RIP Alienware

After months of devoting my time to complete my Masters, transition out of the Marine Corps, and begin a new career Ive been spending time upgrading my M18x R2 with new solid state drives, and researching what GPU will be the best option for replacing my beastly 7970s. During that time Ive learned of the sad state that my beloved AW company is in.

No more dual GPU machines, soldered GPU/CPU, reduced bays for HDs, reduced RAM, and no optical drives.
It seems like our fears of what would happen to AW after Dell purchased them has been realized. I fondly remember my Area 51 M17x GT9800m SLI beast and I feel the M18x R2 is a worth heir. Im glad we at least got nice M17Xs and M18Xs. Sad to see where AW is now. They are truly re-named DELLs at this point.

Maybe the AW 17 with the desktop AMD Card will rejuvenate the brand. But I doubt it. Im very sad. Never going to sell my M18x R2!!!!! The last of the breed!!!!!!

 

Hang onto the M18xR2 and see what happens in two months when the RX480 MXM cards are released. They should provide a good performance increase if they end up working.

 

Thats exactly what I am banking on

 

sorry to rain on your parade (as well as my own...) RX 480 has been confirmed by the seller to support eDP only, the same as Pascal. All M18x, M17x R1/R2, Alienware 18, M15x systems are finished with upgrades. The final upgrades are:
GTX 980M from nVidia
8970M/R9 M290X from AMD/ATi.

It's been fun fellas. Probably back to desktops with me. I will run my units till they are no longer operational though, these will forever be my precious!

 

Can you explain this bud. AMD said it was a MXM 3.0B card.

 

GTX 980M / 970M > RX480 MXM

Also, the RX480 is not compatible with LVDS machine, I personally contacted GeCube (GPU manufacturer in china) and one 3rd party seller on taobao. Both stated the same thing, RX480 DOES NOT support LVDS.

 

This is an assumption, the cards aren't out yet. AMD is knocking it out of the park right now with their driver support. I cant say the same for NVIDIA. NVIDIA is making me scared to go back to them with the quick rate in which they stop supporting cards with drivers and their Anti OC software.

My 7970s are performing better then ever.

PS, what is LVDS???

 

LVDS is the way your laptop display connects to the motherboard. LVDS is considered a "legacy" interface now. eDP is the current standard. Pascal/Polaris mobile do not support LVDS legacy connection.

 

AKA its over. sad day indeed. alienware had nice machines. now there isnt realy anything left.

 

Well as I stated in the first post, RIP ALIENWARE, you had a great run. Thankfully AMD drivers have added to the performance of my M18x and I have the newer 7970s that are just nailing it out of the park. Whenever I cant crank things up anymore and still get decent frame rates I guess Ill build a desktop. DELL just drop the AW name and let it go. You've killed it.

 

I cannot imagine who things turned out, Never expected the Privatization hits this much.
Loved the old machines, The new Echo lineup (Pascal refresh machines they are not Alienware anymore they even lost the design aesthetic, I first thought It's ok but NO.) is just pathetic piece of junk, Desktops are just sewage class now.

RIP Alienware. No one can replace the brand. Amen !