*OFFICIAL* Alienware X Series Owners Lounge and Discussion

I joined this site in 2012, and even then people were complaining about XYZ laptop BGA filth yada yada. Come back 9 years later after googling "laptop discussions" on trying to find user experiences with this year's roundup. Lol and behold I still see the same names gowning and moaning around this site.

 

I have been here for a lot of years as well and many of those complaining about Alienware has the right to do so. Alienware was never meant to be Razer. The problem with a comment like this, in my humble opinion, is that you most likely have not been with this brand from the beginning as a few of us. I remember Mr. FOX helping us with our systems and supporting the brand and the mission--we had SLI systems back in the day. Do you know Alienware's mission before they were bought by Dell?!

Mission: Empower the customer to create, work and play faster by innovating and building the most powerful computers in the world.

It is a different product targeting a different audience now. That is why some of us are sour. I still buy them and run them as my main systems so I am not as jaded, but I also appreciate what Alienware was back in the early 2000s.

 

Nobody cares! Again, thank you for your service, but almost every thread you’ve posted on here has been some sort of humble brag and has taken away from the actual conversation on the laptops. We’re not here to talk about your service. We’re not here to talk about the amount of money you spend on your systems. We’re not here to talk about you overclocking your DESKTOP pc. We’re not here to talk about your retirement age, nice car and big home.

And we’re certainly not here to disrespect entire generations of people (which you’ve done twice now) because according to you every millennial/gen Z person (in your very own exact words) acts entitled, lacks grammar skills, has no work ethic, and complains about everything. Are you SURE you aren’t a boomer?

We’re here to talk about the alienware x17 and x15, that’s it.

People who are truly happy with their lives shouldn’t feel the need to rub it in everyones face every chance they get. Everyone can see that you’re overcompensating for something, your insecurities are showing.

I’m only 21, but I imagine that if I was actually happily retired at 43 I wouldn’t spend my time trying to impress strangers on the internet all the while putting people born after me down. Who knows, maybe go back to work? You sound like a very bored person.

 

Got you. I agree the x15 is a different class than the m15, not sure I would define this using an arbitrary thickness threshold, but you could say that in the 15 inch space, the x15 is like Alienware Air, and the m15 is an Alienware Pro. Unfortunately, it doesn't seem that the company see it that way, because they clearly dumbed the m15 R6 down to ensure that the new "flagship" x15 doesn't completely pale in comparison.

 

Yeah, I can understand that. Dave 2D complained about that TDP change from R4 to R5/6…why the drop? He thinks they will magically bump it up this fall with a VBIOS update. This would come long after the X15 to M15 R5/6 comparisons are complete, so is that the conspiracy? I’m fully aware the X15 is 90-110W, which still beats the competition, and I’m not aware of anything this thin with a 110W GPU (like I said, the XPS15 9500 is 2MM thicker and only has a 70W 3050TI). Weird for the X15 to lead the way and not a souped up XPS15.

I had an M15 R2, and I just didn’t like the squared off screen and wrist rests which dug into my wrists a bit on the corners…so I like the more rounded out design now, but losing that much TDP is a bummer. I think the M15 would be pretty nice…but availability was actually further out (mid August) than the X15, so I went with the closer buy dealing with it’s compromised TDP as it should stil be enough for my use case and I’m without any PC at the moment.

 

Yeah it’s a bit…off balance here. It’s either places like this with the crew that’s been around for a long time saying the same stuff as I’ve seen for years as well, or it’s subreddit manufacturer forums where it’s a bunch of young or foreign people panicking about CPU/GPU die temps, or simply coalescing all defective produce owners into one place. Not sure where to go to be cautiously excited about the now, still have some technical depth, but not just purely finding all the new products distasteful. I get the compromise the 16mm X15 brings - but it still does something in a thinner design that I’ve never seen before - it’s pretty crazy in my book. And a machine that has very little bulk impresses me as someone who wants to cart it to work and back each day, or travel with it.

 

No Vapor chamber means this won’t happen. 125W TGP is still a lot more than what the X series offer. 3060 in the x series is wimpy 90W. The Dynamic boost feature balance the cooling between Cpu and Gpu. What will happen with the Cpu who already run 103C in the Ryzen model? And the Gpu run already +86C as it is.

 

They already confirmed in the x series and m15 r6 announcement video on June 1st that they’ll bump up the GPU performance in the R6 “this fall”. Whether they follow through with that is a different story however.

 

Hmm, does Area 51M R1 support 2666Mhz memory yet, as promised at launch?

 

Exactly. Which is why I said the last sentence. One thing saying it but it’s another thing to actually do it

 

Why were you resorting to calling people name because they don't agree with you about a device? That's just childish.
Also if that's how you validate yourself with a big car, nice house and retirement then good for you.

 

German orders for the X17 (UHD with i9) went just into production

 

Same here

 

Not only did they nerf the m15, but they also killed off 17 inch models sporting vapor chamber, the m17 and possibly the 51M, at their altar of thin madness, as both of these would likely eclipse the x17 in terms of performance (with LM applied, as they should to all new models). Will be interrsting to see how that plays out in terms of temps and noise from the 4 small fans. For now, we can enjoy the excited wheeking as first adopters anticipate receipt of their thin toys.

On the x15 vs m15 R6: the form factor difference is negligible IMHO. 300g extra weight is not that big of a deal. You can always do a bit working out to build up your strength, but it's not clear you will be able to safely hack the x15 to run at 140W.

 

Is there any review for the x17/x15 thermals anywhere yet ? I got dell to price match my Legion 7 with the x17 with i9 and 3080. If by some miracle, dell actually managed to keep the temperatures low, i will switch and see if I like it. The 5900HX is too locked down for my liking and no XMP support is a bummer as well.

 

Nope. Take an educated guess why.

 

If its bad in we can send it back, without restocking fee, in the first 14 days after delivery...

 

That's good. Hope you won't come under any sort of pressure to keep the laptop and can make a rational decision. Seems easier said than done, as too many times people can't bear the wait for another laptop, can't be bothered, feel too invested after waiting for ages for production and delivery etc., not to mention manufacturer's promises and incentives including onsite service and exchange offers.

 

Last week i ordered an Area 51m R2 and the X17. I will compare both and let the better one stay.
I have a desktop PC and laptop is just a hobby

 

I like it lol. Though you might as well get a m17r4 to throw in the ring as well. I think M17 r4 > X17.

 

Already had the m17r4 a few month but it wasnt good enough to stay. Fan whine was to loud to ignore.

 

Nice. Wonder why they haven't upgraded the 51M CPU to Rocket Lake. Same socket and backward compatible with Comet Lake chipset. Guess that would have taken a bit of spotlight away from the x17 premiere too

 

My X17 just went into production today so looks like the ETA of July 2nd is accurate.

 

yep it's really remarkable we haven't gotten a new 51m. Like it would absolutely slap the m17r4 and x17. It's not a bad design on it..not sure why they are bailing.

 

Looks like poor management motivated by vacuous desire to enact some sort of change and put one's stamp on the brand. Not a fan of the person they brought in to replace Azor, the X-rated line seems to be her project.

 

By the way, I haven't seen a single 3080 go past 150W base in any laptop launched so far in 2021. We used to have upto 200W of TGP on DTRs with 2080/2080S mobile GPUs, but there's no such thing to my surprise in any 30 series implementation. Is Nvidia the reason behind this change? Or is there something else?

 

If anyone is looking to buy one of these (or XPS) in the UK, there is a 20% discount code available (tested, it works) DFTSUMMER20. Enjoy!

 

After Dell allowed options I went and canceled my X15 which cost $3247 including tax but with 10% military discount and ordered an X17 with the core i9 and RTX 3080 but $50 cheaper. I compromised storage and memory since they are upgradable and instead of a July 8th delivery it’s gonna be July 23rd. I wold have been more then happy with the X15 but for me it was all about the memory. The performance increase when I upgraded my last desktop from DDR4 2400 to DDR4 3200 was massive. And I have been waiting for a laptop that would be able to perform as closely as possible as that system with the 6950x and Titan Xp’s in SLI. This won’t beat that since I overclocked but I’m looking forward to trying out a couple 3466 dimms once they become readily available. I’ve been looking around and haven’t found any seller other then Dell that sells laptop memory that fast. I wish they put they listed the latency specs. I had nothing but positive experiences with G-skill 3200 CL14.

 

Getting that to work could be fun. BTW The memory brand that consistently works with AW laptops is HyperX Impact, although the only improvement is lower CL, higher freq profiles typically don't work.

 

Fair enough about HP. I took a new HP laptop with me during my jan o5- jan 06 Iraq deployment and it lasted 6 months. So maybe I just got a rotten apple. And your right about Alienware BIOS. I have in the past manipulated a Dell XPS circa 2007, and my Asus X99 WS motherboard BIOS with no issues, but not an Alienware. sometimes I lose track of the year. Everything kinda sped up after I retired in 2013. I still remember how angry the PC community became after Dell bought Alienware in 2006. And on that same note if you told me in the 90’s that I would someday buy anything from Dell I would have laughed at you. in the mid 90’s during my break in military service I was working for AT&T wireless as a engineer for Ericsson and Nortel switches. And yeah, Soldering skills included. Some of my fellow engineers at AT&T were proficient at coding things like smart chips for phones and direcTV access cards. At the time I lived in Elk Grove California down the street from an Apple PC manufacturing plant and the tech circles their had some overlap. I picked up a few skills.

 

My latitude 7480 has HyperX memory. No complaints. My only bad experience has been with Corsair. I’ve had past issues with both their memory sticks and SSD’s. I did have 1 G-skill stick go bad but they have amazing customer service and replaced it with no issues. Likewise with Nvidia and Asus. One of my water cooled Titan Xp’s failed, and I put the stock cooler back on, sent it back, and had a replacement within 14 days. I dropped an Asus WS motherboard, and Asus sent me a brand new replacement in about the same amount of time. For water cooling I am hugely impressed with EK. I had a leaking radiator and they shipped a replacement from Slovenia to Texas in 4 days. Telling me to just discard the faulty one. I can only imagine how expensive the shipping cost was for that.

 

This has to be a mistake otherwise a lot of people who just spent a ton of money on a gaming laptop are never gonna be able to upgrade. My latitude has one but I don’t think I saw this in the Alienware line.

https://www.tomsguide.com/news/windows-11-wont-work-on-your-pc-without-a-tpm-how-to-check

 

You can circumvent the requirement as Secure boot/TPM 2 and install Win 11 if you use the Win 10 installer.

 

All systems should have tpm 2016 and above.

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-hardware/design/device-experiences/oem-tpm

 

Makes since but I have a hard time believing that Dell allowed their newest Alienware gaming laptop to be ghosted by Microsoft’s newest creation that is marketing itself for gamers. Unless TPM is built into the BIOS or will be in a firmware upgrade then that’s one hell of a diss. I never liked TPM because it caused component compatibility issues for me in the past so I always had it switched off in my systems that had it. So if this becomes a thing then PC makers are going to force people into specific components. I prefer Samsung SSD’s because they are reliable but I had to turn off TPM in my latitude to use it.

 

I wish AW provided desktop-grade memory config in BIOS. Probably won't happen anytime soon. Even basic XMP profiles may not work. Lots of horror stories in Area 51M lounge: 3200 RAM modules locked unless you order a specific system config from Dell, low CL Corsair or GSkill modules aren't stable etc. They just haven't been too friendly with people who like upgrading memory. Could be because their own memory modules don't have any timing specs on them, they seem not to want people to be aware of that aspect. Of course they make more money if you buy memory from them. Certain enthusiast-centric Clevo resellers are great - you can configure the systems using particular memory. Dell doesn't do that. Guess they've been trying to emulate Apple by hiding as much detail as possible from the users.

Just the fact that they've put SODIMM sockets back in the x17 is unexpected (if very welcome), there is no telling which modules apart from Dell and maybe Kingston brands will work. My guess as to why Kingston HyperX tends to play well with these systems is that the memory they usually supply appears to be Kingston Value RAM, at least in terms of timings.

 

Which is why a lot of people got upset over Dell’s purchase of Alienware. Alienware PC’s were originally a lot like Asus. Flexible and upgradable before big bad Dell took over. And even though I have never owned an Alienware pc or laptop in the past I stayed informed through the years. I played around with Macs and even owned a couple in the past but never preferred them to PC’s because of the restrictiveness of the OS software. As I say this I’m typing it on my iPad pro, but anything other then web browsing is done on my Windows systems.

 

TPM is mentioned several times under security in the BIOS in the x17 R1 service manual

https://www.dell.com/support/manual...c183b7-b727-419d-9dde-c19b31f876c5&lang=en-us

 

I was looking at the wrong documentation then because I was just glancing through setup and specifications for the X17 and didn’t see TPM mentioned. Another surprise is in the download files. Dell frequently updates TPM in the software updates and hasn’t any for the X series yet. Even the BIOS is on it’s 2nd revision.

 

Anyone here ever use PCIe 4.0 in RAID 0? Which is faster. Having a single PCIe 4.0 SSD such as a Samsung 980 pro or 2 Samsung 970’s in RAID 0 config? Since these laptops don’t support Dual PCIe 4.0.

 

Not just directed to you but this casts my mind to a statement I see alot of: I'll never buy from X brand again. I think it's healthier to keep an open mind about stuff since things are always changing. When looking at Lenovo be so popular their gaming divisions only been around for 4 years. 06 is ages ago with the pace the world is going. I myself felt let down when the x17 doesn't have a QHD config.

That means my only options for a 17in QHD is Razor and both yet to be released Asus S17 and HP Omen 17 2021. (MSI isn't shipping here it's 17in models afaik) I'm very much looking forward to the Omen reviews once it comes out since I heard good things about it's line up last year. I don't think there's any particular brand in this current year that has tech that would have big faults that would happen in a year or two.

 

Well that is an interesting question because they are marketing the ability to overclock through software although the BIOS doesn’t allow changes with memory timings from the looks of the service manual. The Core i9-11980HK is limited to DDR4-3200 yet they are selling systems with DDR4-3466. When I overclocked on my Asus systems through Windows software it would reboot and modify the BIOS. But Asus BIOS let you overclock both ways. Alienware only in software. So if you change the timings in software will those changes only remain temporarily until the system is turned off? I’m thinking yes.

 

Speaking of Lenovo I have never had a stability issue ever with any of the 3 I’ve had. And very upgradable. They are built like tanks and that is what I should have brought with me to Iraq. And brand X vs Y. Like Intel vs AMD or Xbox vs playstation. I agree that getting stuck on a brand is limiting. Although I would NEVER own a FORD vehicle. I’ve owned 4 Camaro’s and a Corvette that my divorce lawyer insisted I was gonna Lose. HAH. She was wrong. But back to the matter at hand. I remember well when AMD released the Athlon series which I made the switch to from a Pentium 2 back in the day. I stayed with AMD until Intel introduced the 1st gen Core i7. I do think Nvidia drivers have always been more stable then AMD but I haven’t owned any GPU made by AMD since like 2002. And correct me if I’m wrong, but didn’t AMD poach a few Intel engineers which is the reason for their evolutionary improvement in their hardware?

 

Your guess is as good as mine. One thing is certain, you have to take marketing claims with a grain of salt, for instance, let's take a quick look at https://www.dell.com/en-us/shop/cty/pdp/spd/alienware-x17-r1-laptop

Four is better than one: Introducing Alienware's quad fan technology,

That's obvious nonsense. There are no high end laptops with just one fan, also it's not clear that four fans are better than two, depends on the airflow, pressure etc. Noise is also a factor and smaller fans tend to be noisier due to higher RPM. Also, if the four fans have been traded off for the vapour chamber, is that a good deal?

Regarding the memory though, I see this:

You’ll also benefit from post-purchase user-upgradeable memory SO-DIMMs and up to 64GB of Dual-Channel XMP DDR4 memory.*

There is a *, but no relevant footnote. What memory is compatible? Can one purchase a 3200 config and upgrade to 3466, or will this be locked as in Area 51M R2? Will third party modules work?

Best way to answer the questions is probably to guinea pig personally or wait for in-depth reviews from the likes of notebookcheck (could be a while), as the information from sales or other reps, including the former VP himself, has proven unreliable in the past.

 

Well that answers that. Free upgrade to Windows 11 when available added. Nice marketing ploy since the upgrade from Win 10 is already free.

 

Oh I know and couldn’t agree more about marketing. Marketing anything technical is all about non tech types who are the marketers, and who have zero understanding of the tech they’re selling, selling the product to other non tech types. Thinking back to when I worked at AT&T in the late 90’s when they were hyping the advances of 3G technology although it wasn’t widely accessible until several years later. Just like today’s 5G. The phones support it but it will be a while before it becomes widespread. Right after AT&T Wireless spent billions to grow their 3G networks was when I and most other telecom engineers got canned. And also why I got out of the telecom industry and forced back in the service. But back to the point, an honest salesman is an oxymoron. Like an honest politician or an honest lawyer. You can’t find what doesn’t exist.

 

This is correct. I prefer software overclocking since it prevents my system from getting bricked if I apply bad settings.

 

Single PCIe 4 NVMe SSD every day of the week.

1) RAID only increases sequential speeds not Random 4K read/writes

2) RAID has some lag when compared to the snappiness of a single SSD in AHCI mode, it's only nice when transferring 10s of GB of DATA

3) RAID boot is significantly slower

4) With the insane sequential read/write speed of PCIe 4 SSDs, I'm not even sure if RAID has an advantage anymore even when it comes to sequential read/write speeds.

calling in the the SSD Doctor to back this up @tilleroftheearth

 

Thank you Much.