[Review by ::iunlock::] - ALIENWARE 17R4 -vs- MSI GT73VR [Unrated Version]

Burning out the PC? When? Where did you see that ever being mentioned?

Nothing burned out.

I'm still working in the review and of course I'll have all the relevant and useful info included in it.

Hang tight... RBP is The last priority. Right now I'm working on the new Aero 15.

Thanks and glad it was helpful.

I'm on my phone right now, but when I get back to the office I'll reply back in detail.



::iunlock::

 

That means Razer is barely usable with games running at high/ultra. Atleast Aer 15 has beefier Cooling system than Razer Blade Pro

 

Hello there,

Ok so to answer your questions....

I use an USB C to USB 3.0 adapter to utilize the USB C port on my AW 17R4. So my keyboard plugs into the USB C port, mouse into the USB and the right USB port is FREE, as I prefer nothing to stick out of the right side of the keyboard. If anything you could use a HUB in the USB C port...

If you can get the HK CPU, I would do so, but you can achieve great temps from either or with a proper repaste.

The AW's support 2667 just fine. I am running that in my personal unit.



There are no more lines on the new QHD screen.

If you can get a good deal on a system right now, it's worth getting.

 

Nope they aren't offering a HK, only the 7700 with a 1070 unfortunately, is this cpu a huge step down? Also I'm not able to spend yet looking to make a purchase anywhere between August - October but by then the current deals will be gone. Eh hope there will be further savings by then maybe.

I skimmed a few pages of this thread but I remember something about the Toshiba SSDs they ship are bad? I asked a sales rep and they stock seagate samsung and toshiba SSDs but it's a luck of the draw which one you get in your system. Know anything about this?

 

It is preferred to have a HK over the HQ, since the HK is an unlocked chip.

Yes, toshiba's run hot. Samsung is much better and runs a lot cooler.

It is a luck of the draw yes...like a casino so most often times than not, you'll end up with a toshiba.

 

Is toshiba SSD causing the in game random stuttering and freezing? or the OC vBIOS is the culprit?

 

More likely the vBIOS with any kind of OC. Disable your OC to check for yourself

Sent from my SM-G935F using Tapatalk

 

It is true Toshiba's run hotter (I have 3) however with small mods mine berely go over 72 during gaming loads. Even with 5 ATTO benchmarks in a row temps are still less than 80. Performance is excellent 2.5GBs / 1.5GBs and in real life usage no noticeable difference compared to any other top brand.

Sent from my SM-G935F using Tapatalk

 

Yees it's true. And I have seen a lot!!! Same also for LiteOn ssd's. Trash!! And the 3rd NVMe ssd Dell use... See yourself.

Not heating problem this time, but speed problem. Aka Dell push out 3 ssd brand on people, and all 3 ssd brand should rather be in the Trashcan-Dustbin.

 

I really wish 850 pro is on m.2 format


@D2 Ultima then there would be no need for these silly nvme ssds

 

I've been calling NMVe stupid since I first got that Eurocom Sky X9 developer unit in 2015. Fast, yes... but not worth it, and too many functionality gotchas. Price alone makes it suck. Paying around double per gigabtye is a ripoff. Give it a couple more years. Maybe it will be better.

 

It's only silly if one doesn't utilize or have a need for the speeds that NVMe's provide.

That's wasted money that can be spent elsewhere.

On the flip side, for someone who actually needs the speed would say the same in that getting a slower drive for demanding tasks is silly.

Well to be fair it is all relative to one's usage habits. The truth is, most people who buy NVMe's don't need it, but that doesn't make the nvme "stupid." It has and serves a purpose.

Is it pricey? That depends on who's buying it and what they are really using it for.

Looking through the eyes of a content creator would view the option for an nvme a dream come true, where speed does matter when dealing with intensive tasks frequently.

As for gaming and other normal / typical tasks, a regular sata ssd will do just fine.

I have yet to experience any functionality glitches even in the low tier nvme drives like toshiba and lite-on, with the exception of some heat issues, but not all nvme drives over heat.



::iunlock::

 

Windows 7 support. It's there with drivers for some, but not all. BPX has no drivers that work for Windows 7. Not even Micro$lop's own NVMe drivers will work. Windows 7 works flawlessly on the 960 Pro.

 

But the thing is 4K QD performance is very similar for 850 pro and nvme ssd

@D2 Ultima

 

That is a valid point for windows 7 users indeed.

I have only installed w10 and Linux on m.2's, but for a Windows 7 user the lack of support can be problematic.

It's good to know that the 960 Pro works well on w7.

Not all file sizes are the same or always 4K heavy. When dealing with a lot of file sizes in general it all adds up.

There are also different types of memory of tlc and mlc's, which people prefer one over the other depending on their usage. (An example that also contributes to the cost of ssd's in general.)

Like I've said, going all out on an nvme drive isn't ideal as most people won't benefit from it due to the reality of their habits, expecially when even a sata ssd would suffice.

However, this doesn't mean that it's a bad choice. It's not like they are terribly expensive to where it is even considered expensive for one spending 2-3K on a laptop. Case in point.

The whole ssd debate has been beaten to the ground and it's really not that big of a deal.

We're fully aware of the reality surrounding practically with storage options, but that can also be said to the overbought systems that we buy which is even worse than a measly nvme purchase.

.




::iunlock::

 

I still think paying up to as much as double per gig is a huge ripoff. They can only get away with that because people pay it. There's no way the product costs double to manufacture. I'd not be surprised if the cost to make them was more or less identical, but they screw us over real good on the price. If someone actually has a need for it, sure. I agree that for most folks it a waste of money that will provide them with no discernible benefit over SATA SSD.

 

True. Only if we could sync everyone to demand with controlling their wallet; we'd control the market.

::iunlock::

 

That would be nice. But, far be it from me to counsel a fool how to handle money. I'm sure that I'd qualify as quite the retard in the eyes of some with my expensive monsterbooks. Sometimes I even question myself on that. I'm just talking from personal perspective... way too much money for something that isn't going to do squat for me. I'd rather have double the drive space. But, I might feel differently if I needed the extra drive read/write performance for some reason. If there were some real points or status (or money) to be made on SSD benchmarks scores, then I'd be running nothing but NVMe.

 

They probably do cost the same to manufacture but it's the same as any other device. Supply vs demand. If there's less of a demand for nvme vs normal SSDs, they will cost more (although double is admittedly heavy! )

Sent from my SM-G935F using Tapatalk

 

I'm sure supply and demand has at least little bit to do with it. Although, demand would likely be much higher if they were not trying to rape every person buying a premier brand (Samsung) NVMe SSD on the price. In that respect the low demand and stupidly high price is a self-fulfilling prophecy.

In the case of tech, I think hype and popularity are severely abused as an opportunity to gouge customers that have more money that common sense. The feeling of being compelled to buy something because it is popular and because other people say it is awesome can be pretty strong sometimes. I've been there myself more times than I would like to admit. Sometimes it turns out to be true and it is awesome, but that's hit or miss. That's the thing about hype... it does not need to be accurate and there is no accountability for abusing it.

 

Many of the pc sellers - shops brag about lightning fast startup on their computers due thei contain the newest tech... M.2 NVMe ssd's. But it's Windows 10's Fast Startup that is in operation In regular work or gaming you do not see the big difference between NVMe and the older 2.5" ssd's. Almost fraud

 

So unfortunately in the UK central we don't have any best buy or store that has high end laptops for viewing in person. Lucky I've been able to visit a best buy on my holiday to Hawaii even though I only looked for about 5 minutes. They only had the Alienware 15inch tho, with just a MSI GS63. No GT73 but close enough I suppose.

I was definitely impressed by the AW build quality, was super rock solid. I preferred the MSI's "harder" feeling steel keyboard. I thought the GS chassis material wasn't "as bad" as people have made it out to be on first impressions. Sure it's not premium as AW but its not deal breaking which was what I was thinking reading comments on these forums. My initial concern with the AW was how sharp the palm rest was.

At the end of the day I'm still thinking super hard if I should buy the 17 or GT73. Dell has been having sales with prices close to MSI though it's still outside of my spending comfort zone. Thank god Alienware prices have come down over the years. I just remember paying so much money for a M15x back in 2010 with a GT555m which I realized how rubbish it was over the next year. Man GPU tech has come far since then. Anyway i'm thinking maybe I should wait till the end of the year to see if an R5 revision or further price cuts come around but I'm not sure. Opinions anyone?

 

Something tells me you might be partial to Alienware but I'll hold my tongue cause so am I. *school girl giggle*

 

Im just scared if something is ****ed up I have to go ship stuff back or talk to the notorious ****ty support staff of MSI. Dell sends a techie to ya house you know, I'm comfortable with that.

 

i totally agree. MSI support is basically no support and they are a bunch of cons which i will not trust anymore.

 

I have alienware 15 r3 and I love the mini m.2 slot. I have a 512gb sandisk 2240 ssd in there....512gb is perfect for windows. 256gb is not enough for me at least! great review iunlock!

 

Use of Half sized (crippled design) M.2 ssd slots in today's 14/15 or 17 inches sized notebooks is pretty crazy!! And you get less than what the chipset can support!! Both in speed and size. On top of it... Lack of ssd options and higher ssd prices. @iunlock @Ashtrix @Phoenix Can you love this crippled ssd design?

 

Almost 90% of users don't fiddle with OS settings at all, so stock OS feels more snappy on NVMe. But I haven't found real marginal speedup from NVMe, still 850 EVO is faster.

 

running windows on m.2 ssd or on normal ssd is the same. windows doesnot take advantage of m.2 slots unless you copy or move big files. why I like it is because when I had windows installed on 1tb m.2 Samsung 960 evo was about 35 degress idle but since I installed windows on 512gb m2 2240 sandisk ssd idle temps are 25 degrees. and is running the same in terms of speed! that's why is good to have the extra slot.

 

There are multiple ways to look at it.

One is to be glad that there is something there rather than nothing. (ie... Better than nothing.)

The other way to look at it is, what the heck were they thinking?

I would rather have had an extra USB port instead. In my aw 17R4 review I show a pic of where it could have been perfectly fitted.



The "mini me m.2" slot that I call it, for me at least would be used for Linux. That's it.

But yea... I would rather have had something else than that slot.

Oh well... Not a deal breaker.

::iunlock::

 

if is there I took advantage of it.
like you said...better than nothing

 

I don't talk about "extra" slot in modern laptops or not. Latest Intel chipset support 3x fully rated M.2 NVMe slots in notebooks!! Why offer a crippled half sized M.2 slot, who as well haven't maxed speed in today's laptops is for me a waste(even worse if the laptop is bigger than 14"). And all laptops support 1 or more 2.5 inches sata slots in addition to the fully M.2 slots for notebooks. Damn, we talk about 2017 and +15 inches notebooks!!

 

my temps while idle with only torrent running.


pretty good for a little ssd!

 

NOt really. it is true the chipset can support more, but not if you have a descrete gpu, thunderbolt & AGA port in use. Intel severly limits the lanes in laptops and non prosumer desktop products. only 16 on cpu and 16 on chipset. WHile the chipset can also only use max 4x at once per device.

 

Hmmm, is no one going to mention that the "special" M.2 port on Kabylake notebooks is for Optane?

Nice to hear you can put it to use as another M.2 storage slot, but I think they are specifically added to allow for the Optane "device".

 

Yeah, I know Dell have put in their proprietary AGA port, but still... Design the MB with this half sized M.2 slot instead of fully sized is a terrible idea. At least in bigger models.

I'm sure Optane support is skipped because of cost and the MB-chassis design!! Call the Half crippled slot "extra" is for me BS. We ain't talking about a smaller 11-12 or 13 inches notebook. But +15,6 inches models.
Ps. Dell have same idea also for ram slots!! Less is more.

 

Alienware does indeed support Optane "devices" through those "new" small M.2 slots.

It's not 1/2 M.2 for another "SSD", it's added specifically for Optane

Alienware
March 27

" Intel announced their new Optane memory devices today featuring 3D Xpoint memory. Our latest Alienware Aurora as well as Alienware 13,15 & 17 notebooks are all Optane ready. Look for pre-installed configurable options coming soon.

When paired with 7th Gen Intel 'Kaby Lake' processor, users will experience a more snappy computer with shorter boot times, faster application launches, extraordinary gaming and responsive browsing. Learn more about this new tech in the HotHardware link below."

Intel Optane Storage on Alienware
https://www.reddit.com/r/Alienware/comments/61xo8d/intel_optane_storage_on_alienware/

Submitted 1 month ago by Troeteldier

"So, will the new laptops (15 R3, 13 R3 and 17 R4) that are equipped with a 7th gen i7 be capable of running this new storage tech?"

MogRulesModerator[ M] [score hidden] 1 month ago stickied comment

"Alienware has announced on their Facebook page that the 13,15 and 17 will indeed be compatible."

https://www.reddit.com/r/Alienware/comments/61xo8d/intel_optane_storage_on_alienware/

Intel Optane Memory With 3D XPoint Technology Caches Slower Drives For A Performance Boost
https://hothardware.com/reviews/intel-optane-memory-with-3d-xpoint-technology-unveiled

 

But is it confirmed 100%? And have this Half sized M.2 slot all requirements?

 

Yes, the source is Alienware's Facebook page, that's why I went through all the trouble of quoting and linking, check it out yourself - go back to my post it's got all the links

"Alienware has announced on their Facebook page that the 13,15 and 17 will indeed be compatible."

I chatted with Alienware, and confirmed it's supported:

8:45:27 AM Agent
Scott, according to our IT Team, the Intel Optane is supported in Alienware systems (13, 15 and 17)

 

What good could Optane do over just using a straight up SSD? I just can't see myself spending an extra $90 for a measly 32GB that will only help if you use the spinning HDD. My preference is just to replace the HDD with a TB SSD and call it a day. Or does Optane do something for SSDs that I'm not aware of?

Didn't we try this already with "cache drives" and hybrid drives a few years back?

 

Yeah, it's the first instantiation of Optane, as a cache in front of storage, but the next release of Optane as a back end for RAM will be what I've been waiting for.

I'll see if I can look up the review of Optane in front of SSD vs HDD, as I recall the SSD improvement was measurable, but of course not as big of a boost as for the HDD.

As I recall, strangely enough the Optane cache isn't very configurable, it only optimizes the boot drive - so you'd have to use an HDD as the boot drive.

It might make some sense if you only can afford large HDD and for another $50 or so can speed it up greatly for most repeated operations.

Intel is rumored to be getting vendors to bundle Optane in with Motherboards for desktops, not sure about laptops - Intel should have thought of that and provided them with new laptops.

Some people are using the 2240 slot with SSD storage, and it's working, so there's another angle to explore

Update: Here are some links to check out.

Optane Memory review: Why you may want Intel's futuristic cache in your PC
This next-gen memory technology greatly increases responsiveness of PCs, but only for those who still want to use a hard drive.
http://www.pcworld.com/article/3191...-want-intels-futuristic-cache-in-your-pc.html

Intel Optane Memory has a mission: Make hard drives faster than SSDs
Enthusiasts were hoping for more, though.
http://www.pcworld.com/article/3184...ission-make-hard-drives-faster-than-ssds.html

Home Reviews Storage m.2 SSDs Intel Optane Memory 32GB M.2 NVMe SSD
Intel Optane is here. It redefines low queue depth random read performance. Simply amazing!
http://www.tweaktown.com/reviews/8157/intel-optane-memory-32gb-2-nvme-ssd-review/index.html

Intel Optane Memory Review – 1.4GB/s Speed & 300K IOPS for $44
http://www.thessdreview.com/our-rev...memory-module-review-32gb-every-pc-user-know/

"THE IMPORTANCE OF 4K READ PERFORMANCE

Take a look at these two performance tests. They are simple data transfer speed results that relate to how fast they move data of different types and sizes. The one on the left is from the Kingston DCP1000 NVMe Data Center SSD (arguable the worlds fastest available right now) while the one on the right is our Intel Optane Memory Test Bench result after the Western Digital Black 1TB hard drive is cached with Optane Memory. We have both in hand and that Kingston SSD moves movies at over 2GB per second. Look at the low 4K Read results though. Do you notice how the Intel Optane 4K Read transfer (204MB/s) is 5 times faster than that of the Kingston DCP1000 (41MB/s)?" <= top of page 2


Linus did the review with the Optane in front of an SSD instead of an HDD as suggested by Intel.

Turbocharge your SSD for $40??

 

It would have to be an obvious improvement over a SSD alone for me to bite. For $90, I'd rather just get this and make it a Linux boot drive or something.
https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B01M...s=42mm+ssd&dpPl=1&dpID=51AUsjPAiIL&ref=plSrch

 

It's an obvious improvement for an HDD, some improvement for SSD.

I wouldn't waste the $ on a DigitalLife SSD, hold out for a Transcend or an Adata, more $ but nothing limits your headroom except for the size and cost, it doesn't have to be the same cost as an Optane module.

If you have enough expansion for storage with the other M.2 / 2.5" options, then the Optane M.2 might be fun to play with

 

@Derek712

Here's a good review to start:

Intel Optane Memory Review – 1.4GB/s Speed & 300K IOPS for $44
http://www.thessdreview.com/our-rev...memory-module-review-32gb-every-pc-user-know/

"THE IMPORTANCE OF 4K READ PERFORMANCE

Take a look at these two performance tests. They are simple data transfer speed results that relate to how fast they move data of different types and sizes. The one on the left is from the Kingston DCP1000 NVMe Data Center SSD (arguable the worlds fastest available right now) while the one on the right is our Intel Optane Memory Test Bench result after the Western Digital Black 1TB hard drive is cached with Optane Memory. We have both in hand and that Kingston SSD moves movies at over 2GB per second. Look at the low 4K Read results though. Do you notice how the Intel Optane 4K Read transfer (204MB/s) is 5 times faster than that of the Kingston DCP1000 (41MB/s)?" <= top of page 2

 

Ahh, here it is, it's a video review

Linus did the review with the Optane in front of an SSD instead of an HDD as suggested by Intel.

Linux didn't do an exhaustive set of tests, but he did find it did improve performance - why did he test a game - he already knows the storage won't improve frame rate, sigh - but he missed the 4k 5x speed up, even an SSD - Optane pairing gains from that.

If I was going to try it out, I'd get the 32GB Optane and the largest HDD my laptop / desktop could fit, and make it the boot drive. That would be a good test.

Then try it with an SSD boot drive, 2TB if possible.

And, live on both for a while.

By this time next year we should have Optane SSD's proper, and Optane Memory too, something to look forward to

Turbocharge your SSD for $40??

 

Err @ iunlock . If I buy a unit do you know anyone in the UK who could do a repaste job for me? I dunno if you ever had requests from some people outside of the US before ship it to you and then back.

 

Om mobius kesimpulannya dari pembahasan ini
Bagus msi atau aw ya om?

 

Darn, I didn't notice you used a link to his profile instead of the @ redirection - you assembled something that looks like it but isn't

@iunlock can you please help this guy out?

 

Build quality wise, AW is better.

MSI has better cooling and performance once you overclock and have optimized thermal paste jobs.

Bigger heatsink also mean better performance at higher ambient temp, ideal for tropic countries.