from the M17x R3 to merit mentioning.
  • rsandoz - Tuesday, October 4, 2011 - link

    My main cause for concern was the "after 6 or so months factor". Does the m17xr3 have a cracking hinge issue after 6 months. I had an m11xr1 and after 8 months the hinges cracked internally. Felt like the ultimate hooptie laptop. Plus the plastic case has more scratches on it than my m17xr2.
  • Death666Angel - Monday, October 3, 2011 - link

    Seeing how this is pretty much a desktop in most terms, I would like to know what kind of PSU is shipped with the unit. Also, could you provide power consumption while gaming/stressing the system with the different setups? I'd be interested in the difference between the nVidia and AMD GPUs used here. :-)
    Otherwise, a good review and a monster of a laptop. Nothing for me though.
  • Ushio01 - Monday, October 3, 2011 - link

    Buy the Core i7-2860QM instead it has same base clock with higher turbo boost and a 10W lower TDP for $500 less.
  • JarredWalton - Monday, October 3, 2011 - link

    That doesn't make a review "meaningless". The TDP is simply maximum power; in most loads you won't hit that level. As for saving $500, sure, go for it, but remember you'd also give up overclocking of the CPU. If you're already willing to spend around $3500 for this sort of notebook, what's another $500 to boost CPU speeds from 2.5GHz base and 3.6GHz max to 3.5GHz base and 4.2GHz max. With GTX 580M SLI, you'll probably actually realize a performance improvement from the CPU overclock in games.
  • Ushio01 - Monday, October 3, 2011 - link

    Sorry I never meant the review was worthless in itself just the out of date CPU.
  • JarredWalton - Monday, October 3, 2011 - link

    Understood, but I'm pointing out that the overclockable CPU might be worth the upgrade price, at least if you're willing to spend this much in the first place (I'm not). The i7-2860QM has the same base clock, but unfortunately the laptop Alienware sent is using the earlier i7-2920XM instead of the newer i7-2960XM. Either way, the XM model CPUs will get you unlocked multipliers and the ~$500 28x0QM chips won't.
  • aznofazns - Monday, October 3, 2011 - link

    I'm not sure you'd run into any significant CPU bottlenecks with a stock i7-2860M, though.

    The argument that the $3500 already spent justifies the additional $500 for the unlocked multiplier doesn't really make sense. The $3500 is a sunk cost. It's already gone and shouldn't affect the decision to spend more on the CPU.

    The real question is... what is the marginal benefit of the 2920XM over the 2860M? Would you really be seeing significantly higher framerates? I'd say probably not. The dual GTX580M's in SLI would still be the bottleneck for gaming at 1080p, unless I'm mistaken.
  • Meaker10 - Monday, October 3, 2011 - link

    Not when you unlock the higher core voltage, bump up the core speed to GTX560Ti speeds =D
  • bennyg - Wednesday, October 5, 2011 - link

    At least the XM offers overclocking. The 2820/2860 compared with 2720/2760 just offers a couple hundred MHz for hundreds extra... and I challenge ANYONE to feel the difference a few % in CPU speed makes.

    However very few laptops use the HM67 chipset which is required to OC with multipliers, most (like my P150HM) have HM65 which can't. So unless you're willing to fork out for a top end model it is meaningless to you, but not to those who are the target market
  • Amrosorma - Monday, October 3, 2011 - link

    Would it be possible to get a quick and dirty look at how the notebook performs with the Battlefield 3 open beta?

    I imagine that's the game everyone is wondering about with regards to performance.
  • AmdInside - Monday, October 3, 2011 - link

    Agreed. As soon as I saw this, jumped straight to the Gaming Performance section in hopes of finding BF3 benchmarks.
  • JarredWalton - Monday, October 3, 2011 - link

    The BF3 beta is pretty bad in terms of working properly. When there are all sorts of bugs (falling through the world floor, for instance), I'd wager performance won't be optimal either. We're planning to add the full BF3 release to our mobile benchmarks when it becomes available, along with Rage, Skyrim, and some other updates, but that will probably be another two months before we make the switch.
  • Stuka87 - Monday, October 3, 2011 - link

    Yes the beta is buggy. But I would have loved to see an unoffcial benchmark. Doesnt have to be in the graphics. But just a line or two that says "I tried the BF3 Beta, and FRAPs reported these results with these settings". Just so we would have an idea as to if this machine would run BF3.
  • jrs77 - Monday, October 3, 2011 - link

    C'mon, for that amount of money a matte screen should be standard. :facepalm:

    BTW... why are glossy screens even manufactured anymore these days? They should get dumped alltogether.
  • Darkstone - Monday, October 3, 2011 - link

    Because some people, including me, like glossy screens for the deep white they provide? I don't like matte because of the noise.
  • JojoKracko - Wednesday, October 5, 2011 - link

    Damn right. Matte should be standard on laptops. Ban the glossy crap. I would never pay this much for a laptop with a glossy screen. (sadly) I'll be sticking with single GPU MSI laptops.
  • yelped - Monday, October 3, 2011 - link

    Although you mentioned that Metro 2033 is a un-optimized title, you failed to mention that Crysis 2 with DX11 is even worse. Check out this article for more details. http://techreport.com/articles.x/21404&source=...
  • JarredWalton - Monday, October 3, 2011 - link

    There's a reason Crysis 2 didn't make our list of games to benchmark, and it won't be on the updated list at the end of the year either.
  • yelped - Monday, October 3, 2011 - link

    Thanks for the quick and honest reply.
  • Filiprino - Monday, October 3, 2011 - link

    Truth be told, apart from brick walls and some other things, I had a hard time finding big differences between DX11 and DX9 versions, but my GTX460 took the hit.
  • NikolaPublicola - Monday, October 3, 2011 - link

    Seriously Sli on a mobile platform is not viable, I feel sorry for people spending this much money, and despite having solid FPS getting a jerky gaming experience.

    Anand can you please add Micro stutter benchmarks.

    Even a desktop card such as a 6990, struggles with enough memory bandwidth top avoid micro-stutter, I therefore can't see how a mobile solution could be anything but worse, of course I could be wrong which is why I would really like to see a benchmark analysis.
  • Dustin Sklavos - Tuesday, October 4, 2011 - link

    Micro-stutter is next to impossible to actually benchmark; the entire industry struggles with it at pretty much every level.
  • Evil_Sheep - Tuesday, October 4, 2011 - link

    The reviewer talks about the M18x like there is such a thing as too much power. Well nobody lusts after a 1000hp V12 Ferrari because they actually need to get 0-60 in 3.2s. Practicality and sensibility are thrown out the window in the market's stratosphere: that is, frankly, the main draw.
  • slacr - Tuesday, October 4, 2011 - link

    The first page mentioned it would rival many a desktop, yet the closest thing to a desktop found in the benchmarks is the desktop CPU in the Clevo. How does it stack up to an i7-2600k with say a 6950 or 560Ti?
  • JarredWalton - Tuesday, October 4, 2011 - link

    You'll have to compile the scores yourself if you want to see a chart, but we use the same benchmarks for desktops as on laptops (only at 1080p standardized). Here's the latest system review, with some very high-end systems, but there are also some lower spec GPU configs:
    http://www.anandtech.com/show/4864/3

    It generally places just below the SLI GTX 470 setup Dustin tested, and slightly lower than the SLI GTX 560 Ti config as well. A few games score lower than expected, but the M18x is faster than most single GPU desktops -- at least until you add the GTX 580.
  • Bolas - Thursday, October 6, 2011 - link

    When can we see the continuation of this article, part 2?

    I would love to read about the Radeon 6990m Crossfire performance.
  • Blibbax - Friday, October 7, 2011 - link

    A lot of people are talking about CPU and GPU overclocking as one of the benefits of this laptop. Is the power supply and cooling system up to the challenge?
  • punchcore47 - Friday, October 7, 2011 - link

    How about matching up performance for crossfire 6990M?
  • Matrices - Saturday, October 22, 2011 - link

    " on most other gaming laptops, and the keyboard is still light years better than anything you'll get on a Clevo. And say what you will about the lighting, but until you've played with it and decided you were going to be the only BMF walking around with a laptop that glows violet, you can't truly say it's tacky."

    /Looks down at own M17x R3...

    Hey, there's nothing tacky about purple, I mean, sophisticated red melded with blue lighting scheme!

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