Considering an Alienware 17, looking for feedback

So I have been looking at different systems (AW17, MSI Titan GT80, GT72) and I am getting ready to pull the trigger on the 17. Ive owned a few Alienware laptops and they have traditionally been good machines. Based on the build quality and thinner profile, I chose the 17 over the Titan because I think to Titan is so big I might not take it anywhere.

My plan is to purchase the AW17 with the 980m for 1899, and then for 100 bucks I can upgrade the ram, and then I can fill the m.2 Sata ports with bigger better drives for way cheaper. For 2149 they offer the 16 gigs of ram but only a 128 gig m.2. Im assuming those are the only two differences, there is no difference in the screens or anything else right?

My plan was to order the system, and a graphics amplifier that I can throw a card in later this year when the next gen cards after the 980's come out.

Am I missing anything? I know we are seeing throttling issues here and there but is everyone mostly happy with their 17R2's?

 

3rd replacement unit not throttling so far
need to do more test to be sure

 

just buy a desktop if you want a desktop graphics card!

$1800 + 200 for the GA + 500-600 for a 980 = can buy a desktop PC.

 

Sometimes I game upstairs, sometimes downstairs. Also like to be able to travel with a good gaming system. Later this year, I am already planning on building a PC for gaming/benchmarking so Im not considering that at the moment. Any desktop GPU I use can be used as one of the cards for the gaming system I build later.

 

Either find yourself an 17-R1 and upgrade to 980m or get the GT72 "I actually had the opportunity to test a GT72 and it was a pretty solid machine" ... But my 2 cents is that you really should stay away from the R2 atm. and avoid all the drama associated with these machines. It's pretty much luck of the draw you can get a working machine from the start or you have to jump hoops to get a working one. Even after that you will have to deal with the heat, lack of upgradability "if you care about that" and difficult components access.

 

A good gaming system? The new Aw laptops is a good throttling system if that you want.

 

You'll find a lot of hate for the AW17 r2 right now. But it really is the unlucky that complain. I imagine they have moved a lot more systems than the 20 that have surfaced has having issues on the forums.

Know the limitations and you'll be fine. Throttling seems to be a big issue in the majority of units. I only saw throttling when I did not undervolt and was running from coming off of a sleep. And the latter is an issue where the TDP reduces to 30 watt after a sleep versus 47 watt which is standard.

Other issues are the power supply just call them and request the 240 watt PSU and you'll be fine in this regard.

I have the same idea as you in regards to graphics amplifier. Add one now or later and use it to run the latest desktop gpu in another year or so when the 980m won't cut it. For now the 980m will suit you well for most all situations unless you plan to 4k game at 60 fps.

Microsoft has the unit for 1799 and if they are still honoring the grads and dads discount you'll score 100 off. The specs on this build are:
980m, 128 ssd, 1tb storage drive (5400 rpm), 4710 HQ, and touch screen. They will also ship it second day for free. Overnight for 15 bucks. If you're a Dell preferred member you can take advantage of the price match and still get it directly through sell however the Microsoft unit will ship within 24 hours not 2 weeks. You'll still get a year plus of alienware basic support and warranty. And can add extended warranties through Dell or Microsoft.

Currently running witcher 3 @ 1080 60fps on high / ultra. Gta V @ 1080 60 fps all on the highest settings minus a few things to hold steady.


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Thanks man, I actually ordered from NewEgg and got the Batman Arkham Knight game as an add on for free. They shipped it overnight for 8 bucks and Im running Windows Update on it now. Ordered the GA from Dell and it will be here tomorrow, and I also added a 480 gig Samsung m.2 drive that should be here later today from Amazon for 194 and Ill migrate the OS to this drive. Ill be calling Dell shorty for my 240 watt PS.

I hear that there is some wierdness with the 980Ti in GA and a driver is coming in August. Hopefully that driver will include Windows 10 compatibility and thats why they are waiting until August as 10 ships July 29th. Not sure when the next generation of NVidia desktop cards are coming, I might actually wait for those if the 980m is killing everything anyway.

I'll need to see whats going on with throttling. If it doesnt satisfy, Im probably going to just build a desktop PC with SLI 980Ti.

 

How many do you think there are who don't complain about the problem and who do not understand what's going on? How many are there who have received the famous 180w power supply that does not understand that this is not sufficient? Do you think there are only a small number like 20 that has the problem and who understand what's going on??? There are thousands who does not understand how the hardware really should work. Guaranteed...
Just think of all those who have purchased AW15 and 17R2 with a weak 180w psu outside US and Canada who can not get a 240W psu free from Dellienware when they complain of throttling problem. This is not 1000 people. There are several thousand Aw owners who have to live with the slender 180w psu that Dell served them(both those who know about the problem and those who don't understand how hardware really shall work)

 

So complaining is a right reserved for those who understand the things happening under the hood - sure. That is fair enough. My point simply being that there are plenty of members even on this board who have not had the issues that seem to be on every machine. I still can not get mine to duplicate the 800 MHz problem that many folks are seeing with thermal throttling under CPU + GPU stress. I'm extremely satisfied hitting 9151 marks on Firestrike and enjoying my games at 1080p 60 fps with great settings.

I DO understand that not everyone is getting this same performance, and many are expericing issues with the BGA processors that bluntly suck - some more so than others for sure. Examine the number of folks who spend the money on Alienware, figure a percentage out of them who know whats going on, then compare that number to the number of complaints. My personal feeling is that it may not be as large of a distribution as it seems to be. If 10,000 are sold, 1,000 people understand the power that should be there, 100 people complain - we can assume that 1,000 of the units are bad - 10% roughly. Do these numbers make better sense to my statement?

 

I understand what you mean. One of the main problem for throttling is poorly binned processors made by Intel. That is why it is so wide variety of throttling. My experience of things is that many don't understand how hardware should functioning. Think there is a large dark numbers of laptops that do not work as they should... That said; Poor binned chips, useless first hybrid bios made by Dell and the crippled weak psu. Then you also have Dellienware who have not tested the new models well enough during the development of these laptop. Sums this; Then there will be no good laptop of all this trouble(mess). Dell has been able to create something that is much better than this if they had done everything right during the development of the laptop. Not everything gets better with a thin CrApple-like design. Thin design=weak cooling=Trottling. The law of physics... Then you have a massive Trottling machine made by Dell. Sorry but like this it works.

 

What did you OC your GPU to to get that score?

 

http://www.3dmark.com/3dm/7471928?

GPU was +135/400 MHz CPU was running a 3.7 standard OC (though http://www.3dmark.com/3dm/7462784? 9138 when I did an OC at 3.757 - actually hitting 3.758 on the CPU)

 

Also - the GPU with my highest score was on drivers 344.73 the second closest 9138 was on current drivers)

 

Are you running the stock Bios? I know that some folks were moving to A04 which will allow the system to sub off the battery if needed was my understanding. But then I thought I saw that people were hating the fan profiles for the bios or something.

Im guessing what I want is the stock bios with a 240 watt PS?

 

I'm on A00 with 240 PSU - your results will definitely vary.

When I was on the latest drivers (pre june 22) I could only OC 135/280, anything above this would crash. With the 344.73, 345.20, and current drivers on the 980 it achieves an OC of 135/400 without crashing - 420 crashes though. Undervolted at -59 mV for the CPU to help with throttling / heat

 

I just ran a 135/212 OC on the latest drivers and the 180 watt PS with no undervolt and pulled 8800 on Firestrike. Had it sitting on top of a laptop cooler to get it off the desk and breathing. Ill try moving forward to 400 on the memory OC and see what happens.

 

Good Luck! Keep a monitor open to track your CPU data and GPU temps (GPU shouldn't get above 75 though)

 

Are you going to check processor throttling so is not 3DMark Fire Strike the proper test. 3Dmark11, 3DMark Sky Diver or 3DMark Vantage is more suitable for this.

 

Physics score in Firestrike would tip you off, as would the final score. I've been watching temps with GPUZ and CPUZ. So far, I havent run into any throttling during benches. However, I might have run into it on a quick World of Warcraft test with all settings on Ultra and the laptop sitting on the desk rather then the laptop cooler. More testing to come.

 

Definitely hitting some throttling in Diablo 3 and World of Warcraft. I havent installed anything heavier yet. Its funny, with settings maxed in D3, I was running along at 120-136fps and then would run into large mobs and the fps would drop to 60-75 fps and I was running all my monitors on a second screen. Sure enough, CPU stepped down to 800 mhz.

Now all this was on a 180 watt PS. Ill order the 240 in the morning. Hopefully with additional wattage, it maintains the 3.5 ghz turbo and all is right with the world.

Another thing I noticed is that when I OC the video card, I never see 3500mhz on the CPU. It caps around 3300. So Im really surprised that they shipped this thing with the 180 and never actually changed the PS. This thing needs a 240 bad it seems.

Temps are great on my laptop cooler. GPU never gets above 63 degrees at present. I need to install something to track the CPUs temp.

 

Side thought but if your games are utilizing all 4 cores your expected max speed will be 3.3ghz (33x multiplier is stock on 4 cores for the 4710) you can use the program Intel XTU to do a couple things.

1) turn on cpu monitoring for thermal, power, and current throttling
2) activate down bolting to cool off your cpu more
3) increase your base multipliers so you can run 3.5ghz on all 4 cores
4) increase your boost TDP to exceed 47 watt

I'll download Diablo 3 tomorrow and load my account to see how it handles in some of the larger fight scales if I can manage the time.


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Have you tried 3Dmark Sky Diver and monitor Cpu ?

 

Yeah, in Skydiver with stock clocks I pulled 17823, Graphics score was 25316, physics was 8400. I was throttling quite a bit in the first test, stepping from 800 to 1299 to 1799, 2299, 3299.

Then I ran a mild 100/212 overclock, and the score actually went down like 1000 points, so clearly there is a power problem at work. Harder the GPU is pulling, more the CPU throttles with the 180 watt.

I was very happy with my temps though. GPU never went above 61c, and CPU was 65-75 the entire test. (Im running A00 bios btw.) Now its just get my hands on the 240 and see if the throttling goes away.

 

Interesting, Ill have to play with Intel XTU when the 240 arrives. Ill look forward to your test results when you have time, and thanks for the heads up on the max clock. I was wondering why it was a couple hundred short.

 

Interesting thread.
I am also considering pulling the trigger on the new version (given i'm still using an M17x with an old i7 2720 in it).
I do however have a few reservations that I would like some clarity on;

The lack of optical drive, while saving weight and space in the machine, is disappointing, and don't want to be purchasing an expensive external BR RW drive, that will likely be heavier, to carry around with me. What are current owners experience of this? (considering I prefer game discs and not Digital DLs).

The CPU and GPU being soldered to the motherboard is also concerning me, as with this one I would like to upgrade it in the future, when the next gen nVidia cards come out for example (and possibly Intel's next gen processors too). Peoples opinions? When would an 'R3' potentially come out?

And for UK owners, how much have you guys paid for the 2 models with the 980m in it from the .co.uk site? I would prefer the 4980HQ processor obviously, but its £2248.99 (GBP), while the US version is currently $2749.99 (£1746.00 at current exchange rates) and that comes with the 'touch screen' technology that I simply don't want and wouldn't use. So not only are dell giving a bum deal to the UK customer base yet again (when their products travel across Europe, or at least my last Alienware did from the outlet), where a 22% difference occurs, but the USA site offers regular deals/discounts, something the UK version seems to lack in. Does anyone have any tips around this if I do decide to buy after further considering the first two points?

Or, after all this, should I just "hold fire" and wait for the R3 in the future? Do people think the next version is likely to revert back to being fully customisable (IE/ CPU and GPU), with an optical drive, or is it time to give up (as much as it pains me to say it) and swap to something like a Clevo, Asus or MSI machine?!

Thanks guys.

 

Read... http://forum.notebookreview.com/thr...2-owners-lounge.770314/page-135#post-10032174