AW17 R3 missing features vs R1? HDMI in? mSATA? 32GB option? miniDisplayPort?

I've been using an Alienware 17-R1 for about two years now for gaming, video editing, and animation. It recently went kaput, so I've been looking to upgrade to the R3.

But on the specs page, I noticed some omissions of things that I remember my R1 having. I chatted with a sales rep, but they didn't really seem like they knew wtf they were talking about, so I'd like to ask anyone who might already own an R3.

My current queries are thus:

1. Does the R3 have an HDMI Input?
   The R1 had a combo HDMI port that not only sent Output signals to external displays, but accepted Input signals for things like Blu-Ray players and PlayStations/Xboxes/Wiis.
   
   
2. How many monitors can you connect to the R3 without adapters?
   I only see one HDMI port on the specs page.
   
   
3. How many hard drive bays does the R3 have? Does it have an mSATA bay?
   The R1 had two SATA bays and one mSATA bay, so I had three drives in the machine. I want to reuse for the R3; can I do this?
   
   
4. Can the stock R3 be configured with 32GB RAM? How many RAM sockets does it have? What PC4 interface and frequency does it use?
   My R1 had 32GB (8GBx4) of DDR3 RAM. I know I can't reuse them in the R3, since it's DDR4, but I'd still at least like the option to upgrade to 32GB RAM.
   
   
5. Does the Alienware Graphics Amplifier work with the GTX 980 Ti?
   How well does it compare to using the 980 Ti in a desktop build? Will the i7-6820HK processor be a bottleneck?
   
   
6. Can I remove the battery without unscrewing the back panel?
   The M17x had battery bays that could be easily accessed, but the R1 required me to open up the back panel. Is that true of the R3 as well?
   
   
7. Can I get the R3 without any RAM or hard drives?
   Assuming I want to re-use all my old drives and install cheaper aftermarket 32GB RAM (since Dell isn't giving me the option), can I actually just flat-out remove these components from the build to further lower the price?

And, to all former owners of R1s that currently own R3s, are there any other "buts" I should be aware of as I migrate from the R1 to the R3?

Thanks for your guys' help!

 

Hi I will try to answer the questions to the best of my abilities someone correct me if im wrong.

1. No HDMI Input only output
2. Without adapters one monitor to the HDMI 2.0 port, there is a thunderbolt 3.0 port which is capable of dual 4k monitors but you would need an adapter/hub, if you connect the graphics amplifier you can connect directly into the video card monitor outputs.
3. There is 1 2.5" HDD bay and 4 x M.2 SSD bays (Not the same thing as mSata a completely different interface) so no you couldnt reuse your msata drive unless you bought an adapter to plug into the 2.5" drive bay. I would recommend buying an M.2 SSD.
4. It cant be configured with 32GB currently only 16GB. It has 2 sockets. Stock frequency 2133mhz, most likely can run high frequency RAM 2666mhz+ havent seen anyone test it. Once 16gb sticks of DDR4 sodimm memory come out it should work with 32GB again hasnt been tested.
5. Yes it works with 980 ti it is listed as a configuration option on dell site, generally speaking users have seen a 10% decrease in performance using the graphics amplifier due to the PCIE cable only being x4, may be more for the 980 ti.
6. Battery will require you to unscrew the whole thing to get to.
7. There is no configuration to have no drive or RAM this is something you can ask a dell sales rep I doubt they would do it though.

 

Damn, that's a shame. Do you know if there's any USB dongles that could do that through Windows instead? Especially now that USB 3.0 can definitely support the bandwidth...

Dual 4K monitors? That's awesome! Could they pull 60Hz? Does it have to be daisy-chained through DisplayPort, or can I buy a hub for both?

... Four M.2 bays?! That's nuts, how many people are even gonna use even close to that number? D: And I definitely can't afford a brand-new SSD at this point if I'm already shelling out nearly a grand for the Graphics Amplifier and a 980 Ti...

Looks like they exist, so maybe it's just a matter of time before Alienware lets you pick it as an option. If they revise their lineup with 32GB availability, do you think I'd be able to return my current RAM for the upgraded one the same way they do CPU replacement guarantees?

Oof. That doesn't sound very future-proof...

Mehhhhh.

Yeah, I tried, they wouldn't. Sigh...

Thanks for all the info. All the caveats are starting to really make me reconsider.

 

Not 100% sure if the thunderbolt port can do dual 4k at 60HZ each would need more research. The HDMI 2.0 port can do 4k at 60hz though

mSATA drives are now longer being made M.2 standard has replaced them and soon HDD will be phased out once SSD become cheaper, so I think 4 x M.2 isnt so bad. You can get a 250GB samsung evo 850 for 89$ not to bad.

The CPU upgrade guarantee was only offered for a month no longer. I highly doubt you could return the ram you would have to pay out of pocket.

 

Firstly, Thunderbolt 3 with USB-C is definitely capable of driving 2 x 4K displays @ 60Hz.
See here:
http://www.macrumors.com/2015/06/02/intel-thunderbolt-3-usb-c-displayport-1-2/

Secondly, the 17R3 only has two M.2 slots, not four. There is also a 2.5" SATA bay.
This is a picture of the bays from my 17R3:

 

Ya my mistake I figured the drives stayed the same as the R2, but with the integration of PCIE they must have had to drop it down to 2 M.2 drive slots, got to love how theres no information on the alienware site regarding how many drives can be installed...

 

one m.2 drive is PCIE and the other is SATA 6gb/s. i like more my AW 15 r1 with 4 ports but only 2 accessible. but i am going to search for a flex cable to put the other 2 in front the 2 installed.

 

That's not quite correct. You have to separate out the physical interface type from the logical one. The slots on the R3 are 'M key', which means that the physical interface supports PCI-E, SATA and SMBus.

On the logical interface side we have either AHCI or NVMe as the command set which is used to talk to the storage. Support for these command sets is provided by the BIOS, UEFI and OS drivers. For example, there are some systems that can use a NVMe SSD for storage, but not for booting. This is because support exists in the BIOS and OS drivers but there is no driver in the UEFI. Typically, a newer BIOS can fix this, as it's only software.

So, the R3 M.2 slots can support legacy SATA, AHCI over PCI-E and NVMe over PCI-E SSDs. I've got a Samsung SM951 AHCI over PCI-E SSD and it works just fine in the second M.2 slot on my R3.



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if you install 2 m.2 pcie ssd on your R3 you can reach full speed on both ?

edit: i know, my problem is that i cant write exactly what i am thincking because i am not english native. I speak spanish and i come here trying to help people and learn new things
sorry if i confuse you with my comment

 

Please don't apologise. Your English is way better than my Spanish.

I'm not sure about reaching full speed on both slots. If I get time, I'll put my SM951 out of my main PC and test it. It would be a bit rubbish if they've skimped on this bit. Certainly, the Skylake chipset now has 20 PCI-E 3 lanes, so there would be plenty spare if the M.2 slots were using 8 of them.



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I'm curious to know if you can answer a few questions I have as I'm planning to fit my upcoming 17R3 with 2x500GB m2 pci-e ssd - I've noted that booting may only work from a sata drive, which is fine since I'll have a standard sata 500GB ssd in the "normal" bay.

I was wondering

Can I RAID those pci-e m2s in the bios?

I need 2 system drives and a fast big one, so was thinking either I partition 64GB from each and software raid the remainder of both, or use two system partitions on the SATA and hardware raid the 2 M2s (or software).. They have 1GB+ speeds so raiding them isn't massively important (I need speed for video editing, but 1GB is enough).

Is the difference between NVMe /AHCI meaningful in any real way and does the 17R3 support both?

I can boot from the Sata (and would probably prefer to anyway since it's a more mature interface and having more than 500MB/s probably won't induce a much faster boot time). If I can't get much benefit from Raiding I'll probably just get one M2 and get another one next year when they grow in size.

Is the confusion over the amount of M2 slots because of the x4 designation? Can I use x4 PCIe drives in this machine?

Currently I was thinking to get this SSD (*1 or maybe *2 depending on pcie raid results) and just wanted to ask if you had any info/feedback before I buy the wrong stuff
http://www.onestoppcshop.co.uk/sams...vme-solid-state-drive-mzvpv512hdgl-00000.html

Thanks for any feedback

 

I can confirm that the BIOS doesn't have a RAID option.

 

Thanks, that's good to know. I should be able to boot from sata3 and use those two m2s as software raid I think. To be honest, they're so fast I'm not sure I'll even bother with raid, it's a pain in the recovery hole if you know what I mean... Was more curious than in need - thanks for the info!! rep+

 

Hmm? I thought the BIOS had a RAID option?
@Lord Zog Didn't you confirm there was firmware RAID in the BIOS? Or that there was something different about RAID between the 17 R2 BIOS and 17 R3 BIOS or something?

 

Meh. I went ahead and ordered my AW17-R3 anyways, since Dell was running a free 128GB SSD promo. Got it a few days ago, and also bought myself a USB-C to DisplayPort adapter.

Has anyone here tried an mSATA to M.2 adapter before? Something like this or this?

 

It has RAID as long as your PCIe cards are detected in IRST at boot. Not all PCIe models are detected unless using 1.2.2 bios as more models are supported in BIOS and IRST.

 

hello, I have taken AW17 with PM951 PCI and HD 1TB mechanical.

Now I have:
Slot 1 M.2 - 950Pro, x4 of x4 (Boot)
Slot 2 M.2 - PM951, x2 of x4
EVO SSD 500GB - 2.5 "SATA bays
Everything works fine.

Now I would like 32gb of ram, but I have not yet been confirmed 100% that they function smoothly, reading on the web, Dell support has written that can run or not ....wrote that can work or not ....... it is not very encouraging, and that in case of problems replace the original 16gb of ram, before opening a support request.

Ciao

 

Hello, sorry but I do not understand this thing, IRST is not the sw installed on win ?, how you do starting at boot / bios?
I have the latest BIOS version 1.2.3 and I have not installed on win10 IRST (I have to install? it is useful with the SSD?), but I do not see it in bios PM951 it 950Pro, only 850 EVO.

Thank you and bye

 

how can it not have a RAID option? was it too "hardcore" for the mainstream audience?

 

Hola, a fellow AW member posted this as I was also curious about a 32GB option for our laptops. It looks to be a go...

http://www.crucial.com/usa/en/alienware-17-r3/CT7892028

It's a bit pricey, but for those who must have 32GB of RAM it's well worth it. I've ordered some already.