Aurora m9700

Have to be careful with Dell vs. AW comparisons in here almmohd. Seems we tend to get flooded with Dell fanboys whenever this comes up...

Dell doesn't have an SLI notebook, so the m9700 is unique in that regard, and the 3dMark05 benchmarks are showing about 10,000 with the m9700 as opposed to less than 9000 in the Dell with the 7900gtx512.

Real games will likely be different as SLI depends a lot on coding and the game you're playing, but I'd suspect they'll perform about the same in most games regarding frame rates.

I've seen very few problems so far with the m9700, seems to be a very popular model for Alienware. It is a very new platform though... For Dell issues, go to the Dell section and cruise the 17" laptop section.

AW tends to use very high quality hardware, moreso than Dell. For instance the screens AW uses are top of the line, the memory is high quality brand name, etc... Dell uses their own built to a price motherboards and other components like memory.

I personally have had very good experiences with Alienware, and I'm waiting on my sixth Alienware system since 1999 right now. Never owned a Dell personally.

IMO the m9700 is more attractive by a long shot... not that that is vital.

The only advantage I can see of the Dell is the dual core processor. It won't help much with games, but it will be beneficial if you heavily multi-task or run multi-threaded applications.

Good luck with your choice...

Before ordering my m9700 i did alot of comparing the m9700 to the Dell XPS 1710.
I had a strickt budget of 2100 euros.
The advantage the Dell XPX 1710 has over the m9700 is the Intel Core 2 Duo processor and the fact that you buy an XPS which gives you access to Dell's exclusive service.
Although i personally don't need a DualCore processor, it depends on how you plan to use your laptop. If you are, like Hammerhead said, a someone who multitasks, you are off best with the XPS (or anyother dualcore laptop).
If you choose it for gaming, i'd say the m9700.
What brought me to my decision was that i love the m9700 looks better then the Dell's looks. I love black/silver hardware, and i don't need fancy lights on a laptop. Only on a desktop .

which video card are you referring to?

the duel 7900 512mb score over 11K on 3dmark05, which makes it literally the most "graphics" powerful notebook available right now...I believe the xps/sager 5760 are around the 9k-10k range (which is really damn high too)...

the paint finish I believe is really good, I personally have yet to receive a "test" system from AW so I can write up an accurate review (AHEM, AW if you are listening...to effectively "moderate" these forums, I will need a "test" system in each color asap!...thanks!)

but from what everyone has said, I believe the paint is professional and very well done.

I don't believe dual core will help SLI with current games anyway. Games are "single thread" now which means they'd all run on one core anyway. With dual core processors they tend to be clocked lower due to the extra heat of the second core, so you might actually see better performance with a higher clocked single core with SLI. Also, all SLI functions have to be coordinated before sending the signal to the screen, so as I understand it all the duties of SLI will still also go through one core.

The only way dual core will help current games is by offloading any background processes to the second core, like virus protection, windows, or firewalls. Games will be multi-thread capable soon though, but from everything I've read it won't affect games much. Due to the graphics and sound needing to be syncrhonized, most of the game content will still be on a single thread, so peripherals will be handled by the second core so the gains will be there, but they'll be minimal.

Now with the SLI issues, SLI works great for programs that are optimized for it. If the game isn't coded to allow SLI it won't give you any advantage at all, it'll be like or slower even than playing on a single card. In that regard, the gs single card is about 70% of the performance of the gtx card, but at less than half the power. The single gs is more powerful than my desktop 6800 Ultra OC, so it's no slouch on it's own...

Games like the last splinter cell game are seeing up to 80% gains with SLI over a single card, but games with older coding like Counter Strike: Source can perform better on a single card depending on the rendering settings. That usually doesn't matter though as these games tend to run fine on a single card as they're usually older. SLI is fairly new and game manufacturers are now incorporating it into their coding.

Quake 4 is another game that doesn't do well with SLI. If you have a game that's limited by the processor, SLI will slow it down due to the extra work on the processor supporting the SLI chipset.

I think SLI will become more and more affective with future games as they improve the drivers, and manufacturers work with coding. I don't think Nvidia would introduce cards like the 7950 if SLI were a fad.

I don't think you'll go wrong with either a powerful single card, or SLI, but I'm betting SLI will get better and seems to be the direction of the future. Multiple core gpu's and cpu's seem to be the way things are moving now as you can clock everything lower and get more performance that way.

That article is talking about applications other than games, so yes the dual core processor will beat a single core processor.

The m5550 and m5750 offer that.

The reason the m9700 doesn't have core 2 duo in it is because it doesn't support SLI. That would be a good combo so you'd have dual core for applications and multi-tasking, but also SLI for game performance.

By the way, the Aurora 7700 has dual core AMD desktop processors inside, so there is a dual core with 7900gtx available from AW. I'm not aware that the dual core 7700 performs any better in games than the single core AMD 7700 model.

I would imagine Alienware will introduce a new SLI laptop when core 2 duo processors support SLI. Intel is working on it, but as of now they don't support SLI.

Well... The dual 7900 512 gets close to 10,000 stock, I was able to overclock it to over 11,000 but I wouldn't recommend overclocking a laptop. As I understand it the 7900gtx machines are in the low to mid 8000 range at stock clocks with the desktop processors, and I've only seen people that have overclocked the gtx go to the low 9000 range, I'm not aware of anyone beating 10,000 yet. I could be wrong but I haven't seen it.

The paint on the m9700 is much higher quality than my last AW notebook, which had durable paint. Not sure about longevity, but the silver paint anyway is glassy smooth and has a thick clearcoat on the lid.

Don't know what telephone cleaner is...

I clean my laptops with diluted simple green in a spray bottle, or warm water with a drop of dish soap in it. Detergents will strip any waxes, so after I clean them I put on a light coat of car wax with a soft cotton towel.

I wouldn't use solvents or abrasives like polish on any laptop paint unless I had a scuff I was trying to buff out.

i am deciding between m1710 and m9700. want m1710 for core 2 duo multitasking and m9700 for sli. I hear that it is possible to run 2 monitors in addition to the laptop monitor on the m9700 with two graphics cards (with sli turned off). Do you know anything about that?

With SLI enabled, you can only output to one screen. With a single card you can use multiple monitors.