I'm looking at purchasing a new laptop and installing Ubuntu on it. Specifically, looking at an Alienware 17 at the moment. I wanted to make sure there was some support for the video card however.

Configuration: 1TB 5400RPM SATA 6Gb/s + 80GB mSATA SSD Caching 32GB DDR3L at 1600MHz (4 x 8G) Intel® Core™ i7-4910MQ processor Video Card: ????

Specifically, I'm looking for a card that will support modest graphics acceleration in Linux (any gaming would be done on the Windows partition most likely), but definitely will support Dual-Head, and Dynamic Power Management.

I've read that the Nvidia drivers are pretty bad atm, so I was considering the AMD Radeon R9 M290X route. However, I can't seem to find any information on whether it would be supported (even on the AMD website). I've read in previous posts that the M2XX cards are simply rebranded HD XXXXM cards (Ie R9 M290X == HD 8970M ). Is this explicitly true? Like they are literally exactly the same but a different name? Is the M290X supported under Ubuntu?

Should there be any problems installing on an Alienware laptop? I know its been done, but just wondering what I'm probably getting myself into as well.

Thanks for the help!

1

1 Answer

I know this is late but hopefully it will help others if not yourself. Yes, the R9 M290X is a rebranded HD8970M [1]. It shares the Pitcairn core of its desktop brother, the venerable Radeon HD 7870 [1], and so we can look at that chip to determine the support of the this mobile variant.

According to this benchmark [2], the support of this series is already acceptable but also considerably improved over the last few months. The performance of the 7870 is still behind the older 6870, so it stands to reason that because the hardware is better there is room for more optimization in the future. Either way, since you are most likely going to game under Windows, it is certainly good enough for regular desktop use like video acceleration or compositing.

The only area I'm not certain of is the BIOS used in Alienware laptops and that could be an issue for installing Linux, but you definitely don't have to worry about the graphics card.

[1]

[2]

Your Answer

Sign up or log in

Sign up using Google Sign up using Facebook Sign up using Email and Password Submit

Post as a guest

Post Your Answer Discard

By clicking “Post Your Answer”, you agree to our terms of service, privacy policy and cookie policy