I am also waiting for them to drop the i7 in the m17x. I am sitting on the money, wanting to order a jazzed out laptop (I usually build a desktop but wanted to splurge a bit this time). If by christmas they still don't have it available, I'll have to start shopping around.
Pity we haven't gotten an answer, as I have several co-workers that were also looking to order a 17inch i7 for their budding gamer children. Support was no help, and has convinced me to start looking elsewhere for my gaming laptop.
I went ahead and Ordered for my M17x with Quadcore and SLI
Why?
This model was released less about 6 months ago, unlikely there will be an upgrade for atleast another 6 months..
Secondly i7 will not make much difference in Gaming performance since most games don’t use more than two cores, hence the SLI is more important than i7. And with a lower end i7, games may perform worse because of the lower clock speed of i7’s. i7 has 4 cores with hyperthreading meaning virtually 8 cores which will only benefit multithreaded application which use all the cores. There were a couple of forums posts which stated that users had to turn off hyperthreading for the games to perform optimally.
Nothing in the market beats the M17x… both in looks and brawn
Do you have any references to back up these claims? Everything I've seen points to the i7 crushing the quadcores due to the "Turbo Boost" or whatever intel is calling it, where they push the active cpu with horsepower from the other cpu's, meaning even though there are 8 cores, it's cpu processing power is being boosted, which the quadcore cannot do. That alone would lead me to believe it would outplay a quadcore any day (which I thought was why dualcore has always been advocated as a smaller bottleneck compared to the quadcore when cranking out the tests).
I won't disagree with you on nothing is beating the m17x in the laptop market, but that doesn't mean it's not time for them to upgrade.
If you're looking to get a gaming laptop, I recommend you check out this forum post by me, while it's my experience with my M17x, I am still using it, as I'm hoping for a fix.
My M17x and DPC Latency, Stuttering, and Lock Ups I'm by no means trying to convince you not to purchase it, however I want you to be completely informed with your purchase. I am not the only one who's experiencing this either, there are many others and 100's of posts regarding these issues, which I believe are all inter-related, over at Notebook Reviews Alienware section.
I agree - it will probably be summer before Dell comes out with an M17x replacement.
I really wanted a heavily optioned M17x, but instead chose an M15x with nearly identical specs just to get the core i7 processor. I compared the relative performance of the i7 920 XM and the QX9300. I don't game too much, but do a lot of video editing and the extra performance of the i7 made it worth it to me.
In my particular case the difference between features was the loss of 17" screen and the RAID-0 drive.
It should be here in the first week or two of December!
I decided to check if the i7 processor is actually compatible with the mx17 which in this picture it appears to say "desktop", so I guess that's the problem & that
the mx15 had just degraded their i7 to be a bit more up to date, but I guess they can't do an overpowered one for the laptop..
Please be something to contradict this as I really want this processor :(
The Core i7 Mobile uses a totally different socket from the Core 2 Duo/Core 2 Quad. The new socket is called Socket 989. In other words, a total mainboard redesign is needed for the i7 vs. the older Socket P designs - -- chances are the i7 won't come in the M17x, ever -- it will wait for a new model to be released.
It goes without saying that existing M17x systems cannot be upgraded to the i7 CPU.
vivektj
5 Posts
0
November 3rd, 2009 08:00
I'm waiting for it too... Any info will be appreciated...
Holding off on the purchase till then...
Pantsalot
2 Posts
0
November 3rd, 2009 14:00
Same, I asked live support but the guy said he had no information on it..
Looks like they'll instead want to replace the M17x with some other laptop that will have the i7 instead by the looks of it.
lews001
3 Posts
0
November 3rd, 2009 15:00
I am also waiting for them to drop the i7 in the m17x. I am sitting on the money, wanting to order a jazzed out laptop (I usually build a desktop but wanted to splurge a bit this time). If by christmas they still don't have it available, I'll have to start shopping around.
lews001
3 Posts
0
November 13th, 2009 12:00
Pity we haven't gotten an answer, as I have several co-workers that were also looking to order a 17inch i7 for their budding gamer children. Support was no help, and has convinced me to start looking elsewhere for my gaming laptop.
vivektj
5 Posts
0
November 13th, 2009 16:00
I went ahead and Ordered for my M17x with Quadcore and SLI
Why?
This model was released less about 6 months ago, unlikely there will be an upgrade for atleast another 6 months..
Secondly i7 will not make much difference in Gaming performance since most games don’t use more than two cores, hence the SLI is more important than i7. And with a lower end i7, games may perform worse because of the lower clock speed of i7’s. i7 has 4 cores with hyperthreading meaning virtually 8 cores which will only benefit multithreaded application which use all the cores. There were a couple of forums posts which stated that users had to turn off hyperthreading for the games to perform optimally.
Nothing in the market beats the M17x… both in looks and brawn
lews001
3 Posts
0
November 13th, 2009 16:00
Do you have any references to back up these claims? Everything I've seen points to the i7 crushing the quadcores due to the "Turbo Boost" or whatever intel is calling it, where they push the active cpu with horsepower from the other cpu's, meaning even though there are 8 cores, it's cpu processing power is being boosted, which the quadcore cannot do. That alone would lead me to believe it would outplay a quadcore any day (which I thought was why dualcore has always been advocated as a smaller bottleneck compared to the quadcore when cranking out the tests).
I won't disagree with you on nothing is beating the m17x in the laptop market, but that doesn't mean it's not time for them to upgrade.
Aedaric
4 Posts
0
November 15th, 2009 17:00
If you're looking to get a gaming laptop, I recommend you check out this forum post by me, while it's my experience with my M17x, I am still using it, as I'm hoping for a fix.
My M17x and DPC Latency, Stuttering, and Lock Ups I'm by no means trying to convince you not to purchase it, however I want you to be completely informed with your purchase. I am not the only one who's experiencing this either, there are many others and 100's of posts regarding these issues, which I believe are all inter-related, over at Notebook Reviews Alienware section.
Aedaric
Terry_R
19 Posts
0
November 16th, 2009 10:00
I agree - it will probably be summer before Dell comes out with an M17x replacement.
I really wanted a heavily optioned M17x, but instead chose an M15x with nearly identical specs just to get the core i7 processor. I compared the relative performance of the i7 920 XM and the QX9300. I don't game too much, but do a lot of video editing and the extra performance of the i7 made it worth it to me.
In my particular case the difference between features was the loss of 17" screen and the RAID-0 drive.
It should be here in the first week or two of December!
Pantsalot
2 Posts
0
November 26th, 2009 09:00
I decided to check if the i7 processor is actually compatible with the mx17 which in this picture it appears to say "desktop", so I guess that's the problem & that
the mx15 had just degraded their i7 to be a bit more up to date, but I guess they can't do an overpowered one for the laptop..
Please be something to contradict this as I really want this processor :(
ejn63
9 Legend
•
87.5K Posts
0
November 26th, 2009 10:00
The Core i7 Mobile uses a totally different socket from the Core 2 Duo/Core 2 Quad. The new socket is called Socket 989. In other words, a total mainboard redesign is needed for the i7 vs. the older Socket P designs - -- chances are the i7 won't come in the M17x, ever -- it will wait for a new model to be released.
It goes without saying that existing M17x systems cannot be upgraded to the i7 CPU.