Looking at the Alienware 15 R3 but eyeing up upgrades

So I am looking at the following model:

i7 7700HQ
1070
Standard windows
1TB HDD
8gb 2400mhz DDR4 ram
120Hz TN G Sync panel
Livesafe 12 months
1 year accident protection
99Wh battery
Powerdirector 16 + Photodirector 9 bundle

This totals up to £1295

The 128gb sata m.2 upgrade price is frankly laughable when you can get a 960 Evo NVMe 250gb for £10 less.

I plan to do this, but I am useless with computers. So my question is, if I get the Samsung Migration tool, put the SSD in, and then run the migration, will it copy it all exactly as it is on the HDD, and be usable straight away? Or is there something else I should expect?
Basically I want everything that comes on the HDD migrated exactly as it is to the SSD, but I have concerns about how to do it

On top of that, if I chuck a 8gb of Crucial DDR4 sodimm 2400Hz RAM into it with the stock RAM, will any performance be hindered? Or will it work fine?

Any help appreciated

 

The 128gb sata m.2 upgrade price is frankly laughable when you can get a 960 Evo NVMe 250gb for £10 less.
No comment on this but, if you are ordering with codes and doing cashback from TCB, the net upgrading cost might be the cheaper (e.g. last year I spent £80 equivalent upgraded from 256G SSD to 1TB).

If I get the Samsung Migration tool, put the SSD in, and then run the migration, will it copy it all exactly as it is on the HDD, and be usable straight away?
Not familiar with Samsung, but Intel one and many others will do exactly the same without any issue. Might give a quick call to Samsung.

On top of that, if I chuck a 8gb of Crucial DDR4 sodimm 2400Hz RAM into it with the stock RAM, will any performance be hindered? Or will it work fine?
Yes, it will be fine. Although if you are doing intensive video editing on AE/PR then I would recommend to go with 16x2.

 

Honestly, i'd suggest you buy from someone like Eurocom, HIDEvolution of PC Specialist (or another system builder/reseller). The Alienware 15 R3 will throttle without being repasted - if you aren't confident enough to do that, buy from a good system builder who will do it for you. I'd recommend a Clevo or an MSI 16L13 over any Alienware - but only if you get one with an unlocked BIOS and delidded CPU. If you want something cheaper though then i'm not sure exactly what else there is, there are plenty of BGA books but I would not recommend any of them. Ask @Papusan @Mr. Fox @Falkentyne @Raidriar for their views on the matter too.

If you have enough room, just save yourself some money and build a desktop. You won't regret it. If you don't though then there are still some half decent laptops available. But you are best going for one that at the very least has an MXM GPU. I do not trust any BGA GPUs after i've had several fail on me.

 

Through Dell I have the option for 128gb sata SSD upgrade (on top of the HDD) for £120.

A Samsung 960 Evo NVMe 250gb only costs £100. Don't think any code will change that but then again, I'm not savvy with these things.

Thanks for the help and suggestions, it's mostly for gaming and a bit of light editing on the move so I was just going to get the £70 8gb RAM and chuck it in for a performance bump. But I know RAM from different manufactures can throw in a few problems. This is what I was planning to put in:
https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/aw/d/B01BIWKP58/ref=ox_sc_act_image_2?smid=A3P5ROKL5A1OLE&psc=1

The Dell site is doing £150 off for the next month, and if I order before the 4th of April they do another 15% off making it £1295 which seems very fair. Will attempt to get the 2% cashback with TCB but think the coupon code will stop that

 

If you repaste the new Alienwares, not certain it will help very long time. I put it here http://forum.notebookreview.com/threads/awr417-repasted-with-lm-but-high-core-differential.815119/

 

I already have a desktop I built, but I travel a lot, I rarely have the time to set up a desktop so it's left at home.

Is the throttle bad? I've read a few reviews and no one mentioned throttling from what I saw. Can't say I am confident repasting. But also I don't think any other laptop will provide similar performance for anywhere near as low as that £1295 price tag.

I know the 7820HK has caused some people issues, but didn't realise the 7700HQ did also.

 

Yes, the RAM you selected will be fine, unless you are running packages extremely sensitive to RAM or ECC. On Dell's side, if you are using code without TCB, then might give them a quick heads up to offer you a quote, which perhaps end up better than TCB's 2% on top of promotional code.

 

It's a lottery.

 

What is the general consensus, as in likelihood of having troubles and how severe?
As I said, I haven't seen many complaints, but this thread prompted me to check and I see a few forums and threads were throttling is brought up. However it still seems most user reviews and review sites don't bring throttling up.

If I was unfortunate and got dodgy temps, would a mild undervolt sufficient until I feel more confident about repasting?

 

Many reviewers can't test notebooks properly. And many owners don't even know they have a problem. Notebookreview is an ok website, but not perfect https://www.notebookcheck.net/Alienware-15-R3-Notebook-Review.196584.0.html

 

At least the hard drive temp is good.

 

Yeah, the ssd temps isn't showed in this review Same also for PCH chips. But here is a few posts from differnt threads regarding ssd temp in the newest Alienwares... The heat KILLING ... ssd's in the newest Alienware line.

And we go on with more of the same... ssd and pch overheating - ssd overheating - ssd overheating - ssd overheating - ssd's boil in your machine - nice 103C

 

Good advice. Buying BGA CPU or GPU sucks, but GPU is an extremely bad idea. You're just courting disaster... Not a matter of if but when the GPU is going to give up the ghost, and having it soldered to the motherboard is a joke waiting to be told.

My advice on a new high performance notebooks is simple. P870 with @Prema BIOS or nothing. There is no viable second or third option worthy of honorable mention at this point. If you can't afford that, buy something super cheap for mobile web browsing and email, and use the rest of the money to build a desktop.

 

Problem is I have a desktop, I just often find myself away from home enough that I need something that packs a serious punch for on the road.
I'm not sure P870 with Perma bios means/refers to, but the other recommendations are for well out of my price range (some of the builds that were similar spec to what I am looking at were over £2k)
The closest is a PC specialist build that comes in around £1600 which I may look into. Although how do I know that too doesn't suffer throttling?

What situations typically does the 15 R3 throttle under? Just gaming for a few hours?
If there are no similarly priced alternatives, would a undervolt be enough to keep it maxing out around 85-90 to prevent throttling?

 

Guys, what the post author genuinely asking is whether the 15R3's spec is fine. Why came up with the absurd 17in Clevo recommendation?

 

More like after a few minutes seconds if you're talking about how it can be expected to run straight out of the box. If you want to have reasonable temps, you will have to play the heat sink lottery and take the machine apart to do some mods. Almost all gaming laptops overheat and malfunction as shipped from the factory, but the tripod design on the new Alienware systems is a glaring design defect that requires corrective measures and TLC.

 

I want the OP to get the best possible long term investment which will not cause headaches. A 7700HQ is pointless if its going to hit 100C and throttle out of the box.

 

Is there anywhere on here where I could find out about the Pc Specialist Defiance XS.
Build quality looks a bit cheap, doesn't come with G Sync or a huge battery, would need 16gb ram put into it not 8, comes with no software for £1450 compared to the £1295. Plus I am in talks with Dell to get a student discount.
I don't know anything about that PC Specialist build or if it suffers the same problems.

I thought Repasting the Alienware might void the warranty, but if it doesn't then I wouldn't be opposed to repasting or getting it repasted. Plus a minor undervolt wouldn't bother me as the price and build quality is far better than anything else I could get.

 

The Defiance XS is the Clevo P950HP6, owner's lounge is here: http://forum.notebookreview.com/threads/official-clevo-p950hp6-sager-np8950-owners-lounge.804747/

I'm not sure if repasting will void the warranty. I would hope not, if you use regular thermal paste and don't break anything, but using liquid metal may void it (someone else may know for sure). On that poor fitting heat sink i wouldn't recommend liquid metal anyway though, Kryonaut or IC Diamond will be better.

Also, what kind of games/work do you plan on doing on it?

 

I received mine without uneven core temps and issues. Still repasted it but the temps where great out of the box and I posted pictures to prove it a while back. They started using actual thermal paste on the CPU side.

Still you can be unlucky but I guess hat goes for any brand nowadays. Only laptops bought boutique shops that do a repaste for you might be good at all times.

 

Yeah I wouldn't go for LM. I've only ever worked with thermal paste and am not looking to experiment on a laptop.

Basically I am a student who has 3-4 places I stay at any one time, never for too long in all but one of them so my PC stays there.
I need a powerful and decently portable system to take with me.
It needs to be able to play E-Sport titles mostly, at 100+Hz. I play at 144Hz on my main rig and going down to 60 feels very jarring. On top of that I like to do some video editing, plus my course requires me to run software for calculating bond angles, entropy values, and all forms of simulations and calculations which can be demanding and slow (Gaussian and Gaussview mostly) especially on my i5 laptop at the moment.

 

Unless PC Specialist has their own rules (probably not) the warranty is not affected. Clevo does not void the warranty if an end user does normal maintenance on their system. I think what most are worried about is user-induced damage and the lies and deception that follow user error to get things covered under warranty that should not be. User-induced damage is not covered by any warranty, and user-induced damage should be excluded from warranty. But, that should only apply to the cost of fixing what the user damaged and not void the warranty on everything else that was not damaged by user error. I think MSI and ASUS are the real stinkers on this, but I think it is questionable whether or not voiding warranty due to something like a repaste or removing the covers to replace drives and memory, or other maintenance, is even legal. At the very least, taking that position it is an illegitimate way to run a business.

 

The Alienware will be better than the Clevo in that case. A mobile workstation would probably work too if you didn't need a 144Hz display. Dell are usually quite good when it comes to returns so if there is an issue you can always return it.

Before you choose though i'd suggest having a look around at various manufacturer's student discounts. I think Eurocom have a 10% discount on any of their machines if you are a student, HP have one too (though even Alienware are better than those muppets). Have a look around and send a few emails - a lot of them likely have a discount as they will want your business.

 

Today may be a good day to die...but it is NOT a good day to buy a laptop computer with a BGA CPU.

Your patience will be rewarded.

I won't say any more...so please don't ask.

 

Damn, looking at the newly announced 15 r4 that supposedly has a better cooling solution (although it looked to have almost an idea tical design so not sure what has changed) and thought i'd go for it.

Until I see the price. £2000+ with no configuration!
The only difference between the R3 I was looking at is the 6 core i7, and a supposed fix to the heating issue that should never have been there in the first place. For almost a thousand pounds more!

Crikey. Decision time.