Alienware 17 R4 from Outlet Store. Worth it considering heat and display risks?

Dear All,

I have been reading reviews and forums about the Alienware 17 R4, since I want to upgrade my 6 year old Dell XPS l702x. The machine looks like a beast but all the heating issues concerning heatsink and uneven core temps as well as potential screen issues are making me worry.

Since I want to get a model off the outlet store which are really good value for money taking into consideration their speccs, how much risk do you think there is that I may be receiving a defective laptop in terms of bad heatsink or WHD screen? I will be buying from U.K (Euro Outlet store)

I have read recent posts from people that bought alienware recently and they are still facing these potential issues. I am mostly interested for the version of 7820K along with an 1080 or 1070 gtx.

I am not really fuzzed in overclocking it, maybe in the future for futureproof purposes, although I would like it to run as silent and as cool as possible.

I was comparing it to a potential clevo laptop with the same or lesser specs however since the clevo will be new is considerably more expensive by 500-600 euro (will be applying a student discount of 15% on the alienware), which is a considerable amount, and thus, my interest for the refurbished alienware models.

Thank you.

George

 

Hey George I'm only in my third day of ownership I picked up a 7820HK with GTX 1070. From what I've read about on the AW 17 R4, many owners have indeed reset their heatsinks with better thermal paste and pads. I'm not going to do it with mine, because after stress testing my laptop yesterday for about 4-5 hours of gaming at the 4.4GHz OC profile, I found my CPU temps around 60-75C and GPU at 60-65C. I don't have any throttling.

I forgot which thread it was here, but the people with overheating seem to have both 7820HK and GTX 1080. I'm pretty sure the GTX1070 will put out less heat naturally. I chose the config with the GTX 1070 for that reason. I opted to get the 1440p 120Hz TN screen because I'm using the laptop primarily for gaming. The GTX 1080 config was like $400 USD more, and I have a pair of GTX 1080 in SLI for my desktop already, so I didn't buy that. I'm quite satisified with the performance of the GTX1070 on the 120Hz screen. My FPS in Destiny 2 seems to stay between 70-120 frames with details on high and SMAA active.

With regards to future proofing, I believe if I really find the GPU to be lagging behind I'll connect the laptop to an Alienware amp, etc.

Can you return the laptop if there are issues? Do these outlet units come with a warranty?

 

Thank you very much for your response. As far as I know, yes the laptops come with warranty and you can return it if the temps rise up to an unacceptable for Dell Level. The reason I was thinking for the gtx 1080 was for future proofing purposes, but if I can find the same setup as yours I think I will go for it as, the game I am playing at the moment is Overwatch which 1070 is more than adequate for. I guess with a bit of overclocking the 1070 could meet 1080's performance, if this becomes an issue in the near future. How are you finding the screen if I may ask? I have heard very good comments about it.

 

Well.. I will say that a GTX 1080 will probably hit the max refresh of 120Hz consistently, so that's not a bad idea...

The TN screen is quite good. I have the 240Hz Alienware TN desktop monitor, and this monitor is of similar quality and responsiveness. The color reproduction isn't as good as an IPS, but it's not bad at all. There are some TN screens that can't look rich in color no matter how you adjust them, this is not one of those screens. I found that putting "color vibrance" up to 65% from the default of 50% pretty much got this monitor's color to "pop" like an IPS.

The screen is wonderful for gaming. Since it has g-sync, regardless of if the game is running at 70 or 120Hz it feels silky smooth. It doesn't have any ghosting issues like you'd see on an IPS since it is TN, etc. The disadvantage though is if you have the screen brightness on max some desktop wallpaper with a "gradient" you may notice some "banding" and I can confirm I've seen it my AW 17 R4 screen.

 

Hey buddy welcome to the forum, once you've got your unit let me know if you have any overheating issues and I'll be glad to help ya out

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Hi there is this 4.4GHz you're claiming with the laptop on a cooler or desk? Back raised? Using stock paste? What's your ambient temperatures? Which game was you playing? Have you tried OCCT?
Are these max or average temps? What voltage offset are you using and which software to overclock? How do you know you aren't getting any throttling?

Reason I ask these questions is because those are bold claims for a stock unit and it'll be good to know if Alienware have sorted things for good now!

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It is the "OC profile 3" in bios which has one core at 4.4GHz, two cores at 4.3GHz and four cores at 4.2GHz.

It's only being tested for gaming on Destiny 2 so not confirmed to be OCCT stable. I'll end up doing that eventually, but I'm still gently breaking it in. XD

I did notice higher temps last night. The temps fluctuated between 50-79C on CPU and 50-79C on GPU. I have G-Sync enabled and game (Destiny 2) is hitting cap of 120fps frequently. Maybe if I switch off G-Sync and run with no sort of frame limit like vsync I can get the GPU to run a bit hotter? Ambient temp is 27C.

I didn't witness any throttling. In GPU-Z I got 1800-1900MHz on GPU and all 4 cores at 4.2GHz.

Laptop is flat on a steel desk, and is only a few days old out of box. I do want to see what the mfg date is. Either they did sort some issues out or I got lucky?

I do have the GTX 1070 instead of GTX 1080.

 

Yep those bios oc profiles are cancer, it'll run but it will be cpu throttling (I guarantee it) mostly because of power limits which will then hide any potential issue with temps. Are these your max temps or average?

I'd recommend you Raise the back of the laptop 20mm or so for sure this helps a lot.

Those GPU temps are very high as well, didn't be getting anywhere near 80C.

You don't need to disable G-Sync, this doesn't call the frame rate. Only turn off V-Sync in NCP and in game and this will unleash the card fully.

I'd also recommend binning the bios oc profile by reloading BIOS defaults, then choosing CPU performance mode and choosing customisation (DON'T choose any thing else first or it will screw it up). Input these values. 40,40,40,40 and the PL values to 200W and leave everything else 0.

This will be a decent 4 GHz OC which won't be restrained

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Well... those are max temps, and I'm pretty sure it's not throttling. I appreciate the tips and advice though.

HWmonitor shows 4.2GHz on all cores when at load. GPUz shows 1800+MHz on GPU. I mentioned disabling G-Sync for the purpose of getting the GPU to go higher than 120fps.

I don't think I need to raise the laptop. Like the fans aren't running full blast and it's usually around 70C. When it goes higher than 70C the fans ramp up and then cools everything back down to 70C. GPU is usually 5-10C cooler than CPU.

I'm sure running OCCT will make temps higher than what I've reported so far, but I'm sorta still grinding out Destiny 2 for fun, so at the moment that's how I'll be testing out this system.

 

Why suggest lower than default advertised max Dell clocks? Just increase power limits. If the laptop can't run Dells advertised 4.2GHz on all 4 cores, then I will call it defect (you didn't got what you paid for). And need to be fixed.

 

I agree and I'm getting to that, however I think it will show problems at lower speeds first so no point

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Well that's good to know, merry Christmas and when you're ready to test it properly and put it through its paces let me know!

Enjoy!

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do you guys think its worth maybe for the next gen of cpus or it will be long until alienware incorporates them into their laptops? what about the new volta gpus?

 

Hm, I recently saw A17 R4 models with "Thermal Plate [QTY : 2]" in the description, I wonder if the thermal solution has been improved (checking the Dell specs when I ordered mine half year ago, there is "heatsink" as a separate entry), config is 7820HK + 1080 GTX though