Alienware m15 / i9-8950HK Review by Ultra Male

I thought you had ordered this from HID with their thermal paste and thermal pad upgrades. Why did it have factory paste?

 

Its another m15 he bought locally.

 

We can talk about Dell support, bruh... The new changes is come to stay.... Dell's new disgusting changes show now up in full bloom

 

Sometimes I think @Papusan is a robot storing all the information from these posts.

He must have lots of bookmarks for these websites.

 

But.....why? Why would anyone disable turbo as a fix for bad thermals? I'm not even playing with y'all, that bloke still peaks at ~70+ with a CPU clocking at 2.2 GHz BASE.

What foul treachery is this? And this is the BENCHMARK sequence, imagine how shafted this will get after prolonged gaming

 

So the MSI GT75 Titan 8SG had an issue with the Windows key on the keyboard so I got really frustrated and returned it. It won't do anything until you hammer it very hard. I googled the issue and it seems like a common problem with MSI laptops

I am done with gaming taptops for now, there is nothing that works. I got me a Dell XPS 15 as I saw one on display, I fell in love with its glossy screen that was super clear and vibrant and I spend my time online on the forums anyway so this should hold me off for a whole until Alienware gets their stuff together

 

Why support Dell's XPS line with money? Have you looked into the XPS thread? Read the last 10 pages.

I just do my due dilligence. I always try gather up info in the Tech world.

 

I'd never buy a Dell XPS under any circumstances after the last one I had 7 years ago - the L502X. Almost all of them had GPU issues at some point which Dell never fixed. Just another one of the inherent flaws of BGA.

Come to think of it, I don't think i'd buy anything Dell makes at all. Their good days are long gone. Sure the Area 51M is a significant improvement from the joke that was the 17 with its tripod heatsink, but its still being gimped by Azor's crappy firmware and Dell's crappy QC. The days of the M17X R1/R2 when they could build a solid and reliable machine with good cooling are ancient history.

 

I think Allah is silently guiding you to take a tough decision on Dell PCs.
Its time to go for Thinkpad or Latitudes or HP for portability, performance and battery life. I'd suggest Thinkpads for absolutely reliability and rugged performance. As for heavy adobe premiere usage and gaming, I honestly can't recommend any gaming laptop that doubles up as DTR.

 

That's just stupid. I can't even quantify it as malice at this point (Hanlon's Razor).

 

What would this work like "if it was summer in Dubai"?

 

Azor publicly says XPS wasn't designed for CPU+GPU usage at the same time but only CPU is given more power. Even AW has same problem, Maybe its a design flaw!
@custom90gt
Screwing up a NBR reviewer and a mod saying its working as intended by dell engineers is best way to demote its XPS lineups from top quality to worse(lower than chinese $200 laptops w/ Dell logo).

 

Hmm, how timely!

Ambient temperatures are more critical to performance than you'd assume.
And this...is a recipe for disaster.

 

@Ultra Male was your old 8750H repasted by any chance? Any undervolting? The 3000 CB20 benchmark result is surprising.

 

Repasted with LM, Fujipoly thermal pads, heatsink lapped and balanced by HID.

 

That explains it I guess.

 

Good stuff man. Hopefully she serves you well.

 

well, he is looking at msi gt75vr 8950HK 2080 model.

 

I think you should have just went with the Area-51m from the beginning. Seems like all these alternatives aren't working out for you.

Did you ever receive a Area-51m and return one?

For the GPU issues, I think doing what Prema said with the undervolt should help with the GPU dying. There are many of us that are running the Area-51m fine.

 

Normal end users won't even know what's undervolting and Dell tools doesn't support UVing.

 

@Ultra Male knows of undervolting.

MSI Afterburner can undervolt GPU
AWCC/Throttlestop/Intel XTU can undervolt CPU.

I've even made some videos on this:

 

Ultra Male knows how to undervolt or even make a modded BIOS/vBIOS.
The videos are good. I missed those two but I watched your a51m review.

 

@Ultra Male I'm confused, I could have sworn the first CB R20 run you put up with your 8750H had way higher temps (was it in the m15 thread?).
The max temps on this run seem crazy low for CB R20. Am I missing something?

 

max temps are 99C in Cinebench R20 within 5 seconds of running it! Crazy low?

 

Haha. Maybe I’m seeing it wrong, but it looks like your 8950HK scored 2931 in CB20 and hit 99C. And the 8750H scored 3032 with max of 79C? (Looking at your review on page 1)

 

It’s seems like bga will always stay crap just like @Papusan says. Hope is lost for these crap throttlebooks!
Nice review @Ultra Male as always and I’m glad your getting rid of this machine

 

And the coming 8 core unlocked Mobile, the successor 9980Hk to 8950Hk won't be any better. But at least... Intel's engineers finally used their heads and differentiated the all core BGA clock speed vs. 8 core desktop chips.

Now we can see a difference on all core clock speed with 5 bin (4.2 vs. 4.7GHz). Remember the i9-8950Hk Scam had exactly same 4.3GHz all cores Turbo boost as 8700K. Some progress but it will still be a awful overheating throttling mess.

And expect the notebook OEM's will continue their sickness... Shrink on cooling due they prefer thinner and slimmer chassis thickness. The way they have done the last years. Aka from worse to even more worse.

 

Got to play with the m15 for a bit..

 

Thanks bro, as much as I loved it, loved its size and portability and insane battery life for a gaming laptop, I just didn't see myself keeping it on the long run and having to deal with temp issues and be extra careful or even having to turn down some graphical settings to enjoy smooth gameplay.

 

Temps./clock speeds in HWiNFO bro so we know what was going on during the test

 

Have you seen the Dell Alienware PSU lottery?

https://www.dell.com/en-us/shop/dell-laptops/alienware-m15/spd/alienware-m15-laptop/wnorn5chm155h

Tech specs... https://topics-cdn.dell.com/pdf/alienware-m15-laptop_setup-guide_en-us.pdf

 

I have the 240W power adapter since I ordered it with the RTX 2080 Max-Q/i9-8950HK

 

Mine has the 240W too (8750H / 2080 max-q). Besides, having owned several Alienware machines since 2010, i've got few spare 240W PSU laying around at home

 

Yeah, new owners of the i5/i7 setups saved by i9-8950Hk

From same specs sheet... Dell was probably forced to add in 240w psu when they put in the +$450 usd i9-8950Hk

 

Perhaps I'm confused, the 8950HK is still a 45w cpu. It's the 2080 that needs more power.

 

i9-8950Hk is adverticed with overclocking. Up to 5.0GHz. Aka power limits by-passed.

 

Right, but no one is going to be able to run it much passed that in a thin and light. The switch to the 240w PS came with the 2060 and above. I guess I'm confused how Dell providing a 240w PS is a bad thing.

 

None say 240w PS it's a bad thing. Only that the i5/i7 buyers was screwed before. From same specs sheet.

 

I went back and read the thread that you posted and it mentions that the 2060 cards now with the 240w power supply. So what you may mean is early 2060 purchasers didn't get the 240w. Looking at Dells site it shows that anything with a 2060 or greater comes with the 240w.

 

Not sure if they got the 240w. Could be as I mentioned... Added when they start selling (list) the +$450 usd i9.

Edit. See also previous post #4 http://forum.notebookreview.com/thr...hk-review-by-ultra-male.828258/#post-10889462

 

No, every M15 with a 2060 or greater (regardless of CPU) now gets a 240W power supply. @Terreos could and should email Dell and have them send him a 240W adapter. It looks like it was a change by Dell, likely because users were experiencing battery drain while running the system full tilt.

 

Exactly. <experiencing battery drain while running the system full tilt.>. This would be my own words... Screwed with battery drain while running the system full tilt. Saved by the change as I said in my previous post #84. There is absolutely no need for hybrid power when they can offer adequate psu.

 

I didn't see your post on Hybrid power since you edited that in after. We weren't talking about that, and I agree that hybrid power is a dumb idea since it's hard on batteries and is an indication of too small of a PSU.

Having said that, my point is that ALL m15s with 2060s or above come with the 240w adapter. Users do not need to purchase an i9 to get it. I see nothing wrong with Dell correcting their mistake. It's not some PSU lotto as you mention as it's now standard.

 

I should have worded it a little better. <Previous buyers lost in the PSU lottery>. Main point... Earlier buyers was screwed whatever we wording this. They should all call Dell and ask for a free 240w psu replacement. Nothing more or less. They can't deny you this.

If you remember the 180w mess and 980m early 2015... Dell support can be so different. If you was settled in some countries they denied totally to send out the proper 240w PSU. Many had to buy the 240w psu for own money. Dell washed their hands.

 

That was my point earlier. I'm glad you agree with me, lol. Yes Dell should swap the 180W adapter with a 240W and would likely do so without much fuss. At least stateside they can be decent when it comes to support. My advice is that if the tech doesn't seem to want to help, call back because it can be a totally different experience based on who is on the other end...

 

I wonder how many was pushed the 180w psu before the change. https://www.dell.com/community/Alie...80w-message/td-p/7277941?ref=lithium_acptsoln

Dell's answer (final<halfbaked>fix) on the the dreaded 180w message....

 

Peak temp 91C
Clocks never moved anywhere
No undervolt yet, ambient was like 25C

Didn't have HWINFo at the time.

 

Congrats! You won the silicon lottery bro!

 

Well, technically it's my friend's laptop. He sold his 2018 Macbook Pro 15" and got the AW m15 with 17% off coupon from Dell.

I think we need to realize something here. Dell sells a lot of units. Yes it's very common for those systems to run hot, but also remember people only post when something is wrong most of the time. We don't see many hey this computer runs great because people probably aren't going on forums telling everyone, instead they're enjoying their machines.

With that said, my first impressions of the m15 is very good. The laptop is actually very thin and not that heavy. Keyboard isn't as good as the Area-51m but isn't too bad either.

Kinda wish the touchpad had physical buttons. I'll be uploading a unboxing video tomorrow and hopefully get to play with it next week for a review to really push it.

 

Or won the heatsink, paste and pads lottery

Don't forget almost all reviewer sites show exactly same overheating from reviewed units as the people "you say only post when something is wrong". And I follow most of the reviews/tests out there (+ not all reviewers even push the hardware). + other places.