Buying Alienware, M17 vs M17X plz help

m17 vs m17x

[M17]
Dual 512MB ATI Mobility RadeonTM HD 3870 - CrossFireXTM EnabledIntel® CoreTM2 Extreme Quad QX9300 2.53GHz (12MB Cache, 1066MHz FSB)
17-Inch WideUXGA 1920 x 1200 LCD (1200p) with Clearview Technology
Windows Vista® Home Premium (64-bit Edition) with Service Pack 1 (difference vs ultimate? :()
4GB Dual Channel DDR3 SO-DIMM at 1066MHz - 2 x 2048MB
Dual Layer Blu-ray Disc Reader (BD-ROM, DVD±RW, CD-RW )
Single HDD configuration vs extreme performance Raid 0 (not sure which to pick, not sure what raid 0 offers that makes it more $$$
M17= $3,699.00

[M17X]
Dual 512MB NVIDIA® GeForce® 9800M GT - SLI Enabled
17" WideUXGA 1920 x 1200 LCD (1200p) with Clearview Technology
Intel® CoreTM 2 Extreme X9000 2.8GHz (6MB Cache 800MHz FSB)
4GB† Dual Channel DDR2 SO-DIMM at 667MHz - 2 x 2048MB
Dual Layer Blu-ray Disc Reader (BD-ROM, DVD±RW, CD-RW)
Intel® Turbo Memory (1GB) - Accelerate Data Transfer Speed (only available with single HDD configurations, vs raid 0 (still not sure what it does :()
Same OS

M17X=$4,999.00

So basically, i'm not sure which one of these to buy, i have been out of the PC gaming scene for a while and am not sure which CPU,GPU, or HDD setup is better, everything else in both these setups is pretty much the same. I have no idea what Raid 0 is and if it is worth the upgrade and im unsure if vista ultimate is worth it either. If you guys can, let me know what you think of each setup and some good ideas of stuff to change,remove,add w/e. let me know what these things will and wont be capable of, thanks a lot

NONE OF THOSE. Big ripoffs, here is a tigerdirect rig, for $1300 http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=3655637&CatId=3423Gamerkat

dats a desktop not a laptop

even tho the M17 is newer but according to those spec, the M17X is more powerful

also RAID0 is for performance. u need two hard drives for RAID0

IMO, Alienware is quite overrated; they use mid to high level components and put them in a pretty case and charge a fortune. Raids and SLIs are useless too, for the most part games store the info in your memory, so you dont have to have a fast hard drive config. Only time i'd really use any raid is for a server, or something like that where you can't bear to lose any information, and then only raid 1 or 5. SLI doesnt boost performance of the video card by 100%; its closer to 30-40%. Quads are unnecessairy right now, most games are only optimised for two cores maximum. If you want to have the laptop for a while, go ahead with quads, but if you plan on having it for 1-2 years then selling it, i'd say dual core would be nice.

This laptop seems to be a much better choice, it would save yourself alot of money. You might wanna eventually replace the graphics card, though

http://www.tigerdirect.ca/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=4375936&CatId=3998