*OFFICIAL* Alienware m15 R2 / m17 R2 Owner's Lounge

To put things in perspective, based on these FireStrike results, the new laptops perform on par with 8750+2080MQ, or just 10% faster than my 8750+2070MQ, as perhaps expected given the same thermal limits.

 

I would say more that the new system perform around 1% faster than a similarly configured R1 system, based on those Firestrike result.
Take into account also that, i'm running on the original OS supplied by dell, i've got the Impact CL15 memory kit at home waiting for me to get back (6 days left!) and install them (mate! i've payed them just 125€ + shipment), i'm pretty sure that i can match that score upgrading to faster DDR4 and a clean windows install.
Anyway, the score below is with latest nvidia drivers installed and, since i was bored in my room here at the camp base, i did a repaste and wen't full LM on both GPU&CPU.

Of course the new model can still be repasted (good luck with that flipped mobo design), overclocked etc...but forget about upgrading it at all, other than storage.

 

Out of curiosity how do the fans sound under load/gaming?
The R1 model I tried ran hot and loud is the redesigned R2 the same?
At least temps on the R2 seem good but also wondering how hot it gets with a extended gaming session.

 

I think the sound is something subjective. When i game i use the performance profile, so, fan at full throttle. I do use Bose noise canceling headset, not because of the fan noise but because of the sound experience and the immersion. Even so, with the laptop integrated speakers, over 80% volume, the fan noise doesn't bother me. Also while the fans can make them hear them self, it is not a high pitched sound, you can hear them spinning but is mostly the air noise passing through the fins. I do understand however that whats good for me might not be good for others.
De Gustibus non disputandum est... as said once the dog licking is own butts

 

The R1 isn't loud on balanced unless something pushes CPU utilisation hard. Few games if any do, and even then it's still much less than 100% noise.

 

Haven't tried the balanced mode for gaming yet, will do this evening thou.

 

Had the new m15r2 for a couple of days, My system had the right side hinge uneven and you could see the metal inside, I took off the back piece and try to snap back on tighter but no luck, also the bottom rubber foot has discolored like yellow stains, like an old piece of rubber left out side would have.
Now for the thermals, I had the i9 2080. I tried OC controls, XTU and TS and all produced same results, severe throttle anything over 4.3 all cores even fans on full and a laptop cooler could not keep them under 95c, so forget going for the 5.1ghz option lol. I do think the cooling system is decent for the size of the laptop its crazy thin, so maybe LM would help some?
GPU temps were great, maxed around 67 but performance was weak and highest I could get my card was 100+core anything over that would crash so best gpu score was 21758.
They offered me more money to keep it and offered money and a replacement but I am very happy with the Aero for now.
Good luck to those that are willing to try it, maybe yours will perform better than mine?

 

Thanks for the feedback on the new machine.
LM on that flipped mobo is going to be tricky or any other repaste for that matter. Imagine a scenario where first repaste goes wrong and has to be redone. Pulling all out again will be a major pita.

 

I hope you didn't miss the opportunity to turn down the financial incentive offer with "$500? Are you kidding me? Nothing short of this system architect's head will do!".

 

Maybe on 1 core brother Forget the rest of the cores. And Intel’s Scam Feature Thermal Velocity Boost won’t do much as the max Cpu temp has to be around 50C or below. Big words worth nothing!

 

Nice use of the passive periphrastic.

 

Anyone with an 9880xx series should probably give a try to see if disabling HT gains you any ground. It won't do anything for your CB scores but many games respond very, very well to the 9700K and where it can clock higher if it doesn't hit power limits, you may well get better gaming and lower heat but going with 8 pure cores instead.

 

On reddit /alienware you´ve got a bunch of threads for the new m15 r2 model

https://www.reddit.com/r/Alienware/comments/cgm8pz/m15_r2_yet_another_post_and_discussion/

https://www.reddit.com/r/Alienware/comments/cgdlnh/i_just_received_my_alienware_m15_r2/

https://www.reddit.com/r/Alienware/comments/cfxj8a/m15_r2_laptop_100c_on_idle_but_not_even_hot/

https://www.reddit.com/r/Alienware/comments/cfh4rl/my_initial_thoughts_on_the_m15_r2_2080i9/

https://www.reddit.com/r/Alienware/comments/cfb54j/alienware_m15_2019_white_lunar_i9_rtx2080_maxq/

 

From alienware's channel.


specs given in description:
Intel i7-9750H NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2070 w/ Max-Q Design 16GB, 2x8GB, DDR4 2666MHz 512, 2x256GB M.2 PCIe SSD 15.6"" FHD (1920x1080) 240Hz

The game caps at 144hz though.

 

Thought i'd chime in with my experience so far if anybody cares. This is the 3rd Alienware I've owned over the past 6 years. Each experience has been very typical when it comes to the hype and eventual disappointing product. I've sworn off Alienware after going through 3 seperate 17r4 models a couple years ago but, always find myself drawn back by their design language. Over 2 years i've owned an Aero, Zephyrus and a Razer most recently for context. Somehow this company keeps me coming back for more despite having the absolute worst track history of any other laptop company i've dealt with. That in mind, Dell does have a very good return policy and acceptable customer service.

So I've had my M15 R2 for about 2 days now. I opted for the 2060 model with the OLED screen. This screen is why i found myself back in camp Alienware. Right out of the box it was gorgeous. Thin, quiet, amazing screen and premium materials. The keyboard! what nice familiar feeling. I'm not getting any flickering that other OLED users have reported. Very happy with the potential of this machine. Run a quick stress test, greeted by the all too familiar thermal throttling. My cpu temps are hitting 100 degrees only being drawn back down by the constant throttling. Fair enough, thats just a stress test i tell myself. Boot up a game and the cpu is once again running 100 degrees. We all know this song and dance so i won't go into more details. Got a hold of Dell right away they informed me they didn't have parts ready to replace anything yet. I'd be looking at a week minimum before they think they could get a tech out with the required parts(not sure what they think they need). Reached out to Umar and he suspected it was "power spiking" which is completely normal in his eyes. Their support team won't exchange anything under a basic warranty. What could've been something great right off the bat has turned into what i've grown used to, sweet sweet disappointment.

 

Yet it doesn't sound like you're going to return it and go back to one of the other brands, or is that incorrect? Razer and Aero both have OLED panels on similar grades of notebook. And in almost humorous fashion even Razer has less soldered on permanent junk than AW. Imagine an 8265 wifi module that is nearly 4 years old, soldered on so you can't in any way update it, and calling that a cutting edge notebook with a 9th gen cpu. Some features are great - it's not all bad. But there's a reason they are discounting this thing like crazy. In 12 months we'll have Ice Lake in at least hexa core varieties. Personally I'm not touching anything on the multi thousand dollar price list (phones included) that can't talk WPA3 or be upgradeable to that standard.

I'm assuming you'll give a shot at undervolting just to see if you can get those temps even slightly into acceptable range.

 

Thats just the thin an light design resulting in less thermal headroom. Nothing is wrong with the unit lol noting to "replace". Dont like it return it. I know damn well to avoid all 6 core and up intel CPU's since they throttle in anything less than the size of war ship.

Undervolting is a given that everyone must do, and if you get lucky enough with the silicon lottery, maybe you get a 250 mv under volt and little to no thermal throttling.

You buy a thin n light intel laptop and wonder why it throttles with 6 and 8 core CPUs.....

 

Hello, I read alot of negative reviews, especially on heat management on the m15 r2. While some of it is warranted, some of it really is not.

I had the m15 r2(2080, 8 core hk, 16gbram, oled) for a couple of days ( returned it due to a minor graphical glitch that would occur when the 2080 handshaked with the inner display only).

For reference I have previously owned an aw 15 r5, several asus rog variants(old ones), aero 15 x.

Also I have tried outthe recent razer blade 15 and 17, and tried out the m15 r1. I also have a desktop pc that I have been trading out parts for years.

My current setup is the aw13r3 paired with aw's external gpu(2080ti).

About the thermals. The device comes in quiet fan mode, which is why many people have had issues with the device. Switching to balanced mode was more than adequite cooling for the device.

The hk cpu came in undervolted -30mv which was a pleasant suprise.

I paired my m15r2 with 2 laptop feet, which when folded out, raise the back 1-2inches.

Whith this basic setup, I played ff14 near max everything at a consistent 60 fps 4k.

My cpu temps varied from 70-80 whith the gpu about 5-10 degrees less depending on the load. 65-75.

I had ff14 open for about 10 hours on and off, and it never got hot like the m15r1 or my aero did, byt it did get warm.

Wifi signal not as good as my 13r3 when on the opposite side of the house, but it certainly was not bad. Just average. If you prefer wires like me, its easy to overlook.

What is not easy, is the ram limit of 16gb. If you open several tabs in brave, its easy to get near the limit.if you do any memory heavy work like ue4, unity, video editing etcetc, it is impossible to forgive this. however azor, before leaving aw, has confirmed is coming, at the latest we would likely see this in the aw15r3.

32gb ram Source:
https://mobile.twitter.com/AzorFrank/status/1139265935376695296

One thing the the m15r2 beats every other laptop in this category in is the keyboard. It just feels good. The moment I touched it, the keystrokes felt normal and natural. It just worked. Like i mentioned earlier, I went out to my local windows store to test out the keys on the razor laptops, and also the apple store to test macbook keys as well.

The mac books were by far the worst.

The razor laptops while better, still had that bad feeling of small travel.

The awm15r2 keys l, by comparison, were a dream. I would compare the goodness of the feedback to an xbox elite controller. They dont travel as far as the aw 15/17/13 keyboard, but it does feel just as good, though less keytravel.

Obviously, formfactor is good. Fans on full load are what you would expect, though average volume, it is slightly higher pitched, so you may notice it more.

Looks nice, key lighting is as good as always.

And if course the oled is great. with the 2080, I never noticed any screen tearing. Did not notice flickering, though I ran the display at 70 and above brightness.

Unfortunately i returned the device, as I had a wierd glitch like I mentioned earlier, a white box appearing for a second on handshake with the gpu, though this is not typical.

All in all, I would say, if 16gb ram is suitable and you can live with the wifi, go for it. It feels like a good device.

If you are like me it is best to wait.
They have already recieved good feedback on every other part of the device. I would bet good money that a revision will come with better wifi and ram sizes. Though likely it will be soldered on like thise revision. But hopefully it wont!

Hopefully you guys found this informative!

 

@Komorebi nice one thanks for that, I'm also coming from an aw13r3. Keyboard travel/feel was also very important to me; I tried a Blade 15 Advanced and didn't like it actually, cheap/plastic feel and no questions mark next to shift, what were they thinking. Dell is attractive to me for the support assist and software updates plus support availability, service quality generally.
Questions for yourself and others if I may with my m15 r2 in transit currently from China with specs 9750h, rtx2060mobile, 240hz panel:

• Is it true that windows Hello is not supported despite Tobii? My 3yr old aw13r3 has this!
• Ram should be enough for me but disappointing that it is soldered. At least it's fast enough if the timings are ok
• The 240hz panel should not have PWM I don't think but let me know if anyone thinks it has/does above say 20% brightness. I've seen that the OLEDs do have it
• I opted for the 2060 gpu because I'm hoping the thermals will be tolerable for 'on lap' strategy gaming e.g. Civilization/Total War. The cooling solution for this with vents on top and the rear assembly make me think it would finally be a winner in this regard but if someone could confirm that would be great. The blade 15 with 8750h/2070mq was a total fail, hot mess
• If anyone has solved thermal issues with Intel XTU, it would be good to know settings. If the 9300h wasn't rated at 45w same as the 9750h, I would have gone for that. Shame there is no lower powered options out there - why does no one pair say 8565u with a 1660ti/2060? Would be a fascinating combo in thermal terms and still 4c/8t...

That's it for now. The other compromises seem tolerable to me even if some choices were questionable. Let's face it in the land of 7nm/10nm coming we'll all be upgrading in a year or two anyway. If there are quality issues or too many off putting factors I'll likely return and give in to the new XPS 15 as it seems like a quality item with the right design choices and thermals are likely good with the 1650

 

The 9300h actually fits mostly within its TDP of 45 watts and wont throttle/power limit throttle.

The 9750h is NOT a 45 watt chip and will try to use more than that whenever you actually push it. It will throttle because it cannot sustain boost over 45 watts for an extended period of time. Intel has been purposefully ****ty when it comes to "TDP". Look at the 8700k and 9900k, both are made on the same 14nm ++ process, except one has 6 cores and the other has 8..... yet they are both rated 95 watt TDP??????? Technically you can run a 9900k on a Z370 but one should not since most dont have VRM's up to the task of handling the increased power demands of the chip. Its crazy.

Remember, these 6 core chips easily use 100 watts in a desktop. the 9750h really ought to be rated around 65 watt TDP since they easily use that when short term boosting.

You should have gone with the 9300h, but you didnt know any better. All you can do with those 6 core chips is undervolt and pray for a good chip. A repaste can help in some cases.

 

@juggar arghh ok good to know for future builds if I don't stick with this. I did do some poking around on the web before but really struggled to find some quality and confirmative info on the lower core 9300h, I guessed because most people just default to ordering the 8750/9750. I suppose one advantage is that it does have that higher single core boost for games that are a bit older and poorly optimised to use 1core only like, Total War Attila/Rome, Stalker, FlightSimX etc. ^Will update on my questions above once I get the unit if no one else beats me to it first^

 

And you seems to forget OEMs love for making cheapo awful bad cooling. They have got proper guidelines from Intel. None force the manufacturers to design cooling around 45w + PL2 headroom. Just look at Apple’s massive thermal throttling etc. Dell even bragging that they have increased PL levels well above Intel’s own specs. They have got the freedom from Intel. But they rather put out the middle finger on this to save on costs!

See also... Intel recommendations for Mobile 6 core unlocked 8950Hk Mobile chips... They recommend PL1 at +100w and PL2 at 125W. This for their 45W H mobile chips. Put the main blame on notebook manufacturers which save on every penny. As well they think the cooling will be much better the thinner and slimmer chassis they design and throw out. Can’t beat the physics laws. But design will always beat functionality. Just sad.

 

got that @juggar it's just frustrating if it plays out like that for this unit because looking at the engineering on this unit, I convinced myself that this was the one! top open grills as all such laptops should have finally, rear heat extraction assembly; surely this time one of them would get it right, but alas reading reviews it seems no. I wonder why they don't extend the copper heatpiping into that rear assembly? I can't understand why they can't crack this given these constructs are just plastic and metal and not of high value. Another idea might be if they had a separate bios one could choose if they wanted to live in the land of sensibility rather than these cranked up nightmares that are designed to try and compete with other manufacturers for the highest benchmark scores

 

Another reason that soldered and non upgradeable wifi is a very poor idea.
https://www.securityweek.com/recovering-wi-fi-password-dragonblood-attack-costs-1-computing-power

Looks like they'll be issuing WPA 3.1 pretty soon.

 

@juggar @FXi Received mine last night. HWMonitor running and on mundane tasks/use it's hitting 100 and thermal throttling frequently so I'm concerned. This is on 'balanced' in command centre. Even if I set it to 'Quiet' it still keeps revving up occasionally and ramping up to the 100 mark so I am concerned...

 

I am going to buy one of these in the coming days. What configuration would you all recommend?

I’m leaning towards the 1660ti/9750/240hz screen.

 

I would start undervolting and pray for a good chip. This is why I have a ban on 6 and 8 core laptops right now. I refuse to be part of this garbage. Right now I have a Ryzen 7 3750h laptop with 1660 Ti and its great.

 

arghh, terrible cinebench 20 score 1443. I ran while a Dell technician was remoting in and all core was about ~2.2ghz while running, severe throttling. It's getting an engineer callout and repaste on Tuesday so will let you know how it goes. @Revan9 if you can bear to wait you might want to wait for the re-pasted result or find reviews for people who've had it ok out the factory. Your choice looks good depending on what you are trying to do, priorities. I heard 1660ti generates higher heat than rtx2060 but go check it's true

 

Just out of curiosity I configured new m15 r2 with 2070 max-q and 240 hz IGZO display, the total was about $2220.00. This is a lot of money - you can get Dell G7 with same CPU and GPU and same display for about $1900.00. Sure, m15 has slightly better fans and better heatsinks (and G7 has smaller battery if you choose model with m.2 and 2.5" drive bays) but it still throttles so it still needs undervolt and repaste so any difference does not show up in real life. Plus Dell G7 looks more professional and less "hey, I am 12-year old Fortnite g4ym3r who watches Ninja on Mixer" ;-)
I think I would order G7. Or maybe new Gigabyte Aero 15 which costs the same as this Alienware model but also doesn't look flashy.

 

@Felix_Argyle I didn't know they had that display too but no 2x m.2 nvme would suck for me. I wish the motherboard wasn't inverse though, Ram wasn't soldered and they hadn't opted for an older wifi card with old bluetooth 4.2 (BT5.0 you can connect 2x BT5 headsets to simultaneously). Also the look and feel of the m15r2 is premium and I'm comfortable taking it into work, just turn off alienfx lighting. If my repaste works I think I'll stick with it. I've researched every single model there is out there

 

I look forward to seeing your results. I went back and fourth on the 1660 and 2060 but I assumed the 2060 likely wouldn’t run that much cooler in the M15 - if it does I’ll just go with that.

I want a laptop that performs well without throttling. High, smooth frame rates (Apex Legends, DCS, Cyberpunk next year) with low response time. I have a Razer core so I’m a little less worried about GPU “future proofing”.

 

Hey, I wasn't addressing you in particular, it was a general comment, after seeing each user report thermal throttling, and I was actually interested in buying Dell G7 and was comparing prices with similar models ;-) If people actually like the looks of it - that's their preference ;-)

 

As much as I love the look of this laptop I could never bring myself to even try one out. The flipped motherboard was the deal breaker for me as dell is just notorious for using dried toothpaste in their machines. Back when I had the m15 r1 the first thing I did was pull it apart and repaste it. And that took maybe ten minutes? So making it not serviceable to fix what we all know is going to be a problem is just a nightmare waiting to happen. Then soldering everything except the ssd's really just made it un appealing. Only the Aero 15 and the Razer Blade 15 or Pro seem like they're worth anyones money this time around.

 

Just FYI, for all future purchasers of this model - make sure to spend a little extra for 240hz display panel. It has better contrast ratio, better response time and is more power efficient:
https://topics-cdn.dell.com/pdf/alienware-m15-r2-laptop_users-guide_en-us.pdf
You can benefit from all of those even if you don't play any games. Same goes for all other laptops which use this panel (Dell G7 or some other brands).

 

My cart was updated while contemplating purchase, m17 now has Killer wifi 6 and BT 5.0.
And if you didn't know about coupons, LSC10OFF still works for now.

 

If anyone is curious about taking this thing apart for a repaste here is some pictures someone took on reddit. Not as bad I would've thought. So just tedious.

https://photos.google.com/share/AF1...?key=NElya0tXczY5X3loYkd2SXRCWWlVSTNUT1hfdGNR

 

nice pictures!
looks to me like the thermal pads were not making good contacts on the majority of the power delivery components surrounding CPU and GPU except for the center and top of the CPU.

thermals looks good after repaste. how was it before repaste?

 

It seems that Dell has updated the WIFI/BT card on the m15 r2 to a WIFI6 BT5 AX1650

https://www.reddit.com/r/Alienware/comments/ctrrnm/dell_upgrades_the_wifibluetooth_chip_in_m15m17r2/

Big opportunity to get a refurbished one with the old WIFI card, as many of the just received/in transit laptops will go back to Dell.

 

Not my pics of course, but it seems to perform like any other 9750h at that point. 80's in game. So no thermal throttling anymore. He didn't change the pads though. So there might still be room for improvement.

Now that's just mean to those that waited for weeks to get theirs.

 

The worst: returning for a new wifi card, and then a 32gb ram model shows up. Return for that one, and 64gb dimms show up.

 

The wifi card situation is just dumb. I have no idea why they would be that short sighted. I'm on the fence on the 16gb idea. For gaming you don't need more. But 8gb should not exist in the day and age. 16gb should be entry level at this point. Good chance 32gb will pop up.

 

32GB ram support won't come before Intel release new H series mobile chips. 16GB is max with soldered ram chips and H mobile processors.

 

Why didn't dell do what ASUS did with the Zephyrus GX502? They have 16GB soldered and a socket for another 16GB (or even 32GB).

 

It's cheaper to produce and put together at the factory. Hence they also welded on the Wifi card. Planned obsolescence, means they want you back to the sales site faster so you can empty your pocket once again before you have to.

 

Silly soldering something as arbitrary as a WiFi Card. Granted WiFi technology is slow compared to other tech. But I have seen many WiFi cards die. How stupid is it have to replace a whole damn motherboard for a WiFi card. I have also recently had 2 sodimm laptop ddr4 8gb modules die in the dell tiny form factor desktop computers. I just don’t see in the long run how this is cost effective from a repair standpoint. So damn stupid

 

Apple (MacBook pro) and Razer (Razer Blade Pro 2017) have soldered 32gb of ram with H series mobile processors. This is a decision rather than an architecture limitation.

 

Hey guys, hope you are well. The M17 R2 arrived around 5 days (Bought it in UK, FYI for UK customers, they still haven't updated the wireless card here).
My system's confgs. are i7-9750H, 16GB (2x8GB) DDR4 2666MHz, NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2070 8GB GDDR6 with Max-Q Design.
At first, I've played Starwars battlefront 2 for around a good 2 hours on the highest vids options (ULTRA), the CPU maxed at 80 C but few spikes here and there and shoot up to 100 C and GPU were around 60-70 C (The fan was on full speed 100%). The FPS was good around 150-200 and usually keeping around 200 FPS.
I'm not very familiar with gaming laptops as this is my first, didn't mind the 16gb cause its sufficient for my use.
I went and restarted the laptop and turned SWB 2 on again just to confirm the numbers were correct, and played for around 2 hours, maximum temp for both CPU and GPU were 58 C and FPS went down to 60 , which i'm not sure why. Will stress again later to check what went differently (made sure everything was the same).

Update:
FPS 120 - Temp 78 C CPU and 70 C GPU (Same game but went on only for half an hour of gaming).

Just want to ask you guys regarding the temps cause its the only thing that is bothering me, is that temperature normal (to get like 80 C on CPU) ? or ?

I'm happy guys to answer any questions regarding the system, anything to help the community .

Thanks.

 

@SalamSimulations those temps look superb; for comparison my m15r2 was hitting 100 immediately in any scenario and severe power and thermal throttling constantly. The 17" chassis must be doing a better cooling job on these new 'thin & light' designs for Alienware

 

My AW m17 R2 (I7, RTX 2070):
https://www.reddit.com/r/Alienware/comments/cv8rlj/alienware_m17_r2_3d_mark_userbenchmark_aida_and/

AW m15 R2 (I9, RTX 2080):
https://www.reddit.com/r/Alienware/comments/cfb54j/alienware_m15_2019_white_lunar_i9_rtx2080_maxq/

not sure what to come of this, but what i observed from AIDA stress the m15 was not throttling at with 0% for good 37 minutes. The m17 R2 were throttling between 2 and 5%. What do you guys think?

 

to be fair, mine must have been defective. Dave2D also noticed poor thermals. I haven't yet seen any further pro reviews (although that one was a quickie)