They did it again!

Alienware has done it again! With their dedication to finding very custom, high performance notebooks I just purchased my 4th Alienware notebook in < 4 years.

The m15x will fit me like a glove!

One slight difference this time, price kind of matters… so I went with:

Display: 15.4" WideUXGA 1920 x 1200 LCD (1200p)
System Lighting: Alienware® AlienFX® System Lighting - Blue
Video/Graphics Card: 512MB NVIDIA® GeForce® 8800M GTX
Processor: Intel® Core™ 2 Duo T9300 2.5GHz (6MB Cache 800MHz FSB)
Operating System (Office software not included): Windows Vista® Home Premium with Service Pack 1
- I have a non OEM license for Vista Ultimate x86 & x64. Also a non OEM license for XP pro just sitting here, doing nothing, so I went with the cheapest
Notebook Tuners and Remotes: Without Media Center Remote Control or TV Tuner
Memory: 1GB Dual Channel DDR2 SO-DIMM at 667MHz – 2 x 512MB
- I’m staring at 2 GB of 667Mhz CAS4 dimms now, so again with the cheapest…
Turbo Cache Memory: Intel® Turbo Memory (1GB) – Accelerate Data Transfer Speed
Available on Windows Vista Only!
System Drive: 160GB 5,400RPM Hybrid Drive w/ 256MB flash memory
Optical Drives : 8x Dual Layer Burner (DVD±RW, CD-RW)
Wireless: Internal Intel® Wireless 4965 a/b/g/Draft-N Mini-Card
Sound Card : Internal High-Definition Audio with surround sound
Keyboard Options: Non-Illuminated Keyboard – Exclusive Design
Warranty: 1-Year AlienCare Toll-Free 24/7 Phone Support w/ Onsite Service

[1] Gaming Season Bonus; Free Shipping

SubTotal: $2,249.00
Shipping: $50.00
Discount: $50.00
Tax: $112.45
Order Total: $2,611.45 (price quota meet*kind of*, PERFECT!)

I am very excited about this one, mainly for the UXGA 15” & GTX GPU.
Just over a year ago, when I got the m5550, it was nearly impossible to find 15” UXGA notebooks. And the ones that did never offered anything above a low grade GPU. AW was one of 2 vendors that offered 15” UXGA with at least a mid grade GPU at the time.

Now, with my 15” UXGA and GTX card I’ll be one very happy man. I’m also very excited about the hybrid drive. I know a standard 7200 RPM disk should outperform this 5400 RPM with 256MB flash, but I’m interested in the battery life result. I honestly wished they offered this drive at 7200RPM.

I know a lot of people come to NBF looking for build advice and use post like these to base their purchase. I see a lot of misconceptions about getting the UXGA screen vs. the XGA. The biggest misconception is that “UXGA is too small for me to see!” and this is not true.
Yes, by default the screen, icons, text, etc will all appear much smaller, that’s simply because windows default settings are based on XGA screens. With your UXGA screen they will be smaller by default.

But it is so simple to change this. You’ll want to adjust your DPI settings. The default DPI in XP and Vista is 96 DPI, this is ideal for XGA screens. You’ll probably want to bump that up to about 120-130 DPI when using a UXGA screen. This will make all your icons, text, ect as large as they were on an XGA screen. But while gaming or watching a movie, the resolution will be the full 1920x1200 (you can call that 1200p) vs the 720p you’ll get out of XGA.

If you have the money for a UXGA screen, I highly recommend you chose that, the display difference from XGA to UXGA while gaming can be described as “amazing”.

These two screen shot show the difference of a 15” UXGA one at 96DPI (default) the other at 130DPI (you may have to un-resize the images to see it properly. click them)

15" UXGA 96DPI


Same PC 130DPI


Dont know if that helps at all.

thats the same as dropping UXGA all togeather... may as well save the money. Sorry but i dont see your point.

I see. yes there are a few out there that do not scale properly. I run a few professional apps (HP Openview/service desk) which are Java based that don’t scale at all. I mean they are still 96DPI no matter what you set it to (go Java!...) My point was people should not base their screen resolutions because "its too small" and should only be based on "its to expensive". you change DPI and only that small % of apps will not scale. You can change your res if necessary during these rare events. pretty much anyone coming to NBF asking this type question would be running apps that scale fine like Office, IE, etc. I just saw way to many improper post of "i went for the XGA because my eyes can’t take UXGA" which is just plain wrong, sorry. Its only because Windows default is optimized for XGA screens, a standard set in 1990

Rod trust me i'm hurting on the processor... this was where the $$$ came into place... but the pricing is weird right not and I could not justify anything better. From what you said, drop the UXGA but with the money saved you could only upgrade to the 2.4 3MB L2… woopie! Honestly the only processor upgrade I see justifiable was the 2.5Ghz / 6MB L2, and at that point the X9000 is reasonable… but that’s an extra $1000 @@. For that price, with this identical config I could upgrade a m17x to 8800M GTX SLI… so ya… I was also a bit concerned about heat… Idk, hope i dont regreat that one, not much using 2Ghz gaming wise today.

Bah, when you’re right you’re right! Fork it I’m going for the C2D T9300 2.5Ghz /w 6MB L2. Just changed the order

Good call as always HH! and you're not kidding about AW processor prices.
My initial assessment was wrong though, the prices are completely unreasonable at the 2.6Ghz line.
From the standard it will cost you and extra $250 to go from 2.1 to the 2.5Ghz with 6mb L2, not too bad concerning the upgrade. But to go from the 2.5 to the 2.6, its an extra $275, what!? $275 for 100Mhz? who’s in charge of pricing there anyway lol. Then “only” another $375 to go from 2.6 to 2.8, out of control…

But I'm happy with the 2.5Ghz, really wanted that extra cache. It was actually a downgrade from my existing m5550 with 2.1Ghz /w 4MB L2 on the origianl processor selected.