Alienware 15 FHD IPS vs UHD IPS (Response time, ghosting, downscaling...)

So I´m about to buy an Alienware in Mexico which unfortunately its impossible to order it with a TN G-sync panel here, so I will have to settle with one of the two IPS options. So I got a couple of doubts about these panels.

1) Response Time - How bad is it for playing fast paced games such as FPS? Is there any visible ghosting?

2) IGZO Downscaling - How is it to play games at 1080 on the IGZO screen? Is there blurriness? What about everyday use?

3) Future OLED change - If AW launches an 15" OLED laptop, will we be able to install it in our laptops?

Edit - What´s the AW15 direct competitor?

 

Sorry I can't be of help for the exact screen info (usually 4k scales down to 1080p well, and idk about the response time)

But the main competitor is probably the Aorus X5. Slim, very well built, premium priced and well cooled. Both are good machines, though I would give the edge to the Aorus this generation just because the Alienwares still have that heatsink issue.

 

MSI GT62VR is the first one to come to my mind and comes in multiple flavours (1060 and 1070). If you don't mind the weird keyboard layout, I think the MSI wins this round due thermal issues that plague AWs. It is however, at least in the UK, quite a bit more expensive than the Alienware if you count a 7-10% discount. Also, I expect the AW to have a better screen if you get the IGZO screen. My main
MSI also offers the thin and light GS63VR (~2kg) with a 1060, but it has terrible thermals. There is also the more affordable GE62VR from MSI. Asus offers G502VM, which is quite thin, with a 1060 and a G502VT (slightly thicker than the VM) with a 1060/1070. Gigabyte offers a couple of models at 15" under their own name and the Aorus X5 under the Aorus brand. There are also two 15" Clevo barebones -which I forgot their models- both with a Pascal GPU (one even has a desktop CPU), if you want something less off the shelf. An inch smaller and you get Aorus X3, MSI GS43VR, and the Razer Blade.

 

The following opinion is from an older "gamer" who has recenlty gotten back in the game with the 15R3. I have the 4K IGZO:

1 - Response time is fine for my games (DOOM, BF4, Beam.NG, WoT). I don't play competitively, and am mediocre at best.
2 - The donwscaling from 4K to 1080 seems perfect to me. Although the 1070 handles the 4K on Ultra fairly well (in the 30-60FPS on most games), the 1080 is buttery smooth... The quality seems great and I am very anal about these things.
3 - , I don't know... sorry.

 

So no (noticeable) ghosting and perfect scaling in games? There should be no reason not to go IGZO, right?

 

None noticeable to me. Plus I find the down scaling unnoticeable, and this is something I consider I would notice.

Plus, the 4K is great in Windows 10 on the desktop. It is sharp and looks great for colour. The other advantage is that it allows you to have "Optimus" and run off of the Intel integrated graphics and give you decent battery life (for me in the 4 to 6 hour range easily with the 99whr battery).

 

Thanks for the input. Somehow, searching through forums/reddit, you find divided opinions about the ghosting/downscaling. I wonder if they use different manufacturers for the IGZO display

It also seems the 1080p can be overclocked and thus getting rid of some ghosting. Hard to decide...

 

In case it helps you:

• Monitor Name: Sharp [Unknown Model: SHP1450]
• Monitor Name (Manuf): LQ156D1 [DELL P/N: KY9JH]

As reported by HWinfo

 

The aorus is only a competitor in terms of specs. The build quality is nothing compared to the AW and the thermals as well. Apart from machines with a not well connecting heatsink.

 

Eh.... AW definitely gets the edge for build quality no question, but Aorus is still above pretty much everyone else.

As for thermals, AW isn't really leagues above, a few degrees cooler perhaps when its working. Aorus is usually low 80s, a working AW is upper 70s low 80s.

 

My main drawback with Aorus is the lack of Thunderbolt 3, so no upgradability in the future :/

 

2) 4K is beautiful when looking at images or just doing regular stuff in Windows. Videos look great also but you need to start leaning in closer to the screen to really focus on the extra detail. If you sit at a regular distance watching a 4K movie (say 3 feet away) you kind of need to make yourself remember there's more detail vs 1080p. As for games, same thing, looks great when you're closer to the screen. When you switch from 4K to 1080p you will notice that drop in sharpness. But once you sit at regular playing distance of 2 feet or further, you kind of forget about it during the action.

1) Which leads me back to the first question of yours. Pretty sure 4K screens are still the same and no breakthrough has happened yet. Response times are pretty bad, maybe around 25-26ms? But it's doable. I believe both FHD and 4K IPS screens suffer from that response time. Only way to improve it is to go to the new QHD screen with the 5ms. I've used the 5ms one personally and you feel it right away. But anyways that's not part of your question but just figure it's worth pointing out if it matters to you.

3) As for swapping out screens, nobody can tell right now except for Alienware engineers. If OLED is important to you, then I would hold out until they announce it (if they do, not sure rumors have said it'll be available for 15).

 

Thanks for the input. I guess that extra sharpness you achieve with 4k will get lost once you downscale in games. It seems AW is a great laptop (once you resolve the heatsink issues)except for their screens. They dont seem to have anything to please me with. Hopefully they will apply a QHD sometime soon. OLED seems to be couple years away...

 

Can't really blame AW for the screens though. All the current 4K IPS screens suffer the same slow response time. Only way right now is to go QHD 5ms or MSI also has a FHD 120hz screen. But anybody else using the FHD or 4K IPS screens should be using the same stuff as everybody else.

Edit: Those are 17" screens of the ones mentioned. Not sure if 15" screens have a 120hz version. Would be nice if so.

 

I actually owned a Gigabyte and tested various Aorus laptops and they are dogshit when it comes to build quality. All still ahve a cheap flimsy plastic tray with a keyboard, stuck onto an aluninum/plastic palmrest with 1mm gaps on each side. If you peak between the keyboard tray and palmrest you can actually see the mainboard PCB etc. Nice that all crumbs etc can get through there as well.

Creaky hinges, dying batteries because heat etc not even considered then.

Gigabyte/Aorus for me never again. Hell my Gigabyte was so flimsy it would bend a little in my laptop bag in transit. I had to bend it slightly back everytime to keep it straight on the table without wobbling. A lot of complaints about bend laptops right out of the box. Sorry but Aorus doesnt deserve to be in the same league as AW. AW had some flaws with the heatsink which is being resolved mostly now on new units. I would take the AW over any other gaming laptop any day of the week.

 

Gigabyte and Aorus aren't the same... I've tested like... Most gaming laptops including many Gigabyte and Aorus. Gigabyte is significantly worse than Aorus, not even close. Comparing them is like comparing Alienware to Dell Inspirons and saying it's the same.

Reviews from other trusted sources that have tested most laptops agree with me: http://www.notebookcheck.net/Aorus-X7-DT-v6-Notebook-Review.183986.0.html

Not only do they say these modern Aorus laptops feel better than the part entries, but they also complement the overall chassis and build.

Gigabyte models have never impressed me, the Aorus V5 and up models have been above the norm however.

Still, they are below Alienware.

 

Nice to know those who want an alternative to the expensive razer blade pro can get a decent laptop with the X7. Pretty much only the razer and aorus in the market for sub 1 inch thick monster gaming laptops.

 

the only upgrade you will ever do is selling it and getting a new one

a big plus of the aw is that the market value holds very well

only 2 options for a crippled tdp piece of junk cheaptops with zero cooling put into thought


but hey, at least the x7 has a hk cpu unlike the razer

 

That trusted source also rated all gigabytes as excellent....

I checked them all at a tradeshow 3 months ago and i didnt think they improved. Still the same design construction.

 

Which Gigabyte did you own?

Notebookcheck also contextualizes build for the price. An AW 15 is like 500 more than a P35X with no coupon. Gigabyte is a budget machine usually.

 

I owned the p34w v3, the v4 and v5 are still the same. Tested the x3 and x7 for a while. As long as they refuse to revise the base design (plastic frame with aluminium sheets and plastic keyboard tray inlays they sont receive my support.

Really checl those in real. The the hinges, the gaps between keyboard tray and chassis, heat output and out of the box battery health. You will be surprised.

 

First off, why did you own 3 if you dont like them?

I see the Aorus X5 V6 all the time, a good friend owns one. I still don't know what your talking about. The hinges are tight and smooth not loose, and there is very little flex in the chassis and lid. Machining is well above the norm. Battery health was like 97% which is pretty standard. Temps were also better than the current Alienwares, not worrying at all.

I get that you don't like that its not as dense as an AW or unibody aluminum machine but it's better than MSI GT series machines or Clevos.

 

I tested them for a friend who runs a computer shop. Thats why I could test various Clevo machines, Aorus machines etc. The Gigabytes I bought from Amazon. They where more expensive than AW in Europe by the way.

 

I have the Alienware 17 r3- I7HK & GTX980m How do you go about downscaling to 1080p? Mine looks horrible when I try to game a 1080p I feel I have tried a lot but nothing work to not make it look like pixelated crack /cry I Thought I knew alot about these things ... perhaps I am just overlooking and it might just be something really simple. Can you walk me through or just a refresh the intel setting to play 10080p off my UHD when gaming? I am using windows 10. about to reformat to windows 8.1 pro...

 

Nothing special really. You literally just choose 1920x1080 as your res. And yes upon immediate change you will go "holy crap what happened to the graphics its all pixelated and crap" but unless you play games with really bad posture and lean in so that your face is a foot away from the screen, you'll quickly adjust and forget that it isn't as sharp as 4K anymore. Or unless you got really amazing eyesight.

Anyways, not sure if that answered your question. Running any resolution low than native will always look worse, but since it's less demanding you can smooth it out with some AA and still come out ahead with framerates. I think you might've misread my previous post thinking I had a magic solution to making 1080p look good on a 4k screen. Basically just saying that for general gaming, it's not as drastic as it initially appears.

 

So you CAN tell the difference.

I get a bit annoyed with posters saying downscaling has no effect - it does - and yes some of us do have perfect eyesight .

 

• The FHD has a 25ms response time and the 4k has a 27ms response time.
• Playing on ANY LCD outside of its native resolution will cause it to dramatically lose sharpness.
• Scaling can cause issues with some apps that simply wont scale and look extremely small. It can also distort other things in Windows.

Notes: Some people don't care about the loss of sharpness. Some people forget how sharp a native res is until they go back to a native res.
Bottom line is that its physically impossible to get the sharpness (clarity) on a resolution other then the native resolution. So choose your LCD based on what resolution you plan on playing games at.
Playing games at 4K although cool, will dramatically reduce your FPS (obviously) so really I personally feel 1080p gaming is still viable because you still get decent clarity, plus it runs really fast.

 

Yea absolutely. I agree, anybody who claims there's no effect is probably blind and/or has really bad eyesight. But what I was trying to say wasn't that there's no difference. The point is that when your eyes are at normal distance from the 17" screen of maybe 2 feet and beyond, the difference of 1080p with AA and 4K stars to blur (no pun intended) during gameplay/motion. Again this is just my experience as some people's eyes can pick out the difference more so than others and I'm definitely not new to ultra high res screens. The whole point of this isn't to say anybody is wrong, but I don't want people to get the idea that picking the highest possible res screen is always automatically the best choice once you factor in things like crap Windows scaling and etc.

 

Haha, DeeX! I tried lying to myself like some people do then later on It seems like no difference... then you see you someone or a friend using a 4k and you LIKE /Heartattack This mind trick is a lie! But I completely agree and could see that happen. I tried it but I failed at that game... lol

Does anyone know the 1080p part number that would fit the uhd screen cable and do I need but a 30 pin instead? It is just the computer runs to hot and frankly I rather have better good gaming experience than 20-30 spiking FPS on UHD. I have researched this but I can's get a complete definite for the part numbers. I know the are compatible is doing able without any modding. Can anyone make my day?

 

Hey DeeX I'm new to laptop screens, quick question for ya...you mention the FHD has a 25ms response time while the QHD has a 5ms response time though it has some of its own issues. For intensive gaming purposes, which would you recommend in combination with the 1070gtx?

 

Depends on your need, 25ms is okay for non-competitive gaming but if you play game like bf1/csgo/overwatch and is KDR conscious etc go for the 120hz/5ms


Can also get an external monitor to make up for the weakness of your laptop screen


For example

- 120hz/5ms gaming + ultrasharp/dreamcolor monitor for color accurate


- 4K screen for color accurate + gaming monitor

 

First off, I am specifically referring to how 1080P looks when downscaled on a 4K screen.

Yes, and other resolution that I have ever seen displayed on an LCD that isn't native has always looked like crap. What I am saying is that it seems that since 1080P directly divides into 4K, that the downscaling is more than acceptable to me when playing games. To clarify, I'm not saying 1080P on a 4K screen looks as good as native 1080P on another screen, or as good as the native 4K resolution, but that it is more than acceptable to me. I much prefer the 4K resolution on the desktop. Many games are more than playable at 4K (with the 1070) and if you want to tweak at that resolution, you really don't need anti-aliasing since it's so sharp and you could probably gain a few FPS to stay at 4K, or bring it donw to 1080P in games and then leave the AA on...

This is what I do. I am sensitive to resolution issues. To the point where I can spot the difference between 720P or 1080P on an LCD, etc...

Of course, this is only my opinion.