*OFFICIAL* Alienware Area-51M R2 Owner's Lounge

Clevo is normally a bit cheaper than the competition. Not by much, but savings is savings. Plus you can configure the Clevo with any spec you want right now. As @MogRules pointed out the Area 51m is speced out. I'm sure with a 1080p 300Hz screen, smaller ssd, and dropping to the i7 instead of the i9 will make this alot more reasonable. But, I'm curious to see how the X170 works since the Area 51m is already showing some naughty things that could come to bite you in the rear if you want to get around their RAM tax and upgrade yourself.

 

I just wanted to add to the conversation, I know I am playing with fire here but my R1 unit worked out of the box perfect for me which I received on the 8th of last month. I might have caught things just at the right time, but I received my unit with 1.8.1, along with vbios 1.0.0.5 and to me this is a perfect set up. My unit runs in the 60s and the fans keep everything very cool. It is hot and humid where I am at and Im still able to keep temps in check. I just wanted to throw that out there. We dont want our DTR enthusiast machines to become like basic consumer machines, where everything is set up and cant be changed. This has desktop components in it, its an enthusiast grade DTR, your going to have to tweak it to your liking as far as thermals go, thats a given. I dont know how many newer laptop reviews I have watched where reviewers think temps in the 90s are ok, and I am not pointing any one person specificaly. I just seen a review on the new GE66 raider and the CPU was running in the 90s and the reviewer was like, well its a thin laptop, thats to be expected. Well no its not to be expected I will not keep a laptop if its running in the 90s, thats to damn hot!!

I think the bad publicity on the Area51m is unwarranted. You guys complain about thermal throttling, good! Its there to protect your investment. If your going to buy an enthusiast grade gaming DTR you need to know how to run it and tweak it. This is coming from the perspective of a buyer who does not get to try out all the new stuff though. So I dont have that overall prospective that some others might have who own more or have more experience, I can only speak from my experience. The workarounds are as simple and basic as it gets as far as thermals are concerned, it takes literally 20 seconds to set up before gaming. HWinfo, throttlestop, msi afterburner...your all set. All the negative nancy crap here is sickening but I wont go any further down that rabbit hole. Yes I realize, your efforts, everyones efforts, complaining, can help problems and issues that can be prevented in the future and make the overall end user experience better for new buyers. That only goes so far though, you guys keep complaining about nothing and the line will disappear eventually.

 

No, it's there to cover up Dell's faulty engineering. If you actually knew about the throttling and why it was done, you would understand that. The throttling should not be necessary to the degree it is with Draconian BIOS restrictions considering the BGA laptops run hotter and oh, don't burn up like the R1 did. If you think having like a 75 C limit is "acceptable" or throttle instantly to like 500hz.... I guess you have a point.

 

i ment its good to protect peoples investment that dont have the time or the know how to tweak there system or feel the need to do so who ever those may be. I would think that wouldnt make up the majority of the buyers of this system but I dont have a spreadsheet telling me demographics of buyers.

For me, its easy enough to take a few minutes and learn how to regulate thermals on this machine. As I have said before I purposely didnt buy the 9900k because I dont want to deal with all that heat and I dont need this system for workstation purposes. I really hate having to make these posts but I feel is nessasary. I come here to enjoy the forum, im a relaxed kinda guy, very layed back I rarely speak up or complain about something unless the situation is critically dire. I dont know, maybee its partly only entitled buyers are able to purchase something like this but thats what it sounds like to me. You want everything but thats not how the normal world works. Any way, Im really really REALLY going to try not to make another post defending this system now.

I do really enjoy my unit though, R1. and If I had another desk/space set up I would think about getting the R2, that will have to wait for another day. To me there is no competition, this system wins hands down. I have been keeping my eye on the X170 though, it just seems to bland to me compared to the Area51m.

Does anyone know about when the other lower tier options will be available to customize for the R2? 5k is lot to spend lol...

I know the backstory of it, although I havent read every page this thread I tried too. So the complaint is faulty engineering...If that was the case I would think it would be a systemic problem covering everyone unit, but there are happy buyers out here, I know I have seen some of their posts on this forum where everything works for them and all is well. This goes back to my point where you cant have everything, there is not 10 different options when it comes to high performance DTR in the laptop market, we have literally 1, this and maybee the x170. I would cut dell some slack for even going this route to begin with. If there was literally a saturated market with all kinds of products like this, yea go ahead and slam them, there are other options but there are no other options. I would think in a situation like this being a bit more humble and graceful about the complaints would be more proper. To me it comes off as entitled and brattish. This is a public forum, everyone can read it. The way you write on here translates to sales numbers for these companys, The theme on these forums sounds more like a bratty kid that if he cant have his way, no one should be able to have it. Not everyone feels the same way about things. Taking a minute to change some settings around to keep thermals in check is not all that much of a problem. Its a nice laptop, why go so far into it all...

To me it literally does not effect me in the least. I bring up all my tweaking software and set everything before I start using my laptops any way. Thats part of owning a gaming laptop.

Most everyone has been great lately when it comes to replies with my posts. I know I can be rash and silly sometimes, I dunno, and I dont like to make people feel crappy. Its just so lop sided here in favor of how horrible everything is, anything, with this system that I thought Id share my perspective after buying it this past month and using for any buyers on the fence about laying down some hard earned cash on this.

 

So it won't be possible to have 128gb ram with this machine home r1 from hidevolution?

 

Why dell pushing top specs? GTFO ... lol .. I'll wait for a lower starting price range. hahahh

 

I’ve had a look at the service manual and the dgff card looks nearly identical to the older one making me thing an unofficial rtx ‘super’ upgrade may be possible

Always nice to see I guess

 

I can’t see how it only has 2 RAM slots not 4 like the R1 yet they raised the price for some reason

 

Then that's pretty stupid and why so expensive? Jesus 5-6k, it's not normal for a laptop. Minimum new laptop I would get would have 128GB. I want to see some reviews anyway.

 

LOL my R1 looking better and better.

Although I'd rather have higher RAM capacity than speed.

R1 supports 128GB unofficially. Guess R2 will be capped at 64GB

 

Clevo is a barbone chassis company and offer their products to OEMs. OEM

Yeah, and Dell made it crystal clear in specs sheets that "only Dell supplied XMP memory modules" are supported on this computer. Third-party XMP memory modules are not supported. They cover their back and made sure you all know this and you'll have to buy the ram sticks from their customization page.

Add more than 32GB and you'll lose the adverticed 3200MHz ram speed.

See specs from data sheet.

 

i dont think is 64 gb memory with higher speed is worst then 128 with lower speeds cause by the time 64 would not be enough...the cpu and gpu would be no good also

 

Looks like we were right about XMP being limited to dell certified sticks. And they don't even list primary timings on their website, so is it XMP 3200 at CL22?

 

They got what they asked for. XMP and locked out settings doesn’t exactly run at the bleeding speed It’s what it is. Want better timings, just turn off XMP and let them run default speed

 

Are you saying if a video encoding, database, modelling, or image rendering program needs 100GB of memory, the CPU needs to upgraded? Perhaps. Perhaps not. The processors in the R2 will be intel's latest processors for 10 cores, which is quite a bit. When working with large data sets, help provided by a higher CPU core count depends on how multi-threaded or parallel CPU optimized the application (or process) is using that large data set. It might help. But then again, it might not.

 

the R2 is out actually, hows the temperature on 10900k?

 

I doubt anyone has hands on it yet to provide temps insights

 

I think 1 out of 2 of those connectors are on R1 but not both. Would have been cool adding 2x more M.2 in our R1

LOL so we might see the same exact BS as on R1 where only AW supplied RAM sticks will be allowed to run at a certain speed.

Depends on what you do. Some of us use our gaming laptops for other stuff as well.

I am already thinking of going 64GB, I'm close to saturating 32GB on my Area-51m. My M18xR2 already gets saturated with it's 24GB RAM.

 

whats the big deal of rams? I thought the optimum speed is around 2666-3000, anyhting above that is kinda pointless.

I wish the RSA key for dell bios gets *leaked* so we dont have to deal with this stupid bios.

I thought PCH is a tiny chip, but oh boy intel controller needs reballing and extra work that voids the warranty instantly.

 

2666-3000 doesn't even work in the R1 unless you have the specific RAM sold by AW...

I am running 2133Mhz RAM, but 2666Mhz is probably optimal. Unfortunately we are stuck at 2400Mhz unless we buy the AW RAM or flash our sticks to mimic AW RAM.

BIOS 1.5.0 works well and allows full performance for CPU/GPU. It does break G-SYNC for newer panels unfortunately. Only thing we needed on 1.5.0 was XMP support then the Area-51m would be complete. Only way to get custom BIOS is to replace PCH.

 

Dell RAM is idiotically priced, for subpar specs. They probably noticed people like myself had been ordering machines with minimal RAM config, and upgrading to top performance RAM of their choice at a fractional cost.

Solution? Simple. Solder that sh..t down or provide a mirage of upgradeability using proprietary modules. Some people have said: yebbut that's how Dell makes money. Well, they should figure out another way, one which doesn't involve dumbing and locking their products down!

They will only change course if people do their research and buy laptops which don't suffer from those limitations.

 

I thought we would have a 300hz screen, but no options for that... Lame

 

Launch roll-out has limited config, the full config sheet was revealed a month ago, patience! It’s coming... and so are the rest of the processors/GPUs/Ram etc

 

This has probably been asked a bunch of times but is there any way to order the faster memory from dell, say your sales advisor cant even help? after you have purchased your unit?

 

Ahh I see... You're right they even mentioned the AMD set up which I didn't see. I got all jacked for the 2080 and didn't even realize they didn't have any 2070S or 2060S options

 

Yeah, this will be fun watch when he discover Dell killed 2 of the ram slots for R2

Re: Area-51m, memory upgrade 128GB?

 

Ah, but you also need hardware that's capable of pushing 300 frames, without blowing up.

 

Hahahahah RIP! They tried to fix memory stuff and crippled even more... some steps foward, some steps back.

By the way, does anyone know which version of 2080 SUPER Area-51M, M17 and Clevo X170 uses: 150W or 200W?

 

2080 Super@200w for X170. 150w@m17. Area-51m R2 maybe max out at 180/190w (higher and risk for fire?)

But don't look you blind on high TDP values. Put a lower thermal trip point in firmware will render the highest TDP almost unusable. 75C temp trip point have been the golden rules for notebooks from Dell as you know.

 

Not sure if at launch the BIOS in the 51m R2 will let the RTX 2080 Super be 200w, but I can almost guarantee you at some point it will be 200w since the R1's RTX 2080 was 200w after the BIOS update. https://www.reddit.com/r/Alienware/comments/au7ct8/the_200w_bios_for_alienware_area51m_rtx_2080/

 

Was completely out of touch from the NBR these days and today only I saw the 51M R2 on the Dell page, randomly while checking the prices and damn this thing starting price is showing at $4700. And I checked the forum, bam there's a thread.

I learnt a few new things on the 51M series today, to sum em all up.

- White finish is trash on R1, god knows how is that Clear Coat's effectiveness on R2
- Chiclet style from the signature Alienware floating keys, and no Macros on the bigger chassis R2, charging extra on top
- No DRAM Speed past Dell specification not even upto Intel spec for CFL and now proprietary XMP for Dell RAM (WTF)
- 2 RAM slots from 4 in R2 (even 2013 machine has 4 Slots and pnp DDR3L's top spec 2133Mhz)
- GPU/System burngate on R1
- GPU throttling at 79C
- Display panel gluing, some bs tactics to make it even more harder for the basic Display swap.
- GPU upgrade lockdown with HS change for R2, no Super GPUs forget Ampere, 100% proprietary DGFF = less resale and more complexity vs MXM (dead anyways, unless RTX ones show up)
- Mobo changed wr.to chassis, simply because of newer palmrest for the changed KB and SD slot (a good thing that SD slot is there), and barring all upgrades from R1.
- BIOS on GPU locked (from Ngreedia + Dell, pure chastity)
- BIOS on System is locked behind Intel PCH Bootguard (worse than chastity)
- AWCC is a MS Store exclusive with tons of modding needed on top - UWP is the worst DRM on the planet, beating Denuvo Anti Tamper which has Online Activation, GaaS class DRM, Supporting the worst UWP abomination is a sin.

I know my post is just reiterating what's there, but tbh, I'd advise to move away from this uber expensive machines with absolute zero user freedom. A brand new 3700X is so cheap right now and with Ampere and RDNA2 around the corner this is a DOA, sorry that's what it is, with Z490 VRM requirements and the insane power consumption for the fully unlocked 10900K is blowing Kraken X62 AIO off the roof, I doubt even Noctua DH15 can tame it on high loads, GN proved it AIOs are cooler than them, I like Air cooling but this laptop is not going to cut at all with it's pathetic shortcuts and the unified garbage HS again (this is the biggest roadblock for the GPU upgrades on any Notebook - even the king P870 chassis)

10600K with 4000MHz G.Skill Royal C14 at 1.5v runs around many CPUs, and this machine can never do that, then the Z490 direct CPU to I/O interface has 4.0 support but does this mobo from hell has it ?? also so expecting 4.0 with drop in socket from 11th gen is really really wishful thinking as no one knows how RKL will have it's power limits considering and here with Dell cheap mobo design no trust on the LGA1200 upgrade and Intel has to beat Ryzen 4000 which is on 7NP (EUV TSMC) vs their 14nm++. Z490 itself is an EOL product tbh because need Z590 for that RKL Gen4 full support like X570 because of that DMI link speed limitation on the PCH, meaning Z490 mobos won't be getting the PCIe 4.0 from the chipset or the extra I/O capability.

Done permanently with the laptops endless lockdown lies and greed, I may upgrade to a P5200 MXM or 1070 Black PCB from HP, but that HP corp they learnt that their GPUs are MXM so they changed the layout and added nasty changes like layout of VRAM and Chokes but hey, it's still 3.0b and works with HS modding here's the 3DMark FS score on a machine from 2012. Horrible practices from all OEMs, Dell DGFF had so much potential but it is same like mutated MXMs & the firmware gimp cancer is like putting a bullet in a wound, Alienware is again making the same mistakes over and over.

Desktop is the only way where there's no gimping like this or paying uber high prices for such half hearted attempts.

 

I know. And Dell had to throw out both the sBios with 75C Gpu temp trip point and 180w vBios as urgent update afterwards to slow down the increased RMA numbers/tech support costs Last and final nail was add in same Gpu temp trip point in their software.

Area-51m, GPU throttling dell.com/community/Alienware/Alienware-laptops

 

A-effing-MEN.

First and last AW laptop for me, they got me with the DGFF bait and switch!

 

I love my Area-51m. I think dell did an excellent job with it.

 

Amen............

 

Dell nailed it with the R1: best performance without massive size, decent cooling, thought like a rock, fantastic keyboard and mouth opening design.

Dell killed it with poor electronics, abismal support and garbage yellowing paint.

An incredible shame how they messed up such an amazing machine.

Enviado desde mi GM1913 mediante Tapatalk

 

My personal complaints to make the Area-51m perfect:

Needs SD Card reader..(R2 addressed this)
Fix yellowing on Lunar Light color (R2 might address this)
XMP/2400Mhz+ RAM Support (Still no proper support on R1 and R2 is also crippled)
No GPU throttling (87C on 1.5.0 works fine for me but for everyone else on newer BIOS...)
2080 components (Seem they may have addressed this on newer models, my first batch R1 still going strong though *knock on wood*)
BIOS overclocking options for CPU (UV, Multiplier etc. No need to rely on AWCC, XTU, TS etc)
Subwoofer (My M18xR2 has much more bass than this thing, come on AW)
Proper performance when using single 330w adapter (Clevo would run as much as the PSU allowed then shut off)

I'm probably forgetting something, but overall the Area-51m has been the best laptop after M18xR2 they ever released. The R2 seems like 2 steps forward, 3 steps backward approach.

Looking forward to see how the X170SM-G does at this point since Clevo upped they design game lol

 

Only 2 RAM slots???? Boy, they really hate RAM modules, don't they? Ridiculous. Alienware is rolling downhill after Azor's departure.

 

x170 has all this sd card
no yellowing there is no white color
proper support for XMP RAM
no GPU throttling that has been known clevos dont throttle much
has bios overclocking unlocked bios
has 2 subwoofers
should have proper performance i heard they improved that

 

Damn. The X170 looks like a champ platform tbh!!!

 

We'll see. If it does not have a @Prema Mod then maybe not.

 

it does i just ordered one! after seeing the alienware area 51m R2 being a big disappointment and overpriced

 

Would be exactly the same with Azor still as captain. Remember he was the boss for the massive change in 2014/15

2015 models come with no raid options. They said no need for it in gamingbooks

Remember also the move to no card reader on their brand new designed gaming flagship.

 

You can be sure the R2 has roots in planning going back a couple years, meaning it's still the results of long term choices, not post Azor. These things are going to cook to death, imo. And with pci-4 and ampere coming, and there being a less than 5% chance you can upgrade the GPU (honestly it's really a 0 chance) and no possible way of dropping a new CPU in there for PCIe 4.0, it's short lived just to add to the pain. With transitions happening very quickly even Intel stepped out of their usual mold and gave the Z490 upgradeability. But you are guaranteed that path isn't baked into the R2. Don't even say "maybe". If that was possible they'd know (because Dell has engineering samples from Intel) and that would be a huge marketing bone they'd drop on the front page of the R2 order page. It's not. There won't be any path forward. Ampere is public insofar as it can be talked about. Any promise there? Not a whisper. 5-6K for a dead end last breath 14nm beast that will be great for heating an Alaskan house in the wintertime?

Pass...

 

Azor was also the mastermind for the no upgrade path for their AW desktops.

Help me upgrade the processor of my Aurora R5 from 2016 with an i7 6700


Ram help? I’m confused



And NO UHD panels for Area-51m was a design decision taken on the top. Yeah, all design solutions/add back "removed features" is taken +2 years before the initial release of an model.

Offer removed features has its value in offer something new (groundbreaking) worth to buy the next year.

 

Yet, they came up with the 51M under Azor, flawed as it is. Once he was on his way/out, the dumbing down process got underway. He appeared to have no idea about the soldered RAM in m15 R2, his last product intro. I suspect his ex-Acer replacement, who was probably involved in the design decision for a while now, will be the final nail in the coffin of Alienware, once an innovative manufacturer of cutting edge high-performance laptops.

 

I'm 100% sure he knew the m15/m17 come with soldered ram. Not always you want to tell the truth about unwanted changes (but not always you remember everything at time you get questions).

Frank Azor confirms XPS 13 7390 will have soldered SSD, "not very different from smartphones today"


An Interview with Frank Azor | AMD Partner Hub
"I have big ideas that can only be executed by a company that owns an end-to-end ecosystem of intellectual property across CPUs, GPUs, APUs, Chipsets and software"

 

HIDevolution has the R2 on pre-order. Gotta sell one of your kidneys before you hit the checkout button though :
Custom Built Alienware Area-51M R2 - 17.3" UHD Tobii - i9-10900K - RTX 2080 Super- White

 

Even by alien standards, this level of divisiveness and treachery is...

 

Likely with XoticPC, isn’t he the “custom BIOS partner” or something like that?