Thorgi Duke of Frisbee Posted May 3, 2011 Report Share Posted May 3, 2011 For my brother's high school graduation, he'll be getting an Alienware m11x, so he can game with me when I go back to college and when he leaves for Americorps. I was wondering if you could help me find a combination for the laptop that will both run games well and not cost a gargantuan amount above the asking price. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mr. GOH! Posted May 3, 2011 Report Share Posted May 3, 2011 First, off, find the Dell education discounts/sales site (it used to be a separate site that led to a separate Alienware site, IIRC). I have the i5 version of the m11x and it runs pretty much everything I throw at it. With educational discounts, you could probably find it for $800 or $900. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Thorgi Duke of Frisbee Posted May 3, 2011 Author Report Share Posted May 3, 2011 First, off, find the Dell education discounts/sales site (it used to be a separate site that led to a separate Alienware site, IIRC). I have the i5 version of the m11x and it runs pretty much everything I throw at it. With educational discounts, you could probably find it for $800 or $900. Yeah, my parents have an Education Discount. My mother works for the local school in Southlake, and they have a deal with Dell. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mr. GOH! Posted May 3, 2011 Report Share Posted May 3, 2011 First, off, find the Dell education discounts/sales site (it used to be a separate site that led to a separate Alienware site, IIRC). I have the i5 version of the m11x and it runs pretty much everything I throw at it. With educational discounts, you could probably find it for $800 or $900. Yeah, my parents have an Education Discount. My mother works for the local school in Southlake, and they have a deal with Dell. Â Just make sure you get the best deals off the site. I remember that navigating to Alienware from the educational site got me better deals than just putting in the education code or whatever at Alienware. It was confusing. Ultimately I got it with a work-related discount rather than using my parent's educational accounts. Â I'd suggest the new i5 model, maybe getting a slightly bigger HDD than the default 320GB. I have the older i5 model and love it dearly. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
staySICK Posted May 4, 2011 Report Share Posted May 4, 2011 wow, alienware / dell really trimmed down the options on the m11x. a c2d, or if you go for the i-series, an i5 w/ 1gb ram and a 540m or i7, 2 gb ram and a 540m. Â I'll take option #2, alex. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mr. GOH! Posted May 4, 2011 Report Share Posted May 4, 2011 wow, alienware / dell really trimmed down the options on the m11x. a c2d, or if you go for the i-series, an i5 w/ 1gb ram and a 540m or i7, 2 gb ram and a 540m. Â I'll take option #2, alex. Â Â Please note that is 1GB and 2GB VRAM on the GPU on the i-series options. They both come with an additional 4GB RAM, upgradeable to 8GB. Â Â Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mal Posted May 14, 2011 Report Share Posted May 14, 2011 I suppose this would be a good place to ask... any other laptops/brands that can compare to what you get with the M11x after the discounts? The world of laptop specs and pricing is a bit fuzzy. Though... I want to strangle people who compare a desktop to laptops. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Thorgi Duke of Frisbee Posted May 14, 2011 Author Report Share Posted May 14, 2011 I suppose this would be a good place to ask... any other laptops/brands that can compare to what you get with the M11x after the discounts? The world of laptop specs and pricing is a bit fuzzy. Though... I want to strangle people who compare a desktop to laptops. We haven't found one yet. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
staySICK Posted May 14, 2011 Report Share Posted May 14, 2011 Please note that is 1GB and 2GB VRAM on the GPU on the i-series options. They both come with an additional 4GB RAM, upgradeable to 8GB. Â Ooops, yea, missed that. Dell / alienware has changed their configuration options from what I'm used to, thought something was funny. Â Also; $120 to upgrade to 8GB? Just take the stock 4, save $40 by getting a pair of 4GB sticks from newegg with free shipping. Â I suppose this would be a good place to ask... any other laptops/brands that can compare to what you get with the M11x after the discounts? The world of laptop specs and pricing is a bit fuzzy. Though... I want to strangle people who compare a desktop to laptops. Â That all depends on what aspects of "what you get" you are interested in. The entire package: portability, gaming, etc? I'm not sure. Â gaming + price combination? That depends on if you are looking at the price of the m11x configured with an i series cpu or the c2d (cheaper route). Â ASUS G series have some good 15"-17" laptops with gaming friendly configurations that hover around the $1,000 - $1,200 mark. But then those are going to be heavier (especially the 17") and more of like a DTR instead of something meant to be lugged around. Same with places like cyberpower and ibuypower. Â Acer has a 11.6" netbook with a core i7, but its running intel hd graphics. Â So basically, not that I know of. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mister Jack Posted May 14, 2011 Report Share Posted May 14, 2011 My only advice is to get a bigger HDD. I went with 320 because I figured that would be enough for me, but I'm already almost halfway through it and I've only owned this thing for a few months. When did PC games become so goddamn huge? I only have seven or eight of my steam titles installed! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mr. GOH! Posted May 14, 2011 Report Share Posted May 14, 2011 My only advice is to get a bigger HDD. I went with 320 because I figured that would be enough for me, but I'm already almost halfway through it and I've only owned this thing for a few months. When did PC games become so goddamn huge? I only have seven or eight of my steam titles installed! Â I think the HDD upgrade option is probably the one you'll "feel" the most. That is, unless you're doing things like hooking your m11x up to huge monitors or doing CPU-intensive work, the different versions (aside from the i3) all are pretty similar. Well, within a revision, at least. The newest ones (R3 models) are DX11, which may make games prettier. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mal Posted May 14, 2011 Report Share Posted May 14, 2011 Okay, you folks confirmed my suspicions since I haven't seen anything close to what you get for a M11x. Then again, I haven't dug much. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Thorgi Duke of Frisbee Posted May 14, 2011 Author Report Share Posted May 14, 2011 We ordered it for him today. Unfortunately, I wasn't able to convince them for the i7, but we did get the i5 with 6 gigs of RAM. I hope my brother enjoys his new laptop. He likes playing Killing Floor on mine, so he has good taste. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mister Jack Posted May 14, 2011 Report Share Posted May 14, 2011 He should be fine with the i5. That's what I use and I haven't really noticed a huge difference from the i7 on my desktop. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Join the conversation
You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.