NEW!! Alienware Area-51M LAPTOP!! (to replace alienware 15 and 17)

Touting all of this MONSTER POWER then limiting it to 1080p is just backwards. The freaking M17 gets a 1440p/120Hz display it can't hope to power with its Max-Q and CPU throttling.

 

That got me thinking. How would the laptop act in this case if one were to use a KF processor (ones without an iGPU) or G-Sync display then? If one of the power inputs isn't used, then does the system not boot?

 

Being a G sync notebook, my speculation about using the iGPU is unlikely. Most likely the dGPU is used in a low power state controlled by the EC firmware.

 

If that is the case, then it's not a huge problem.
THe only thing you need keep watch out is that when you buy the single psu just choose one which has 2 circuits with 2 controller ICs. You mod the FW for both and it will work fine. 1 PSU (which is barely bigger than the single 330W one) instead of 2

All parts are available at an electonic store, I really don't understand why Dell can't build a 600W PSU on their own ...

 

Man alive

The more and more I see about this I’ve come to the realization that I was wrong about pretty much everything. This machine is absolutely fantastic and they put some serious thought and engineering into it.


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Shared heatpipes, meh.

 

There’s...what? 2 shared out of a total of 8? This is a massive improvement as the current models where all the heat pipes are shared

The fans appear to be thicker than current models as well indicating improved CFM rating


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I dont see a 120hz screen on the m17.. Rather it has only 60hz 1080p or 4k option on the website..

 

Fair point, the laptop looks very beautiful thats forsure. Curious what a 8700/8700k / 2080 version would cost.

 

Muchos dinero. Emphasis on the muchos.

I think it’s safe to say this will cost more fully loaded than the 17r5


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Yea indeed. I'm all for the 8700K + 2080 combo as well.

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Give me ryzen or give me death!

Not sure why some videos push the 9900k when the 8700k or w/e 9th Gen equivalent would be better suited

I'll enjoy other people trying this machine out in the coming months but my interest is nill until I see a ryzen / Navi option.

 

So, yes... good catch. They are still up to their old tricks. They actually answered this question with marketing rhetoric that seems like a positive thing as presented, and most people will not initially be able to recognize as firmware castration. Limiting the CPU to 125% is less than full performance from a 9900K, so it is gimped by design. Here we go again, LOL. No need for testing. The control freaks have predetermined the functional limit.

 

[deleted]

 

That crossed my mind as well. Definitely a possibility, and it could explain the mismatched AC adapter capacities.

 

CES info regarding the Area 51m - http://forum.notebookreview.com/thr...ts-video-articles.826767/page-8#post-10844035

 

I really want de point out the fact that they put a slimmer bezel design into this laptop.. I really want to see this in the actual p7XX lineup from clevo...

 

Gotta wait for AMD CES tomorrow first, still under NDA

 

I wouldnt be surprised if nothing interesting comes of it, but ill keep hoping.

 

Oh, it seems I'm late to the party... Or am I? My Precision 7530 which I bought this past August has a DGFF Quadro P3200 inside:

I'd like to see how big the RTX 2060 module is; or maybe Dell will release Quadro RTX upgrades for the Precisions. I look forward to new stuff.

However, it looks like the DGFF is probably incompatible with the Precisions, based on just eyeballing that DGFF and the one in my Precision... Jeez.

 

Saw this on YT and expected to see some threads about it. Wasn't disappointed but I'll be sticking to DT. At least Clevo gets a smack but I wonder if MSI will do something similar.

 

While I do not see anything wrong with the design itself, unless it gets adopted as a form factor by other manufacturers, it remains a proprietary solution. What that means is you can have anything you want as long as Dell actually wants you to have it and provides something you want. There won't be any more flexibility buying a Clevo or MSI GPU for less money to upgrade or repair your old Alienware. Since it is a Dell patented design, chances are still good it will become a point of limitation. But, that said, it's still much better than a BGA solution since you can easily replace it in the event of a failure or the availability of an upgrade sanctioned by Dell. I also wonder what kind of premium there will be for these proprietary modules.

What is really interesting about this is the about-face they have taken. Using BGA is better... blah, blah... using desktop CPUs in laptops is not a good solution... blah, blah, blah... nobody upgrades laptops... blah, blah. So, they were lying before to manipulate customers? Or, they were wrong and now they are correcting their mistakes without admitting them, or what? It's good they are going this route, and we should all be really glad they are. But, it really calls into question what they were doing before. If I had bought into their hollow marketing rhetoric and lies they were offering before I would be kind of miffed about the crap I was being fed for the past 5 years.

 

I don't. . .I can't. . .but. . .

I WANT IT! I NEEEEEED IT!

Good lord I'm seriously in love with this laptop. I know it is sketchy that the upgradability is unknown since the just released the laptop 2080 and we're a long way off from a new GPU. I really want to replace my desktop with a laptop. And I was looking at the clevo desktop replacements not to long ago. So Alienware releasing something like this is really got my attention. I hope they have something other than 1080p or 4k as screen options. 1440p would be the perfect resolution for this. But if push comes to shove I'd go with 1080p 144hz. It does have G-Sync right?

And to think I was looking at the Triton 500 as my next laptop. And then this comes along and steals my heart.

 

Look at the magnesium exoskeleton in the videos, build quality seems to be what we would expect in the chassis (good) whether you like the aesthetic or not. But, I wonder what that oddly designed rear cover piece (with the vents and rear I/O ports) is made of. It kind of looks like plastic, and I am curious about how durable it will be, how it is attached, will it be susceptible to damage if it gets bumped? Can you grab it by that part and carry it around without cracking it? Something about that seems fragile or a point of weakness.

 

I have to ask though, if this is meant to be a DTR then why include a giant battery?

 

Hopefully not because they are still going to use the hybrid power delivery crap. If it is so it can run longer between charges for those that need that, having a giant battery is a plus. If it is for the other reason, then it's not.

 

Since their laptops with most volumes (m15, m17) will still be BGA, i doubt they are "correcting" their mistakes or anything. They are probably just testing the market and see if there is still a enough demands for true DTR. If somehow new Area 51m becomes sleeper hit, we could see other manufacturers (other than Clevo) to follow.

 

In my mind, if its a DTR then I only need maybe 10-20wh battery for when I put the system to sleep / hibernate and carry from location to location. I'd rather have that space used for more storage or larger cooling.

 

One of the videos I watched had the one of the Alienware guys claim it will get maybe 90 minutes with that battery. Soooooo not great battery life. Maybe they wanted to give it enough that it was plausible to watch some videos with it off battery? I don't know. Honestly though I'd agree with you it doesn't need a big battery. If you're getting something like this it's gonna be on a desk plugged into a wall most of the time.

 

Without battery it kinda becomes small AIO with attached keyboard....so I guess it has to provide some degree of portability and ability to run on battery to be classified as a laptop lol.

 

I may be an outlier but even my Ranger spends all of its time on a desk. Have you tried bringing a desktop through the airport? Its the worst.

I took out my battery and added 3 more HDD's.

 

This system is a big step up with cooling capacity. Clevo made a major error on the P870 series by having the fans rest on top of the motherboard, rather than having much larger fans that went through the mobo. This system should have very good cooling vs prior systems. If it's enough for a 2080 pulling 225W+ and a 9900K pulling 150W+ though remains to be seen.

I'm basically going to call BS though on the gpu being upgradeable. For many years prior to mxm dell had removable GPUs, and they would change the form factor and electrical connector between most new systems. The only significant upgrade path Dell ever had was on the Inspiron 8000, 8100, and 8200 systems which kept the same form factor. You could take a 8200 series GPU and put it in the 8000 and 8100 series. I am not aware of any cross platform compatibility in the PCI-e 9x00 series systems.

I can't see Dell breaking this trend. Those GPUs are shaped very specifically to their systems. Already you can see the Precision 7350 GPU and 51M gpus are incompatible.

I really wish back 10 years ago the MXM sellers talked to each other at all. What killed MXM was all the quirks on who's GPU could run in who's system, and old systems for ridiculous reasons not supporting new cards even within the same manufacturer. End users could not confidently buy a GPU online and know if would work in their system, despite it physically fitting. This is not something that has ever been the case in the desktop world, and killed MXM as an upgradable standard.

Dell having a standard just to themselves which will have an even smaller user base does not sound like a long term upgrade path. I really only see them offering some minor refresh of the 20 series as upgrades, and with 7nm they'll change their form factor, or somehow have new GPUs be incompatible with this system.

 

Clevo also does something like this. Its Alienware doing something for marketing purposes. offering one of the best laptops out there to build an image on. Now Alienware doesnt have a flagship like this which Asus, Msi etc do have even though they only cater to the 1% of the laptop market with these machines.

 

Price also was imo a huge issue. way too expensive. Some boards where double or even triple the price of their desktop counterparts.

 

Judging by The Verge's video about the 51m, they're really not sure whether next gen GPUs will work for the form factor(DGFF). Which may be the reason why they left the AGA port on the unit. I'm pretty sure if they were confident enough that we will get upgrades for a few generations, they would have removed AGA entirely. Not unless they see AGA as more profitable over DGFF.

 

Yeah, well, DTR laptop itself is kind of outliner so hard to say what it is supposed to be.

 

DTR is a well known class of its own. It replaces a desktop. No need for a giant battery.

 

Well if they start crying how heavy it is you can just take the Area 51m and smash their thin n light like an insect.

I might just do curls with it just to train myself to help carry it. Lol

 

What that actually means is, " We haven't decided whether or not to we are ever going to release GPU upgrade options for our customers or if we are going to force them to buy a new laptop, and we're not about to make any promises."

I suspect they will do whatever makes them the most money, so we know the answer to that already. But, it will also save them money on repairs, as well as saving customers money if the GPU dies out of warranty. So, upgrade available or not, this is a step in the right direction for no reason other than the fact that it is not a half-assed, overpriced, one-shot-wonder motherboard with a chintzy BGA CPU and GPU solution. They get points for that part whether it actually performs well or not.

It's sad they are limiting the CPU TDP to 125% because that is still a major problem for anyone with serious overclocking aspirations.

 

If they removed the AGA port people would ***** about that too and use it as conspiracy fodder.


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Talk about pulling the carpet from under your feet.

 

That's never mattered to the kiddos in the past. Clevo has been splitting turdbook skulls wide open for years and the preppies want what they want and don't mind crying or wetting the bed when they don't get their way.

125% max on CPU TDP and 150W max for an RTX 2080 is not really a DTR replacement. It's half of true DTR performance overall. It is better-than-wimpy BGA alternative. Clevo 2080 is also going to be firmware gimped at 150W max TDP if my understanding is correct. RTX 2080 is 215W stock. Not sure what they can ultimately handle with a vBIOS mod and an SPI programmer to force the issue. That remains to be seen. Might also depend on power delivery capacity to the GPU.

 

Well, without the battery, it doesn't even have to be in laptop chassis. if something like 20" DTR AIO becomes a thing, would be a better "DTR".

 

Maybe Prema should try out modding with AW bios?
100% that the modded bios would need an spi programmer to flash, but any serious overclocker who want higher limit could get an spi programmer...
With an unlocked bios you could manually disable any limit.

 

Once you run away from the 17.3-18.4 chassis size then you run the risk of running in the weight limitations of what you can bring into flights.

I am completely fine with 17.3, just remove the battery or limit to something sensible for just putting the system to sleep or hibernation. Why would I need to use it on battery for watching videos or anything when I have my phone / tablet that get significantly higher battery life for the same function?


Regarding BIOS flashing, doubt it. Last "DTR" class system they had was hard capped at 330w regardless of BIOS.

 

If they would stop gimping the internal GPU and power handling capabilities of the notebook, there would be no legitimate reason for anyone to tether their notebook to a desk in order to use a crippled bottleneck solution like an eGPU. If you're a frequent traveler, reliance on the eGPU is a joke. If you always game at home, then a desktop makes more sense. The AGA is mostly a geeky gadget toy that made gimped notebooks easier to swallow.

 

Alienware Area-51m Sports a Socketed CPU, With Other Very Impressive Hardware Specifications
During the CES 2019 trade show that’s underway right now, Alienware revealed its new Area-51m, which the company describes as the most powerful gaming laptop in the world. In essence, the Area-51m is more of a desktop PC with all the perks of a laptop. Not just the RAM, but hard drive, battery, CPU, and GPU of the laptop are swappable.

Big claims Everything below this scores has to be taken as false statement.

This scores below should be damn easy to beat with the new Alienware. And I expect Alienware's overclocker - AW's second lieutenant Umar will pull out some benchmarks for the crowd.

 

Well, I am not really disagreeing with you. DTR always had that odd design choice with giant battery taking up much space when laptop is likely going to be plugged in 99% of time. And it doesn't look like it is going to change anytime soon either lol.

 

No 18 inch or larger screen, no SLI, I'm not interested. A shame, my 18 still looks and runs like it just came out of the box so despite everything they have done the last few years, I would have given an Alienware laptop another chance. But I have zero interest in a 17 inch gaming laptop with a single GPU. 17 inch gaming laptops are a dime a dozen. There are tons of them out there with near same specs I can buy for less money.

If I'm going to spend 3, 4, 5k on a laptop, I want something special, something big, something beastly. I want something larger than 17 inches, with more than 1 GPU regardless of if every game supports SLI or not. What I don't want is something that is on par with or slightly better than a top of the line HP Omen, Asus or whatever other company you want to insert there. And that's what this is, a laptop that will offer the same GPU abilities as every other laptop out there, and a CPU that may give me 10-20% more overall system performance. No go for me.

 

Keep in mind Alienware also put the AGA port in the X51 R3 and the Alpha R2 as well. It doesn't surprise me that the Area 51m also has one. It probably was done to keep the AGA relevant.
Wouldn't surprised me if someone used an AGA with an Area 51m in the future for serious gaming.