*OFFICIAL* Alienware 17 R2/R3 Benchmark Thread

If you have an Alienware 17 R2 and like benchmarks, you've come to the right place. Please use this thread to share your results, ask questions or have general discussion related to the benchmark performance of this particular machine.

Whenever possible, include a screen shot and a hyperlink to the results if they are validated online (i.e. 3DMark Suite, 3DMark 11, 3DMark Vantage, etc.).

 

Since my new 17 showed up this morning, I only have had time to run a quick 3dmark11 benchmark on it. Config is 4710hq, 980m, 16gb ram, and 1tb hdd.

Score was P10102, graphics 12226, physics 7642, and combined score 5553

for comparisons my desktop pc is a i5 2500k @4.4ghz with a radeon 7950 boost @1100mhz core
Score was P9377, graphics 10336, physics 7329, and combined score 7347

 

max temps?

 

cpu max temp was 76, gpu 66 during 3dmark11

 

nice, good, use it well without problemes

 

Tear it down and post pictures of everything!

 

pics, moaaaarrrrr pics !

 

Those are good temperatures. Did they finally fix the fan tables?

They better not forget about us previous generation owners. They need to update the BIOS.

 

prolly not ever gonna happen.

 

I'll upload some comparison pics between the new 17 and my M17xR3 later today. I'll remove the backplate and upload that but likely not doing a full teardown just yet lol

 

I wanted to order the R2 a few months ago to do a side-by-side comparison to the R1. But after seeing it's all soldered, I changed my mind. It would be nice to see some game-play videos and temperature readings.

 

boooooooo

 

The power button looks so small with that huge palm rest, lol.

 

gonna miss the media controls when I upgrade. They are really nice to have.

 

So I installed Far Cry 4 and expected to be able to play it in ultra settings, but i'm sitting around 37 fps. I turned on MSI afterburner to monitor temps etc, and it's saying my gpu core is 540mhz.

 

That's strange. Driver issue? Or maybe Optimus is like... "Nah bro, you don't get to play today."

 

Could you touch the PSU to see if it is getting hot or hotter than usual?
I think the GPU is throttling at the 180w brick.

 

Ah, yeah, forgot about that 180W PSU. What was Alienware thinking?

http://youtu.be/LDmTakhm3RU?t=58s

Lies, all lies.

 

scheme to get you to buy the amplifier for increased performance........

 

I'll give it a try and let you know. It is a lot smaller than the r3 psu

 

It's a little warm, gpu never gets above 540mhz from the start

 

I think when that guy said "full throttle gaming graphics", he actually meant " fully throttled gaming graphics"

 

that's really no good. you have up to date drivers?

 

Your combined score seems tad bit low considering that even my older AW 17 with clevo's 980m can achieve this score NVIDIA GeForce GTX 980M video card benchmark result - Intel Core i7-4700MQ,Alienware 041W46 ( Physx score throttled, was previously 8.4k). And as for low performance issue with far cry 4, Did you include soft shadows/ TXAA4, and enhanced god ray? with literally everything pushed max, Far Cry 4 can dip down to 30-ish FPS on intense battles, Otherwise if you use the preset Ultra settings, you should get 60 FPS average. Remember to do this too ​How To Get Far Cry 4 Running More Smoothly on PC

 

I might as well ask this.
What would happen if you used the R3's PSU on the new laptop?

 

It would probably work just fine as long as the bios is coded to pick it up and use it. Alienware could have something in there so only the new bricks work though. The 240w adapter from the R4 was the same as the Alienware 17 R1 and people were using the 330w brick from the 18 with no problems. I would imagine worst case scenario it just won't use the PSU.

 

I was more concerned with how the laptop will perform with the bigger PSU.

 

I would be more worried they will have hard coded the thing to not use more then 180w regardless as to what is plugged into it. They locked down the R1 pretty badly that way.

 

What Nvidia drivers are you using?
Did they provide you with a copy on the installation DVD ?

 

Yeah when I started moving around I remembered the stutter that I had to fix. I've played with various settings, rebooted and even added the game to nvidia panel to ensure it runs with the 980m. Gpuz indicated clock speed should be like 1100 with 1300 boost. I'm not sure if afterburner is reading the gpu clock correctly or not. I'm not used to Optimus so I'm not sure if there is a setting that I'm missing coming from amd.

 

Drivers are 344.73. There wasn't any installation media actually. Really just the laptop, cord and the little pamphlet

 

@just1tree They did not even include the media/ OS cds? wow talk about cutting cost My first R2 came with a cap/ mouse pad/ laptop sheet as well as the rest of the media/OS cds. Even my subsequent AW 17 came with media and OS cds.


Try switching over to dedicated GPU mode and see if it makes a difference ( fn +f5) you might need to reinstall the drivers again upon switching.

 

What driver version are you using?

 

The older design beats the crap out of these newer lineup incl the ranger & viking...

 

I might buy another laptop, but I'll always be keeping my m17x r3. One of my favorite computers that I've ever had the privilege to use/own.

 

I don't know, they have their ups and downs.....I like the thinner design and the extra set of tactx keys to the left of the keyboard, also the re-introduction of the alien head power light...I would actually love to know if that is a mod that could be done to the R1's although I doubt it.

As for the soldered crap , as much as I hate it , it has been pointed out many times that it isn't like Alienware is the only one doing it. Almost all the manufacturer's are doing this and if we should be blaming anyone that look to Intel and Nvidia. I imagine the actual percentage of people that upgrade the GPU's in these laptops is pretty low compared to how many they sell not that I am defending it. We all knew it was coming, Rumors have been circling about soldered CPU's at least for YEARS, don't be surprised if desktops go next....

As for that makes me ask "What were they thinking" I don't get why a HDD bay had to be removed, why they ditched mSATA for m.2 , why they dropped the ram from 32gb to 16gb or the removal of the DVD drive. I would have taken a thicker system like the R1 if it meant keeping those still in there.

I still would have really liked to see the old R4 keyboards come back, I really miss the outlines on the keys

 

M.2 is a PCle port but really that speed is limited to 2GB/s vs the SATAIII's 6GB/s unfortunately all the ultraturd (Mr.Fox's dictionary ) plague spreaded from those Apple's jokebooks....
The old machines were built to long last and the newer machines catch grime and dust easily, As you said there are really ups and downs for both still the older Alienware machines looked somewhat different don't forget the removable battery and the touch panel

 

The M.2 refers to the socket and ATM they come in two flavours. PCIe and SATA. Dell seem to have gone for SATA.

SSD Guide: M.2 PCI-Express, M.2 SATA, M-SATA And SATA Express - The Differences Explained!

 

I still want to get inside one of the new 17s and compair it to the old 17.... With all the things that were removed from the system and only a little bit thinner. Makes me wonder if there is just a giant open space in there or if they actually made the cooling system huge.

I mean, the things removed are
dvd, hdd, 2 ram slots, space for mxm and cpu sockets, dmc slot, msata slot, 1 headphone jack....

How is this thing layed out inside to be able to remove that much stuff?

Also, I wonder if it would be possible to hack in the extra tactx keys into the old 17 As soon as keyboards and bezels are for sale on ebay for cheap, im going to hack one up and see if I can get the extra row of keys.

 

Seems plausible that by removing these extra parts, we get better air flow/cooling. In fact, OP mentioned that the max temps he got while doing 3dmark11 is 66 degree. Considering that this is with stock thermal paste, its a major improvement compared to my 70 degree celcius with IC diamond 7.

 

I would hope this thing runs cool. The comparatively thick ASUS ROG G751, with a Blu-Ray drive and room for two 2.5" drives, runs very cool.

If Dell removed the optical drive and one 2.5" slot, while remaining as thick as the ROG, I would hope they provide better cooling/noise in return.

 

I really wanted to get this it will be my first upgrade since my m17r4 that's still running like a champ with my 3930xm and gtx 780m just gets annoying flashing bios all the time when I need to update my video drivers.... But I'm felling fleeted with a few concernes that are really eating at me.

1.) im pissed everything is soldered because I would have loved to just get the i7 4710hq model and upgrade the cpu later if needed. Now I feel forced to make a expensive decision I may not actually need to make now or be screwed.

2.) soldered gpu ...really?? Msi offered a 2 generation gpu upgrade plan and you throw out soldered..... This is a slap in the face to high performance mobile gaming. I understand not everyone upgrades their machines but there are a majority that do. I upgraded the gpu in my r4 3 times it was easy convenient and when you catch them on eBay are really not that expensive at all.

3.) and this is my biggest most crucial concern is that 180w brick.... I know it's been beaten to death but every benchmark I see for the 980m benched with the 4710hq is pushing 210+ watts so that means it's going to throttle. IM sure they will throw out some nonsense but we are not noobs here. Like my r4 it came with a 220 watt brick but when I upgraded my gtx 660m to a 680m I had to get a 330 watt brick to accommodate my gpu especially before I upgraded to my xm cpu. So I don't know even with the better power management and low tdp of the 980m how efficient it will be with the 4980hq. Something has to give and I'm positive performance will drop with a 180 watt brick unless we can plug in the 17 r1 brick for the better headroom.

It feels like this could have been the refresh that alienware just crushed it and stole the show, but for now I'll wait for more reviews and actual benchmarks before I drop $2500+ on a machine that could be cruisin for a bruisin with throttling issues

 

Yea I'm not quite sure how alienware thought that a 180w psu would be enough for a gaming system. C'mon now...

 

It's fine for the 970M. Most Clevo laptops come with a 180w supply.

I would just think they'd ship a 230w brick with the 980M systems.

 

Do you guys think we can use the 330 watt psu with the new a15?

 

you're probably right there, but should have figured this out before shipping the product.

We won't know until someone tries it. For some reason my r3 doesn't like the alienware 14's power brick though. Hopefully then didn't mess with the id chips or its going to be a ball of fun trying to get everything to work.

 

Yea you would think... Especially since all the benchmarks clearly indicate that it uses over 200 watts I don't know who the genius was that decided 180 watts was sufficent... It's holding me back on my sale until I see actual reviews because my logic is telling me this is set to fail and dellienware will adjust their strategy once it's more publicly known their brick is insufficient.

I just find it funny their slogan for this refresh is "full throttle gaming" yet they are launching systems with power brick incapable of delivering the proper amount of wattage. I wanted the i7 4980hq 980m flavor but there is no way that 180 wat brick is going to fully power the cpu and gpu to achieve full power modes and that is a fail in my book

 

Here are 3dmark Vantage scores, will update with firestrike here after it finishes downloading

 

Curious to see how it does vs other 980m equipped machines.