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

HIDEvolution will have it. Other Prema partners will probably get it too.

 

Click and zoom in to see the different @Prema partner shops https://premamod.com/partner/

 

Looking forward to seeing some pix and benches when you get your X170.

 

It's always great and exciting with new stuff, and it also notches to older guys, making them squeeze their machines even more

 

@Spartan Is a51 m2 dimension similar to A51M, was wondering if anyone swapped A51 M2 mobo and its heatsink into A51 M.
I still don't see 3200MHz on 4xDIMMs is it technical limit or imposed limit by Dellienware?
And still no single slot 600W+ PSU.

 

Area-51M R2 confirmed to use RTX 2080S @200W

 

Hardly you will see R2 mobo in R1, i would say it's impossible.

About the PSU, it is because theres a limit of 330W for airplanes, thats why MSI and even Clevo doesn't use a single AC adapter, but there's still Eurocom 780W option.

About the memory... HAHAHAH.... didn't you realise they crippled it up and theres only 2 DIMM slots? Seems they couldn't even manage 4 slots at 2933MHz.

 

They had to be sure they could use 3200MHz ram speed. Easier reach that speed with only 2 ram slots. Cheap MB have it’s limitations.

 

The real question is whether it will actually matter. It could be 400W, or even way higher than that, and it won't matter if it remains voltage limited, cannot hold higher core clocks and throttles at low temperatures. Power limits are exactly that... a limit. A power limit only matters when it is so low that it caps performance because it wasn't set high enough. The proper approach is to just not even have one.

Truth be told, there is no reason to even establish a power limit for a CPU or GPU. I have a 2000W power limit on my shunt-modded 2080 Ti. About the most I can force out of it is around 900W with the core clock at 2235MHz, but it is beneficial to have the power limit set so high that it is beyond the physical capabilities of the GPU so there is no way it will ever become a performance-limiting factor. Once power limit becomes a non-issue you can focus on what really matters. The key to achieving maximum performance is higher voltage and lower temperatures.

 

Was there a limit for AC adapter? I believe it was for laptop battery Wh should be be less than 100 Wh.
It seems more crippled than R1. Clevo's managed 4 DIMMs with XMP since 6700K. Papusan is using same board with 8th Gen Chip.

 

I fix it for you And 6th gen chips was released around 5 years ago.

 

Yup. P870DM-G CPU originally came with 6700K and flawlessly upgrades to 7700K, 8700K and 9900K. But, Dell insisted Alienware desktop owners needed to buy a new system to upgrade from 6700K to 7700K CPU. Their competitors required nothing more than a BIOS flash. How anyone can trust them to build anything and expect it to turn out right is beyond me.

 

I totally agree with you. I was just giving the info for who wants it

 

This happens when you are away from the forums for a long time and you realize you're light years behind current events.
You upgraded from 8700k to 9900K just like that! No pin mod and no VRM/Chokes replacement was needed?

 

Because they’re pretty yo! Look at that Lunar White!

 

Lol that is until it turns brown...

 

You know what is sad? I was telling people there is no way they could screw the color up. They’ve been making white xps 13 laptops for a while now. They know not to use cheap or unprotected paint. Whelp. . .I was wrong.

 

I know right?!? Friggin dumb. I went with the same assumption, and here I am...

They didn’t test the coating at all...

 

Why should they bother? As long it's not black it will sell. Just look at Apple. Design always come before functionality At least Apple's old white lasted longer than AW's Lunar White Yellowish mess.

 

Could be that AW is outsourcing the coating and QC is sh!t. Now they've got some durable clear coat on the new 51R2, but the 15/17R3's in lunar are also seeing weird burn through and yellowing.... Im glad I stole my 51m at $2800 with top specs and was able to see it for $3500 after 8 months of use....

 

Looking on the website they are pushing the Clearcoat coating on the lunar white. I don't see the option for dark side of the moon at this point. Dell has instituted the Apple tax on these designs because we bought the R1 designs.

 

I was debating this; I wanted a machine strong enough to have at my house and play my usual style of games at a rather effective FPS (Baldur's Gate 3 and Cyberpunk 2077 coming out are the next goals) on my 1440 (or 4k) monitor... but have that experience (mostly) when I travel. While, obviously, lesser now, I still end up being sent places for some work as of now. Does everyone here dislike the R2?
What's the real alternative then?

 

guys i cant wait anymore for this laptop so i need a new one now...preferable Alienware...do u recommend me something now with good thermals? i was thinkinf between
Laptop Dell Alienware M17 17.3" QHD 120Hz i7-9750H 16GB 256GB SSD + 1TB Nvidia RTX 2070 8GB
and
Laptop Gaming Dell Alienware R4 Intel Core Coffee Lake (8th Gen) i9-8950HK 1TB+256GB SSD 16GB nVidia GeForce GTX 1080 8GB Win10 Pro FullHD

 

If I didn’t have an R1, and pending reviews to see if the R2 is good, I’d be looking at the Clevo X170 and the R2.

I personally don’t mind the 2 ram slots on the R2, since I’d likely always do 2 sticks anyway for max speed (2x16, or 2x32) and I don’t need nor can I anticipate needing something like 128 GB for the life of this (or my upcoming) laptop.

Also, the keyboard is simply amazing on the R1. I had a chiclet keyboard laptop prior to my R1 and the R1's is much, much better, but a chiclet keyboard isn’t absolute crap like most people make it sound. I like chiclet keyboards, but the R1's is superior without a doubt. Also, the macro keys have limited use, unless you already have macro keys and have specific use for them, you won’t really miss them. I hardly use them on my R1. Maybe 1-2 clicks per session at my PC? Literally, almost unused.

 

What about the Zephyrus Duo? I hear the cooling will be really good, but who knows... You get a cool screen and a thin(ish) laptop that should be able to handle Cyberpunk when it is finally released in 2077 at decent settings. Not sure if at 4k though. Wait for the R2 reviews and if she's hotter than her older sister then you might want to find another broad to tie the know with... The hot ones ain't nothing but trouble. Good to look at, but...

 

The ROG Duo 15 is more comparable to the Alienware m15 R3. It uses a RTX 2080 Super Max-Q, the m17 R3 uses a 150w Max-P version, while the Area 51m R2 uses a 200w version. I think the Duo 15 is probably one of my favorite 15" notebooks but definitely will not be able to run Cyberpunk at max at decent FPS at 4k, since a desktop RTX 2080 Super can't even run most current games at 4k at good FPS.

 

Im thinking if building a desktop for heavy gaming and going Zephyrus G14 for a lappy. Best of both worlds

 

Buying a crazy expensive R2 now, for Cyberpunk in November (assuming no delay to 2021), and BG3 which has no release date for the full game, seems a fool's errand.

 

Really appreciate the feedback. It changes nothing and I'll buy what I like, but appreciate the judgement on my examples. As they were only examples of future goals,

I was hoping for technical advice or thought, so thank you for the points @7onyMustDive, @A_Sehmi, and @Virale.

Thanks for the advice! I'll look around a bit.

 

How am I judging you? This is technical advice. Buying today's laptop for tomorrow's game is sketchy, when laptop's have no upgrade paths. There's no need to take it as a personal attack.

The only reason I said that is because you specifically listed CP2077 as a goal. I can only take your words at face value and give advice based on such.

I personally bought my laptop to play CP in April. If I had known it would be delayed to November (or later) I would have waited for Nvidia's Ampere and had an even better experience.

edit: oops, posted too soon, filled in the blanks

 

Clevo X170

Mobile Ampere won’t be ready for the release of this game. More likely late spring 2021.

 

Oh, I know the schedule, unless Nvidia changes it. Laptops will be revealed at CES 2021.

I just would have thought long and hard about sticking with my GTX 1070 equipped GT73VR until then.

I got my $3500 laptop for $2000 due to the MSI upgrade fiasco anyway, so I guess I can't complain too much either way.

 

Even stand alone 2080S MXMs will likely only be available weeks-months after X170 launch. 3080 "rumored" specs are looking crisp though.

 

Has anyone here ordered yet, or perhaps plan on ordering upon release of more diverse configurations?

Or have you chosen a different laptop?

 

Does this have Optimus? BIOS-configurable would be fine.

 

Looks like they added some more options for the m51 R2. So you can configure it a bit more reasonably if $5K is to rich for your blood. They only seem to have a 144hz 1080p screen. Really hoping they’re not gonna try and sell their flagship without a 300hz screen.

 

why not? Your not interested in buying one anyway?

 

Lol. Just shaking my head buddy. It’s like whhhhhhy?

 

Very few people would find a true use case for a 300 Hz screen, certainly no recreational gamer would benefit from or should care about one.

 

I would LOVE a 300 Hz screen. Have you tried just using a 240 Hz screen for normal usage? Let alone gaming...

More hertz = just feels snappier, cleaner, clearer, everything does.

144 Hz in my R1 feels great, but I wish it had a 240 Hz screen.

Go to a computer store and just try a 240 Hz screen, it will make whatever you have feel kind of old, sluggish hahaha unfortunately.

 

Where are you seeing this? I cannot find an option to change configuration.

 

https://www.dell.com/en-us/shop/del...ware-area51m-r2-laptop#configurations_section

US store. If you’re not in the US it might not be available yet.

UPDATE:
If you use the base model you can select a 300Hz panel. Either Lunar White or Dark Side of the Moon. The 4K option is only for lunar white it seems. But, that is nice to see. But you can't select any of the K processors and you can only select 2933 memory instead of 3200. Soooo if you were gonna pick one up I'd go for the lowest CPU and swap it out yourself. Then just sell the included CPU.

 

I'm very happy with my 60 Hz desktop use oriented monitor, and don't really see a very meaningful difference for this usage vs my 144Hz laptop screen.

Things like FPS gaming def benefit from 144Hz, but it's a question of the system being able to consistently run said game at 144Hz+. 300 Hz would be another story altogether. The benefit is also more noticeable on larger screens as opposed to 15 or 17 inch laptop display.

According to this pro gamer, the difference between 144 and 240 Hz on a 27 inch monitor (if I remember correctly) is noticeable but not huge:



Again, the guy is testing on an external monitor and it goes without saying that his sensitivity to refresh rate is way above average. Obviously CSGO is nowhere near as hardware demanding as current games, so the set of games where 300Hz would be achievable at reasonable quality settings would be limited to older titles.

 

The 300 Hz screen IS present in the second to last option from left to right (the second most expensive). I checked a few hours ago out of curiosity.

It looks like they’re using R1 parts interchangeably; Lower configs only have 60Hz/144Hz, highest configs have 144Hz/300Hz/UHD

 

For whatever reason I notice a difference when FPS starts to get close to 200. And a lot of games I play can reach that by using high setting instead of ultra. So I’m part of the few you speak of.

Besides 144hz are old panels. I want the latest and greatest.

 

here it is = https://www.dell.com/en-us/shop/gam...a51m-r2-laptop/wn51mr230s?view=configurations

17.3" FHD (1920 x 1080) 300Hz 3ms 300-nits 100% sRGB color gamut + Tobii Eyetracking technology

 

Well, most people can probably notice some difference, particularly in a non-controlled setiing. Whether the difference is worth severely sacrificing visual quality by going down from Ultra to High is another matter.

 

It’s definitely different for everyone. But having the choice be there is really what I want to see. If you can’t notice the difference then by all means go with the lower refresh rate. But the higher refresh panels have lower response times. And that can be more noticeable than the frame rate. So again letting there be uniform choice is something I want to see and not have it locked away behind menu’s and certain pre determined skews. Atleast there isn’t any 1080p 60hz panels this time around.

 

Well, the lower response time benefit is possibly even more controversial. I doubt anyone can tell a difference, in a properly constructed "blind" test, between a 3ms and 6ms panel purely on the basis of response time (running at the same refresh rate).
Sure, if the 300Hz panel is available and there is a market for it then why not. They should also offer the 60Hz panel, but it should be one with equally good if not better colour representation - I got the 144Hz IPS for my m15 not because I needed 144Hz, but because the 60Hz option appeared to be of lower visual quality in reviews.

More importantly, they should offer 4 RAM slots, unlocked XMP, and configurable Optimus

 

Talk about “having choices”.... $50 premium because Dell have locked out ram tuning. That’s awful and not what I want to see.