It is unfortunate that my review of the Alienware M17x must come solely down to Dell, but I cannot ignore my experience with the company. I purchased the Alienware the first of August and had the delivery time set for the 22nd. Three weeks seems long for any computer to wait, but I wanted a bullet proof machine. On the 20th of August I expected to see the status of my order change from "in production" to "shipped" nothing changed, the computer would be late (and jeopardize my livelihood)  if it would not ship soon, and only after I called Dell directly* (call was routed to somewhere in India) did I found out that there would be a minimum 30-40 day delay for my machine due to a part stock shortage. This is absolutely unacceptable for any computer manufacturer, especially for the flagship model of the company. After speaking to the company several times, sure I spoke to plenty of polite people, but none of them knew what to do, or have any power to do it. Finally reaching supervisors the only answers I received were "nothing can be done" or "you can try to reorder and that may bring it down a week". Even suggesting canceling the 3000 dollar order, and nothing budged, no sign of remorse or incentive to stay. I canceled without looking back. But this is for anyone looking to buy now, will have a 40 day or more wait, well over a month from now. The Laptop I am currently using is a Toshiba Qosmio I ordered and had shipped the day I canceled my Alienware on the 21st and arrived the 23rd, it contains the same parts Dell claims to not have had.

Is it possible to overclock the CPU to reach the 3.7 GHz stated ? and how ?

Is this combination compatible - Panasonic NeoPlasma 3D (ST50,GT50,VT50) + AMD HD 7970m ( Alienware M17x R4 ) ? Anyone tested 3D gaming ( AMD HD3D + Tridef + Panasonic )  ?
Thanks .-)

BTW reason for the touch pad to be towards the left is so when you type your palm isn't on it. try using it and see how annoying it would be if it was dead in the middle. Your palm would always be on it

Head for a  ssd all the way, however a raid with the 32gb msata with a 500gb hdd might give you some performance gain as well,  not as much as a pure ssd but still a good alternative. With ssd prices at a$ per gb you might find something you like! I went with a 64gb msata and 7200 rpm 750 gb, I already had a (albeit expensive at he time) OEM dell Samsung 830 SSD

I went with the 32GB MSATA plus the 750GB 7200 RPM combo, I am also going to add a 256GB SSD Corsair V4 as its cheap and I will use that for installing my games.
Also bought some RAM to install, just hoping that I dont have to install it below the keyboard. I went with the standard 6GB and bought another 8GB for like 20

Alienware m17x R4 with and ssd is much more compared with a conventional one. Still since I have reinstalled Winshit 7 I cannot boot anymore only with the 7970m .... fn+f7 does not work anymore!!! I wonder what should I do!??
All the rest about this rig is .... I'm speechless .... it is a real desktop replacement so there should not be any comment about the weight ... the only complain would be that the keyboard flexes too much for my taste.
But because I cannot boot only with AMD 7970M I'm loosing fps and that is frustrating!!! Any Help !!??

Hi,
Wow, I like Alienware M17X R4 .I saw refurbished Alienware M17x R4 Notebook at cheap price in http://www.merkamericaco.com/m17x-r4/ and what is your opinion about refurbished laptop?

This is a wonderful laptop! I personally found that www.computerupgradeking.com has a great selection of modifications and the price is reasonable! Best of all I got mine without waiting!

It concerns the best value we ever measured. So 60 % in a bar means, that a notebook has 60 % of the reference-performance.

In the 'In Comparison' section. What are the percentages in the bars for?

Review LENOVO Y580 for us please

I would go for an SSD boot drive, as it is definately quicker in day to day applications than the HDD raid.

hey can you tell me if i should take the 64gb boot drive msata and the 500gb or take the 2x500gb as raid0 instead. ?