Alienware M series

So a few days ago I searched "gaming laptop" on google, and the Alienware M series popped up very frequently. Im aware of desktop offering more but I need a laptop. I really wish I was more computer savvy but when it comes to parts I only have a general grasp. For the customization(http://www1.dell.com/ca/p/alienware-m15x/fs), I need help for the following: Processor*, Memory, Hard drive, Video Card*. For now id prefer the most strong settings for gaming.

Whats the major difference between 15.6-inch WideHD+ 1600x900 (900p) WLED and 15.6-inch WIDEFHD 1920x1080(1080p) WLED?

Help appreciated

The difference is the ability to see people's heads from farther away while sniping.

The difference is the pixel count. The more pixels there are the closer they are together which creates a much better picture.

As far as gaming on a laptop, what types of games are you going to be playing? That will really factor into what would be the best recommendations.

What types of games I am going to play is gonna be a problem(?), "everything"? games like mass effect 2, fallout 3, napoleon total war, so maybe the strongest build or in general? Anyone have the m series here btw?

Doesn't really matter.
As what you see in game is determined by the field of view (fov) so if for example it's 90% then it won't matter if you play at 1680x1050 or 2560x1600 you'll still be only seeing 90%.
The only difference is you'll have more desktop space in windows and other apps and be able to watch bluray films/rips in their full 1920x1080 glory.
A catch is a larger native resolution demands better hardware to play at maximum res and all eye candy on.

Another issue I've run against using large resolutions on a small laptop screen is that the work space is tiny and you hardly see anything as windows tries to cram 1920x1080 into the space that is only ment for something smaller, I can confirm this as a mate of mine uses the older xbox huge Alienware.

Well in that case I would concentrate on Memory and Video Card. Those will relieve stress on the CPU and allow you to kinda skimp in other places. As far as hard drive size I would shoot for 500mb+. The key though is to get one with great access times.

Fixed it for you.

I'll have to disagree with you here Wolf for a system to run well you need to balance the hardware. If you have a slow cpu and an insanely fast video card it will end up being bottlenecked, with RAM it depends on what you do but as a rule of thumb 4gb is standard if you have money to spend more is good when you do RAM intensive stuff like working with large images in Photoshop.

The idea that a powerful video card will relieve 'stress' on a cpu is at this stage misinformed at least until software developers design their software to take advantage gpu power for parallel computing.

Yea I have a badass graphics card but an old 2.2Ghz dual-core AMD CPU and 2 gigs of DDR which slow it down. You learn which settings it likes and doesn't like pretty quick. I can still play every game out there with decent settings once you configure it right.

OOOPS thanks. Yeah that should have been GB. Actually I meant to have CPU listed in there and completely missed it. That's what I get for typing while tired. I just wanted to emphasize that outside the CPU, memory and vid card would give you the best value.

Thanks for the replies, I learned something. So, im browsing around and anyone know a good laptop that can match alienware series preferabbly not above $2000?

a custom build would be best...i got my laptop set up by some guys in the tech club at my university fairly cheap..all they asked was i pay for parts and let them be creative about it. I realize choices like this aren't available to everyone , but i still stand by custom builds...WAAYYYYY more bang for your buck

Yes, yes, and yes.

If you cant custom build do realize that alienware is just a dell that costs an extra $500 for the name. Total rip-off of a company.

Im a bit turned off by the price of what my custom build is for alienware m, so I was looking around in my neighborhood. Waiting for payday which is next week before finalizing what I should really get. Its getting farther from alienware but heh, I looked around the nearby canada computers and it had these:

G73JH-A1 Gaming Notebook
Intel core i7 720qm
8gb ddr3
Ati Radeon Hd 5870 1gb gddr
http://www.canadacomputers.com/product_info.php?cPath=570_577_371&item_id=028022

G51JX-A1
Nvidia Geforce Gts 360m
Intel i7-720qm
6gb ram
http://www.amazon.ca/ASUS-Republic-Gamers-G51JX-A1-15-6-Inch/dp/B0034NGZWM

ASUS N61JQ-A1
i7-720QM
Mobility Radeon HD 5470
Im interested in getting this one than the other two at the moment, but damn this thing is huge. I forgot the specs of the display on the store.


Oh, when it says quad core, then something like 1.6ghz, does that mean each?

Yeah. So its 1.6 x4 = 6.4 Ghz total power. And if it has hyper threading enabled then double it again. This only applies if the game can use all your cores though which most modern games should. I would also look into a USB-powered cooler(like this one) because overheating is a serious issue when you game on a laptop. Hell even normal operations can be hazardous if the laptop is sitting in a position where the fan is covered up.

Also that first laptop dominates the second one. The graphics card is 3 tiers higher according to the hierarchy chart. It also has 2gigs more ram. If price isn't an issue definitely go with that one.