Alienware m17x or SAGER NP9262

GTA4 will not run at max settings on ANY laptop. Hell you are lucky to get that game to run at all.

http://www.actiontrip.com/rei/commen...ml?id=120408_2

http://www.neoseeker.com/news/9353-p...v-pc-reported/

http://www.gametrailers.com/player/43929.html

http://www.1up.com/do/newsStory?cId=3171648

http://arstechnica.com/journals/thum...sk-for-refunds

It depends on how your configure both of those laptops as to which on is better. AW, Falcon Northwest, Hypersonic, and a few of the other "High End" gaming laptops are just rebranded Sagers. So which ever one is giving you the best price and is CLOSE to where your going to be for warranty is who I would go with. AW is in Florida, Miami/Kendall area.

this is a piece of shit game...i dont know why u must spend a lot of money to play this game,**** it..

dont know about max settings but you should be able to run it above medium.

This is misleading. None of these notebooks are rebranded Sagers.

Sager is based in California and has been in business since 1985.

Alienware is owned by Dell and are basically just Dell computers with the Alienware brand name.

Clevo is a company in Taiwan that makes computer components which are used by many high end brands such as Sager and a couple of the others in the above list. Alienware also used to use Clevo components until Dell bought them so now they use Dell components.

Obviously the core components such as CPU, graphics card, motherboard chipset, RAM, hard drives, etc, are made by the respective manufacturers that make those products and they're pretty much the same components in all notebooks. Most OEMs such as Dell, HP, or Sager don't guarantee which subcomponents will be used. For example they don't guarantee that you will have a Toshiba or a Western Digital hard drive. They will of course guarantee the major components such as which CPU or GPU you select and who makes that.

Clevo based notebooks typically make up the very high end segment of the market and are very high quality parts. In my opinion the old Alienware is dead and the new Alienware computers are just Dells and have gone downhill. Not that there's anything wrong with Dell but they bought the Alienware name so they can sell overpriced computers based on the Alienware brand name. It's not the same thing. They are still Dells.

If you want to directly compare the performance of the SAGER NP9262 to the Alienware m17x the Sager will outperform the Alienware at every price point. This is because the Sager uses the faster 1GB 9800M GTX compared to the 512MB 9800M GT in the Alienware. Also the Sager uses desktop Core 2 Duo and Quad CPUs compared to the mobile processors in the Alienware. The CPU options in the Sager are significantly faster and in fact the slowest option available for the Sager is faster than the fastest CPU available for the Alienware.

This statement is very misleading since you can't combine the video memory from two graphics cards. Yes there may be physically 1GB total memory on the computer but the effective video memory in the above configuration is still only 512MB.

I find this statement amusing because it implies that you need these CPUs to play DirectX 10 games. It's almost as if Dell is marketing these notebooks to people who know nothing about computers. The old Alienware would not have done this.

There is one advantage the Alienware has over the Sager....HDMI. Sager has a DVI port still but this is meaningless since (I'm pretty sure) you still can't output audio through the HDMI with NVidia graphics cards so it's no different than using a DVI to HDMI cable with the Sager.

This would depend a lot on the screen resolution you select. You can select the Sager with a lower screen resolution which would make the games run faster at native resolution.

On the other hand, either notebook equipped with SLI will play this game at high to maximum settings smoothly.

A fully equipped Sager NP9262 with a quad core processor and dual 9800M GTX cards in SLI would be by far the fastest configuration you could buy in either notebook. In fact the 9262 (and similar Clevo D901 models) is still the fastest notebook you can buy today for any money and by a good margin.

Sager is the cheapest out of all the rebranded Clevos/(Cant remeber the other company is.) AW still uses Clevo/Other Company (not Dell) that is why there laptops still look like Sager/FN/Hypersonic/etc and not Dell laptops.

Alien. You are looking at a desk top replace ment NOT a notebook. You need to understand that it is going to run HOT, barley have any battery life, and be very heavy well you are moving it around. If you plan on hooking it up and leaving it some where a desktop may be better for what you want.

Not all AW laptops are Clevo's. If I remember correctly, the m15x and m17x are not Clevo's. Heck, even my AW is from the Uniwill platform, not Clevo. After the Clevo D900 series problems AW stopped using them (Theirs was the AW m7700 which had horrific heat/mobo issues), and went to the Arima and Uniwill platforms.

And as for the 'Rebranded Dell' statement, I beg to differ. If AW's products are just rebranded Dell's then why don't I see the same items for sale on Dell's website with the Dell logo on them? Sure, you can gain access to the AW website via Dell but that doesn't necessarily mean that they are the same products.

But to bring this back on topic, let me say that either the Sager or the AW is just a matter of personal preference. Monetarily speaking the Sager will save you some money.

Try this link which is a list of AW system reviews from users on this forum. The first few are of the m15x I do believe...

AW reviews Linky

Alienware is owned by Dell. They aren't rebranded Dells. They have different cases but they get their components from Dell. Sager sells rebranded Clevos but they aren't owned by Clevo, they are independent as are the other OEMs that build and sell Clevo computers. The Clevo D901 is unique among laptops in that it uses faster desktop components making it a little thicker, heavier, cheaper, and faster than other 17" notebooks. Among other Intel based notebooks (other than the Clevo D901) they are all pretty much the same on the inside from one brand to another differing only by brand name and component selection.

Where are you getting the idea that AW uses Dell internal components?

Where else would they get them?

Alienware is still operated as a separate company but it is wholy owned by Dell. Kind of like how Saturn is part of GM except that Alienware was purchased rather than created by it's parent company. Reduced economies of scale is achieved by pooling resources such as suppliers and component manufacture. Dell has in fact scaled back their XPS line and replace those high end XPS systems with Alienware systems. When the acquisition was first being considered Alienware still used AMD processors and there was talk about Dell using AMD processors also since they were planning on pooling such resources. It wasn't a secret or anything. Obviously AMD fell behind Intel and it became a non issue so Alienware systems simply switched over to Intel systems like all other Dell systems and everybody else.

This is what I'm talking about when I say they get their internal components from Dell, which they do. It's not intended as an insult or to imply that Dell components are lower quality than other OEMs but simply to point out that they are no longer the Clevo based systems they built their reputation on in the past. The value of Alienware is more about the customer service they are famous for. I'm pretty sure that Dell would not be interested in allowing Alienware to sell modified Clevos just so they could claim the high end performance crown. It's possible that they are working on a proprietary design of their own to compete with the Clevo flagship but I haven't heard anything and they would probably keep it secret.

I dont own an alienware so you're not offending me. Though you have yet to provide any proof of what you're saying. Uniwill was the last ODM for AW and as far as I can see online thay has not changed.

I don't know how to prove it. Just google it.

Michael Dell himself said in the original press release after the acquisition two years ago that it would allow them to pool their resources to reduce costs. I may be wrong but I believe Dell is a limited ODM even with their laptops. This is why their stuff is so different than other brands. Since Dell is an ODM it would make no sense to acquire components from another ODM unless there were some kind of supply problem, in which case it would make economic sense to remedy the situation. It would be like ASUS selling Clevo based systems or Saturn contracting Toyota to build their chassis (although that might actually be more likely given the current situation of GM), you simply wouldn't expect that. Obviously the transition didn't happen overnight and AW didn't cancel their entire lineup to accommodate the interests of the parent company but it would make no sense to use a third party ODM for new models. If Dell isn't making their own compnents in these cases it's going to make sense to at least pool their purchasing power with other ODMs. The real problem here is that Dell is very secretive about where they get their stuff.

Go back to the Saturn analogy....do you think if Toyota were to purchase the Saturn name if GM needs to downsize they would continue to be GM cars? Of course not, they would become Toyotas. It wouldn't happen overnight but factories would be retooled and designs changed. The same thing happened when Daimler merged with Chrysler (or more like the acquisition of Chrysler by Daimler-Benz). Daimler tried to standardize components between Mercedes and Chrysler cars. That didn't work out but you get the idea.

Like I said before, from the customer perspective, it really doesn't matter where the parts come from. What matters is the components inside, quality control, and the company's support structure. My original point was that AW is a completely different company than it was two years ago.