M17x R3 Has Arrived

  

  

My M17x R3 has been delivered!

It was delivered 3/20/2013, late in the evening, around 7:45PM (rather late, but that's another story).

I cracked it open but decided not to capture the box-opening on video...there are FAR too many videos of this on the internet as it is.  Once you've seen one, you've basically seen them all.

Anyways, this is a large notebook, especially since I've been using a 13" Macbook almost exclusively.  This notebook positively dwarfs the tiny Macbook in size as well as weight (this notebook weighs at LEAST 10lbs).

The screen is awesome.  It's on par with my iMac's screen for brightness and clarity.  I'll certainly test both, as I plan to use the iMac screen when gaming on the M17x via a mini-DisplayPort-to-mini-DisplayPort cable.  I played BF3 several times over the weekend using the new notebook and my KDR went up at least on percentage point (it has been dropping in the last six months).  I primarily use the sniper class and noticed that I can aim and shoot quicker on this system, so I decided to use the engineer class last night.  This is something I usually don't use, unless I anticipate having to fix vehicles.  I used that class in Operation Metro, which usually has me dying left and right.  I used the AKS-74u.  In 8 minutes of gameplay using that class and that weapon, I raised my engineer score by several thousand and killed without mercy...checking BFStats.com, I found that my accuracy with that weapon went up 1.14% with that gaming session alone...unbelievable.  And with the M40A5, my accuracy went up 1.87% just with last night's few hours of play.  A large part of this is probably due to the video card in this system.  I also played some BF3 on my AMD 6-core system and noticed immediate differences in clarity.  I still have to install Fraps onto the M17x but I'm positive that the 580M is outgunning the ATI 5600-series card in my desktop system.  I've seen this before, when moving up from an Nvidia 7500 to a 9500...my gameplay kill scores skyrocketed due to pure FPS increase.  This means I might consider upgrading the vidcard in my desktop (again...when will it end????).  And we'll see if things get even better when I push the video to the 27" iMac screen...

I find I don't play as well if I have to use the notebook's keyboard (I bought the TacX keyboard for use with this notebook).  The TacX keyboard and mouse are awesome!  I play better with this keyboard because I'm used to the external keyboard layout when I game.  I have to have the arrow keys when gaming (I'm not a fan of WASD and never have been...been gaming since FPS became prevalent), as well as the upper row between the numpad and QWERTY keys.  I *might* try to adapt to the laptop's keyboard...we'll see.

I've installed only a few apps, such as Norton 360 and Norton Management, Origin, TeamSpeak, WinDirStat, HWINFO64, Chrome, BF3, and one or two others.

Temperature-wise, the 580M has been good, so far.  There are quite a few complaints of throttling due to heat on the NotebookReview.com forums, but the highest I've seen so far is 59C when playing BF3.  *knock on wood*

I've a few desktop gadgets running:  CPU usage, GPU meter, drives meter, and network meter.  When I installed Norton, it installed it's own desktop gadget, which I'll tolerate since it should keep me situationally aware.

I haven't noticed any issues with the notebook so far, which is good, since Dell's support appears to be rather shakey (from what I've gathered on the forums, as well as the pains I went through to even get the notebook delivered).

One last note.  The RAID 0.  It's getting a rather low WEI rating, due solely to the performance (or lack thereof) of the RAID 0 setup.  Now, I've not noticed anything abnormally slow with the drive writing and reading at all.  WEI has been massively sensationalized...the system runs good regardless of the low rating.  I don't need an SSD at this moment in time...really.  Many people are pushing for SSD, but it won't do much but help the OS start and shut down a few seconds quicker.  It might help game loading a bit, but not really much.  Besides, SSDs are REALLY expensive and to afford one, I'd have to buy a small one and shift my games back and forth between a platter drive and the SSD...not conventional at all and certainly not convenient to have to micromanage the notebook in such a manner.  No thanks...it's not for me.