Alienware Area-51m R2 Review by Spartan

Specs:
Base: Alienware Area-51m R2
Processor: 10th Gen Intel® Core™ i9 10900K (10-Core, 20MB Cache, 3.7GHz to 5.3GHz w/Thermal Velocity Boost)
Thermal Upgrades: PHOBYA NanoGrease Extreme on CPU + GPU + Fujipoly Extreme Thermal Pads
Operating System: Windows 10 Pro, 64-bit, English
Video Card: nVIDIA® GeForce® RTX 2080 SUPER™ 8GB GDDR6
Memory: Kingston XCCT36-MIE 32GB Dual Channel DDR4 XMP at 3200MHz
LCD: 17.3" FHD (1920 x 1080) 300Hz 3ms 300-nits 100% sRGB color gamut + Tobii Eyetracking technology
Hard Drive: Western Digital PC SN730 NVMe SSDs 2TB (2x 1TB PCIe M.2 SSD) RAID 0 [Boot] + 2TB (2x 1TB PCIe M.2 SSD) Non-Raid [Storage]
Power Supply: 240W+ 330W Adapter
Wireless: Killer™ Wi-Fi 6 AX1650 (2x2) 802.11ax Wireless and Bluetooth 5.1
Keyboard: Alienware mSeries per-key AlienFX RGB keyboard with numeric keypad
Primary Battery: Lithium Ion (90 Wh) Battery with Alienware Battery Defender technology (Standard)
Color: Lunar Light with High Endurance Clear Coat
Service: 4 Years Premium Support Plus

Accessories:
Alienware 610M Wired/Wireless Gaming Mouse
Alienware Area-51m Elite - White Limited Edition

 

Spoiler: Area-51m R2 BIOS Screenshots

 

Benchmarks

AIDA64 Cache & Memory Benchmark



AS SSD Benchmark - 2x Western Digital PC SN730 NVMe SSDs in RAID 0 [64K Data Strip Size]



AS SSD Benchmark - Single Western Digital PC SN730 NVMe SSD



CrystalDiskMark- 2x Western Digital PC SN730 NVMe SSDs in RAID 0 [64K Data Strip Size]



CrystalDiskMark - Single Western Digital PC SN730 NVMe SSD



CINEBENCH R20



Fire Strike



Time Spy



PCMARK 10



Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six Siege Benchmark using GeForce Experience Optimal Settings:



Latency Test:

Running apps:
VIPRE Antivirus Plus
Google Chrome with 3 tabs (went up to 6 tabs during the test)
Firefox Portable
Skype
Everything (Search)
PhaseExpress (Text Auto replacement program)
SVP (Smooth Video Project to play videos @ screen's refresh rate)
Cyberlink YouCam 9
Internet Download Manager
hide.me VPN
Tobii



Clock Speeds/Temps while running a virus scan utilizing all cores @ 5.1 GHz with no undervolt:

 

reserved

 

That’s interesting. They replaced the 2.5” drive with two m.2 slots? Probably a smart move honestly. Lots of storage potential that way.

 

true, or if you order it with the 2.5 inch drive, then Dell adds an m.2 to 2.5" housing so you can still have that option.

 

No updates to the review yet or benchmarks?

Sent from my SM-G970W using Tapatalk

 

Am I just imagining or one of your photos is different. The backlit keyboard one looks like an M17 R2/3. And the front airvents photo look different (An alien head near the camera? But I believe it's the real 51m r2) Will be looking to see if the r1 or R2 is better although I really like the r1 keyboard.

 

You didn’t see wrong.
Dell cut costs and slapped in the keyboard from the thinner m17. Unisex fits all is the golden rule nowadays.

Dell started up the Unisex trend with their first AW BGA models. AW 15 and 17R2 from 2015 got same MB with 4 M.2 ssd Sata slots. The smaller 15 inch models had equal many ssd slots but two of them got hided below the chassis construction. With an cutting saw you could expose them so they could be used.

 

So the Alien head logo (power button) is in the middle top of keyboard or the top right corner?

 

The sad truth is it’s still better than almost all other manufacturers keyboards.

 

Its in the middle. The second picture is the M17r3.

Here's my R2



ignore the cat hair.

 

@ratchetnclank @Mr. Fox @Fire Tiger @iunlock @ssj92 @Melvin Rousseau @Papusan @etern4l @Nicolas Paiva @c69k @normand668 @Normimb @alaskajoel @jc_denton

Little teaser:

 

My bad, that pic was uploaded by mistake with the collection of images, that is indeed from an M17.

 

Have you received it or was that from the team at HID?

Also your chip looks to run very cool and looks to be beating my score by a decent margin too. Guess that's your binned cpu paying off

 

Oh no but I will soon

Stay tuned for the full review/benchmarks

 

Put it on an AC and push 5.2 for 6700 points! ;D

 

Or send it to PooPoosan's Igloo in Norway and let him achieve a world record

 

Wow that’s pretty solid temps. Can I assume it’s delidded? Or are you gonna be a tease and not say?

 

yup

 

Was it with undervolt?
Will be posting pics tomorrow of my bin 5.ghz delided with fujipoly pads

 

Looking forward to the review! Fair jump in score compared to R1 scores.

 

They've perfected the 14nm++++++++++ node.

 

-100mV

 

HID customization showing up nicely!

 

I've uploaded the benchmarks:

http://forum.notebookreview.com/thr...1m-r2-review-by-spartan.833709/#post-11036256

@ratchetnclank @Mr. Fox @Fire Tiger @iunlock @ssj92 @Melvin Rousseau @Papusan @etern4l @Nicolas Paiva @c69k @normand668 @Normimb @alaskajoel @jc_denton @custom90gt

 

Those are some mighty fine temps. The guys at HID have done you good. I've had to knock my undervolt back from -100mv as i kept getting random blue screens (when idle mainly stress testing was fine). -95mv seems more stable for me.

 

How were they able to lower the temps down to 86 ? Since it was 89 before .
Looks really great !

 

me too, I dialed it back to -75mV. Realize that games will never cause so much of a load as Cinebench so -60 to -70mV is safer

temps will vary from one benchmark to the other it's not like they're the same 100% of the time, there is always a small varience

 

Yes I know but 3 degrees is still a lot,
won't change much in gaming lol

You think the 5.1 bin help lowering these temps ?

Regarding the undervolt I've been stable gaming for hours with -100 even -120 but I don't bother since it doesn't change that much thermal wise .

I know it's a lot to ask but do you think you could ask your colleagues wich thickness of pads they've been using on the heatsink , if you could make a tuto people would definitely find it very useful

 

The binned CPU made a big difference, 10C lower than the stock one I had before according to the tests I've seen. That's offcourse unless you got a lucky stuck one which me and you never did so.

About the pads and whatnot, I cannot disclose such information that's internal stuff

 

Well mine wasn't a lucky one since I had throttling right away even with a undervolt of 100 mv.
It's really great to be able to choose which one you want ( at a certain cost lol )

I understand of course .
You think the gelid thermal pads are better than the fujipoly ones ?
The only thing I don't like about the fujipoly is that once they've been used they get really hard and they break very easily

 

10 degrees lower thanks to the delid and the bin ? Or the one they compared it too was also delided ? Wich in that case would be indeed hell of a diff

 

I don't know about GELID pads. The only ones I've had on all my machines in the past are Fujipoly Extreme Thermal Pads FTW

 

Wow, impressive results, and even more for the temps!
You are already so close to 14K CPU Score in Time Spy, and you are ~4.9% from 5.3GHz liquid cooled 10900K desktops in cinebench. This Vapor Chamber made HUGE difference for GPU also.
I bet you can achieve 13K-14K Results in TS. SL Binned 10900K for laptops = Holy Grail. I'm still impressed with the temps. Nice job!

Do you mind posting some gaming benchmarks?

 

I would need @Mr. Fox to set me up again with Riva Statistics Server as I forgot how to configure it. Unless there's an easier way?

 

My A51m R2 shipped from China today early I have ordered glid thermal pads to use as I found it hard to get fujipoly pads in the UK. Hopefully, they are as good. Will post benchmarks when mine arrives, but doing all the delidding etc myself as there isn't really an option for the UK. No silicon lottery for me so hope I'm lucky!

 

Lucky. Mine is suppose to arrive on the 10th of August and it STILL hasn't even shipped yet.

 

Where do you live?

 

Only ordered mine on the 31st July after giving up waiting for Dark Side of the Moon coloring in the UK (Rep said to ask again in 2 weeks after already waiting over a month...).
The estimated delivery was the 18th of August but the tracking now shows estimated by 13th August from China. Hoping my Hyper X ram arrives before it does.

 

BTW the keyboard on the R2 i way better than the R1, the keys are of super high quality not the cheap plasticy ones lik the R1/M17//M15 which were flimsy and can easily pop out.
And the Lunar Light color that I got has a very nice coating and looks very premium so this should not have any discoloration issues like the R1. Looks very nice.

 

Great to know, really excited to get it. Didn't have the R1 but am upgrading from a Toshiba Quosimo I got before doing my doctorate, and they don't even make that anymore... So this will be a massive upgrade for me I've got my fingers crossed that there won't be any compatibility issues with the 4TB Sabrent Rockets I ordered for the expansion slots, hoping to cram 12TB in this machine.

 

Called Dell yesterday and was told mine was sent to a shipper for shipping. However, no tracking number yet today. Hoping can track it soon, I check the website too much to see if it's shipped. Will be nice to know it's out there and coming. Rather than wondering when, lol.

I got the lunar light but the 10700k and 2070s instead of the big bertha top end. I only play games, so it should be an upgrade from my 17 r5, 1070.

 

That means they sent the shipment info and you will soon start to see the progress moving. Hang in there

That's a good choice and if anything, it'd run cooler. The 2070 is no slouch and neither is the 10700K

 

I wasn't expecting to hear this.

KB on my R1 was much better than my friend's m15 R2. Doesn't really look much different from those laptops.

You've owned the m15 or m17 r2 right? So is it a different keyboard then?

 

I owned the m15 R1 not the R2. I can't really remember how were the keys on the m15 though as it has been a long time. You need to type on one of these keyboards to understand what I mean. The keys are built like a rock not some flimsy plasticy ones. Remember when I got my first Area-51m R1 I mentioned that the moment I opened it and pressed delete the Delete key popped out? I went back to the store (bought from a local shop here in Dubai( and they wanted to send it for repairs. I'm like WHAAAT? No way I just paid $4000 USD you give me a brand new one I'm not waiting for no repair.

 

If it's the same as the one in the m15r2, i agree. I prefer that keyboard over the M51r1.

Also your SSD'S in raid 0 are much better in benchmark the mine (PC601A NVMe SK hynix 1TB) .

Congrats.

 

Did you notice in my image how I set CrystalDiskMark to NVMe? Doing that significantly increased the score. It's in the latest Beta =
CrystalDiskMark 8 -Cecile- Beta4

Don't forget to unblock the ZIP file before extracting it if it was blocked.

 

Just to mention the obvious, apart from some variance, component temps are a function of ambient temps. I hear they need pretty mighty AC in Dubai. Igloo jokes aside apparently there is an artificial skiing course too, which is probably where @Spartan@HIDevolution conducted the tests for good measure