Alienware is known for cool and powerful graphics notebooks. The fast and great looking Aurora m9700 does nothing to harm the company's reputation.

Alienware caught threatening reviewers, "Give us GOOD reviews... "Or Else"

Link to full article.

Did I completely miss the conlusion/opinion in this article? There appears to be no conclusion drawn at all ..

Oh, hold on, I'll get it for you.

A buddy of Mine has one, errr...had one.... It burned out.

The Funny part was he had a3dmark05 score of 9870.

My sager 5760 scored a 9893 this morning.

I know tech is allways going to go forward, But unless they can get more powerful cards in that unit its allready obsolete.


As far as Tech Support for AW , His unit only came with a 1 year Warr. He spent a Month bounceing around Managment for a RMA , then 3 more Months waiting on parts, When he gets his 6 month old System back Half his Warr is allready over.


This is a key point , When your dealing with high end Notebooks , really what is more important , the reasurence of Tech support in 5 years? Or knowing that you can pick up a phone and call the guy that owns the company Tommrow if you have a problem.

You should check out my 7950 GTX thread on the heatsink mods I do to my GPU to bring the temps down. Probably help on your system too.

When you pick up the phone and call the guy that owns the company, it is important the company you're calling actually built the notebook and didn't outsource it.

The m9700 is a pretty impressive notebook, at least from the outside. But looking into it in more details, there is a lot to be desired.

First is the decision to go with only a 7900 GS GPU. Why the hell doesn't the manufacturer offer the GTX version? Why is it that the consumer looking for an SLI solution must put up with a mediocre GS version of the GPU?

Second is the CPU. Core 2 Duo is the way to go today when you are looking at performance. The Turion ML-xx just doesn't cut the mustard any more, and there are a lot better notebooks available already that use C2D and better single GPU.

Third, the colors. Silver is boring, and I don't particularly go with either the green or the blue. While this is strictly a branding image, and has been around Alienware since it began, it wouldn't hurt to offer the option of some other colors like black, red, etc.

I may be nitpicking, but I think if you really want to build a great SLI notebook, you would look for top-of-the-line components that are out there today. Just my opinion.

Geez thats sad to see, seems like corporate America is heading down the tubes.

So where's the best deal at these days? I have such a hard time keeping up with rapidly changing hardware scene, that I'm not even sure where to do my shopping anymore. My desktop system just bit the dust and now I'm looking for a desktop replacement right around $4000.00. I *was* considering the AW m9700, but having since read some of the comments made here and in other reviews I'm now on the prowl for a new brand and model.

What and Who do YOU recommend?

~Ciphex

PS> I meant to reply to this thread, not to anyone in-particular

An AMD Turion ML-44? That's the first thing that got me scratching my head. Does that CPU provide enough juice to sufficiently power a 7900 GS SLI?

It would be nice if there were a comprehensive review that showed 3D performance scaling across mobile CPUs and GPUs.

There are certain points at which combinations of certain CPUs and GPUs produce optimal 3D results.

For example, I'm sure that a 7950 GTX 512MB can eat pretty much any amount of CPU you throw at it--all the way up to the highest 2.33Ghz core 2 duo with 4MB L2 cache. On the other hand, with a 7950 GTX 512MB, there is a certain point at which it just doesn't make any sense to go any lower. For example, the 7950 GTX 512MB would probably sit there twiddling it's thumbs if it were sharing a system with a 1.83Ghz core duo with 2MB L2 cache. My point, though, is that it would be nice if someone would actually take the time to fill in all of these data points and draw a nice pretty little line graph that shows cpu/gpu scaling in both directions--too much CPU and too little GPU all the way up to too little CPU and too much GPU.

Yeah, I too have wondered about that, but the problem is notebooks just don't come in comparable platfroms. They either have different processors, different GPU or screens at different resolutions. Even two SLI machines that LOOK the same may not actually BE the same. Even getting two with identical cpu's and same single/dual GPU's can be difficult. And then of course there's that throw-off with hard drive RPM and single/raid0 configurations...

The only option you can do is just get as many notebooks out there and run consistent framerate/3Dmark tests. For the majority of many, that is a pricey exercise, considering that these items are not grabbed-off-the-shelf and must be paid-for and ordered weeks before you even see it.

It would of course be a different issue if the ODM or Original Design Manufacturer allowed tests to be run on the various configurations, but even OEM's don't have the resources to obtain that level of access, let alone THG.

Well finally the Turion X2 Dual Core is out in SLI form in a 20" beast that isn't from DELL and doesn't have the removable keyboard and goofy hinged handle. I myself love the 17" 7950 GTX 512 MB, even with a T7400 it has all the power you need. I personally think the T7600 is overkill (but I have one anyway) 8)

That sounds like a derivative of the Acer Aspire AS9810. Don't see it on your website though...

Mind you, with a 20" screen I would expect WQXGA resolution, considering that the best 17' screens can reach WUXGA.

As for the size of the thing, go ahead and fit it with bluetooth, wifi, tv tuner, webcam, DVD burner, 5 USB ports, eSATA port, firewire 800/400 port, and not two, but four raid hard drive bays

I shouldn't even need to mention the two 7950 graphics cards...

Seriously, ODM's need to rething the capabilities of notebooks, the hardware available today and the needs of power users. When you look at the potential you can pack into a 20" notebook form factor, I would not stop short of making the most flexible high end system imaginable.

It's the Assassin X2, and there are few details available about it yet.
You're right, the first thing they need to rethink is the 2 DIMMs slots. Let's go 3 and 4.