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Questions! Area-51 m5550 and Gaming? Help!

post #1 of 14
9/1/06 at 8:15pm
Thread Starter 
I'm looking for a nice laptop that will play World of Warcraft, as well as a few other games (Huxley, Halo, Counter Strike:Source, Doom 3) reasonably well. Currently, I configured a m5500 with 1.83GHz processor, 1GB Ram, and the 256MB Geforece Go 7600. How will this system perform in WoW at 1024x768 resolution with the video settings on High? Approximately how many frames would I receive in low pop areas? High pop? Raids? (I turn the settings in raids down for optimal performance). Besides WoW, please comment with any other games anyone may have played on this system, and the experience you had. I will mainly be playing WoW, so the performance in that game will be most influential in my pruchase decision. Im really looking for a nice, stable yet fast, notebook for general day-to-day computing and some good performance in WoW and maybe another game such as Huxley/Quake/Doom. ANY COMMENTS YOU HAVE ON ANY GAMING PERFORMANCE ON THIS MACHINE IS APPRECIATED! Thanks for any help you all can give! Suggestions, comments and pictures are appreciated!


Alienware Area-51 m5550
Intel® Core™ 2 Duo Processor T5500 1.83GHz 2MB Cache 667MHz FSB
1GB Dual Channel DDR2 SO-DIMM at 667MHz
80GB Serial ATA 1.5Gb/s 5,400 RPM w/ NCQ & 8MB Cache
8X Dual Layer DVD+/-RW / 24X CD-RW
256MB NVidia® GeForce™ Go 7600
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post #2 of 14
9/2/06 at 12:42am
You will be able to play WoW just fine - and probably at close to max settings with that setup. People are just getting their m5550s, so probably haven't had too much time for testing yet. I have the previous version, m5500 with the go 6600 GPU, and it is a good gaming system. I can play Guild Wars at high settings with frame rates >50 for the most part. My understanding is Guild Wars is similar to WoW wrt graphics demands (maybe a bit more so). Just finished Titan Quest, and it was very playable at medium/high settings (this is a more demanding game than GW).

You've got a better CPU and video card than I do...so I imagine you'll be fine. While 1GB of RAM will work for you, you may want to order it with only 512MB, and then get 2GB from Newegg or somewhere similar.

Fact is, the m5550 is one of the best 15.4" gaming machines on the market now. Good luck on your decision.
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post #3 of 14
9/2/06 at 1:39am
Just received my m5550 and loading wow on it as we speak. Actually copying from another computer, patch downloads are huge now.

I only have 512MB in the system right now, but I ordered the low latency from Alienware after my order. Only 218.00 for 1gbx2.

I'll let you know what kind of FPS I'm getting etc..
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post #4 of 14
9/2/06 at 2:25am
Thread Starter 
Thanks! Sounds like a good idea ird the ram. Also, please post the results of WoW with the 512! THANKS!
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post #5 of 14
9/2/06 at 2:31am
Quote:
Originally Posted by Motormouth2416
Thanks! Sounds like a good idea ird the ram. Also, please post the results of WoW with the 512! THANKS!

You can get 2x 1GB Ram from Newegg now for $170 - $200, depending on which brand you pick. It's not the low latency that AW sells, but not sure that really is important if you're not o'clocking...
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post #6 of 14
9/2/06 at 2:39am
Quote:
Originally Posted by Motormouth2416
Thanks! Sounds like a good idea ird the ram. Also, please post the results of WoW with the 512! THANKS!

Running WOW on the Native Screen (1280x800) with the 512RAM runs about 45 -55FPS. That is outside of huts and buildings. In huts and buildings 60fps. Now when I went to heavy loaded places like IF, thats when I got killed because of the lack of ram. But the system did load the people and ran awesome. However, it did get jumpy cause of the lack of RAM.

Settings were 1280x800, multisampler 24bit x 24bit x 4x. Everything turned HIGH except distance is in the middle. Level of Detail is uncheck (check to increase performance; no need) and Trilleaner Filtering checked along with V-Sync.

But if you go into crowded places like IF, etc.. you need RAM!

Performance of this machine is very impressive with WOW. Almost performs better then my wifes M170 and that has the 7800GTX in it.
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post #7 of 14
9/2/06 at 2:40am
Quote:
Originally Posted by shazza
You can get 2x 1GB Ram from Newegg now for $170 - $200, depending on which brand you pick. It's not the low latency that AW sells, but not sure that really is important if you're not o'clocking...

From what I've read, you can't OC the ram in this notebook. But going with the low latency ram it'll give you a speed increase of like 2-3%, basically impossible to tell.
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post #8 of 14
9/2/06 at 2:55am
Quote:
Originally Posted by djinn
From what I've read, you can't OC the ram in this notebook. But going with the low latency ram it'll give you a speed increase of like 2-3%, basically impossible to tell.
Yep - that's my understanding too. Certainly can't hurt, but for those on a budget, CAS 5 Ram should be fine. EDIT...djinn...just to confirm. You got 2 x 1GB for $218 from Alienware? I thought it was just 1GB when I first read it. Crazy that it's cheaper to buy it separately...
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post #9 of 14
9/2/06 at 6:26am
Actually, you cant overclock anything in the m5550.

There are no BIOS settings, of course, to overclock the CPU.

And as far as the GPU (Go 7600) goes, the factory settings of 450/350 are locked in the card's BIOS. So even though you can enable the standard nvidia Coolbits.reg hack, you can't change the settings of the card. You can move the sliders around, but you aren't doing anything whatsoever to the card. As soon as you close the window, the program shows they are back at the factory settings of 450/350

Don't buy an alienware thing you are going to be able to get a few more mhz out of the chip or the video card, 'cause in the m5550, you ain't getting either.

If some has been able to find a way to overclock the CPU and/or GPU, PLEASE let us know.
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post #10 of 14
9/2/06 at 1:41pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by shazza
Yep - that's my understanding too. Certainly can't hurt, but for those on a budget, CAS 5 Ram should be fine.

EDIT...djinn...just to confirm. You got 2 x 1GB for $218 from Alienware? I thought it was just 1GB when I first read it. Crazy that it's cheaper to buy it separately...

Here is what I ordered.

Item(s) Ordered:
\t[Item:PDP 1GB DDR2 PC5300 SO-DIMM AW98 ELP, Qty:2]
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post #11 of 14
9/2/06 at 4:16pm
Anyone know what the battery life is on the m5500? like when playing dvd's and also while under load.
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post #12 of 14
9/2/06 at 4:24pm
Thread Starter 
I read with everythign on max 1hr 40 minutes, and with it on low *wifi off, screen brightness on low, etc* around 2hr 40 minutes. Check around for some other posts.
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post #13 of 14
9/4/06 at 4:37am
Quote:
Originally Posted by Motormouth2416
I read with everythign on max 1hr 40 minutes, and with it on low *wifi off, screen brightness on low, etc* around 2hr 40 minutes. Check around for some other posts.


What power-management program are m5550 people using? One did not come installed on my laptop, just the very basic default windows one. And as far as I know, with the windows power management program, you can't set specific components to turn off when you go to battery power (Ie, card reader, wired LAN, etc)
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post #14 of 14
9/4/06 at 8:03am
Quote:
Originally Posted by skypine27
If some has been able to find a way to overclock the CPU and/or GPU, PLEASE let us know.

Normally, you could dump your vBios and use a tool like nBitor to change clocks, but the 7xxx series is currently not supported by any bios dump tools, so you'll have to wait a bit untill they figure it out.

That said: you won't find significant better gaming performance in any 15,4" notebook out there. Comparable? Yes? Marginally better? Perhaps, but a 7600/x1600 GPU in a 15,4" is currently the max.
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