Alienware X51 Desktop Owners Lounge

Well, there are some of us that own a X51. No need to leave us hanging, as they say.
EDIT: Forgot the "Desktop" in the title. Oops.

 

Oh man, I was muti-tasking and forgot. So, thank you for creating our X51 Owner's Lounge for us. I will make it a sticky.

I'd love to see some X51 Owner's showing off my dual 330W AC adapter mod and some other things like aftermarket water cooling. I know they are out there. Here is a great place to show them off.

 

Thanks Mr. Fox.

 

Still rocking my x51r1 that I got right on release. Its gone through a few upgrades, gpu and cpu. But everything is still kicking.

 

I got two I am putting back together from parts. One is a non-alienware motherboard. The second one is still undecided. I have two motherboards but I am starting to think they are dead.

 

got one r2 fully stock, and got another r2 barebones which i will be installing a mini gtx 970 i only need to make a decision on the cpu........

 

X51 it s an awesome pc.

in past it had more compromise, but now u can use gtx 970 with 330w psu without mods, and i think it s the best itx gaming pc in the world ATM

 

What chipset does the X51 R2 have? Does it allow overclocking with an X or K CPU?

 

Hi!

The old X51 ---> H87 chipset for sure

New X51 ----> Z87 chipset (never saw one in real so i dunno if it s true)


socket 1150/1155 are low level sockets (only dual/quad core cpus) and there are no X (Extreme Edition) cpus for low sockets (X are only for hi level sockets: 1366 (old), 2011 or 2011-v3 , with x79 x99 chipsets)

sadly i havent got an aw x51 and i dunno if the z87 chipset is real. It could be cool to oc 4790k and 4770k on x51 (but temps are an issue in this space)


i hope to find someone with this new z87 x51 to find it out

 

H87 chipset. Not sure on overclocking, going to have to let an actual owner answer that one.

 

The R2 allows CPU overclocking (a BIOS update this past Autumn allows overclocking for the i7-4790K, but I'm not so sure about the other K CPUs).
The R1 does not allow CPU overclocking.

 

GTX 960 available from Dell as an upgrade for the R2.

 

Just put my R9 285 in my X51 R1 as an upgrade form the GTX 660 it has.
This isn't a recommended upgrade, but I don't care. I'll be back with some benchmark numbers.

 

http://www.dell.com/support/home/us...lienware-x51-r2&languageCode=EN&categoryId=BI
New BIOS for the R2. Just says support for Win10.

 

I have a R3 coming with 6700K with the water cooler/ 16GB ram/512 gb Pcie ssd/ 2TbHdd and will be hooking it up to a 980ti in a graphics amplifier. Looking forward to playing with this little guy and seeing how it does, should be a very fast little gaming rig. Anyone else got a new R3 coming?

 

Hey, the "water cooler" looks like a corsair H5SF on the bulldog system.

But on the bulldog H5SF, seems to be a coolit unit instead of asetek unit (square block).

 

Does anyone know how many PCIe lanes the amp uses on the X51R3 or what spec my 980ti will run at? I should have my machine in a week or so and was just curious. Not much talk on the X51's online and I really don't understand why as it should be a VERY capable setup that doesn't take up a ton of space.

 

4.

 

So same as my 17r3. Doesn't seem to really bottleneck the 980ti from what I can tell.

 

There is a difference, though. According to an engineer, the X51 R3 has access to use all GPUs, including the internal discrete GPU. This is due to a different set-up (GPU is removable and can be a primary display GPU). I didn't get the full details about this, though.

 

Interesting, please pass on any info you learn about this setup as I am sure it behaves different then the laptops with the GA hooked up. I would assume that the X51 R3 should be a better setup with the GA then the laptops but I don't know the specifics.

 

The GA runs on x4 pci with aw laptops.

So for the X51, maybe x8 since z170 has 16 lanes (native x8, x8 sli)

 

Thats what I'm hoping, supposed to be delivered Monday so I will find out then.

 

Just checked, still runs at pcie 3.0 x4. The card in the X51 runs @X16, Alienware needs to pump up the lanes availible to the amplifier. Good news is I can pull the card out of the X51 and run off just the Graphics amp which is kind of nice being I am not going to use it anyway as this isnt a laptop that needs to be switching stuff around.

 

The number of lanes is a physical limitation. The cable and the port needs to have more physical lanes in order to support more lanes. An adapter won't fix it, so it is what it is.

 

Ah, makes since I guess. With what I see running at pcie 3.0 X4 doesn't really seem to bottleneck my 980ti. The X51 R3 runs VERY cool without a video card in it and the liquid cooler on the cpu, cpu loads around 50-55C while gaming overclocked to 4.4ghz and current draw has to be very low on the system without a card in it. So far pretty impressed with the setup other then a couple small issues.

 

I'm seriously considering getting an X51 R3 for my wife and I for a mix of day-to-day use (MS Office and Chrome) and casual gaming (Mass Effect Andromeda on intermediate settings, etc). I've got kids and a lot of kid-related expenses, so I'm trying to be cheap without being stupid, and honestly, the base $650 model looks like a really good deal compared to other $650 desktops on the market (and I don't have the time or interest for building my own PC at this time in my life). Components are:

Intel® Core™ i3-6100 (3MB Cache, 3.7GHz)
NVIDIA® GeForce® GTX 745 with 4GB DDR3
8GB Dual Channel DDR4 at 2133MHz
1TB (64MB Cache) 7200 RPM SATA 6Gb/s
Slot-Loading Dual Layer DVD Burner (9.5mm)

A few questions:
(1) How noisy is it during casual use? During moderate gaming?
(2) For wifi, there's a choice between an Intel 3165 1x1 and an Intel 7265 2x2. Is it worth the $30 to upgrade?
(3) Any huge gripes or regrets about the X51 for you? I'm not concerned about "I wish I had built my own PC because then I could have spent $1500 instead of $2000 for the same performance," but more about basic functionality and usability and quality.

 

Hi, everyone. I just got one of these from Amazon a few weeks ago, the R3. I'm quite happy with it, especially with the SSD m.2 I added. My question is about a potential video card upgrade. Since the power-supply is 330w I've been trying to find out what would work in it. It seems that these Alienwares are energy efficient, so the recommended wattage that manufactures suggest isn't something to worry about. I was thinking about getting a card with 4gbs of VRAM. I can run most games on High settings with the 960 just fine, so I may wait a while. I'm just having trouble finding people who have put a new card in. I know about the amplifier, but I'd rather not spend the money on that, maybe in the future when the new gen cards come out.

 

GTX 970 of the proper size and some people are even running gtx 980's in them with some slight mods. I personally just run a gtx 980ti in the graphics amp.

 

The GTX 970 is now an Alienware validated GPU for the X51 R3. Upgrade to it and you still get support.

 

http://en.community.dell.com/dell-b...1/14/more-detail-on-alienware-and-oculus-rift
According to this, if you pre-order the Rift, you'll receive a $200 coupon off for the X51 R3 or XPS 8900 VR-Ready config next month.

 

So I picked up an X51r3 from the dell outlet with a 970 and i5-6400. I know this setup was supposed to be "VR Ready" but my firestrike scores are laughable. I scored a 7950 which was well below the "recommended" and well below the 980m laptop I downgraded from. I thought the 980m was about on par with the desktop 970 but my old laptop scored 8332 without an overclock.

I am going to run the test again after windows settles, but this is very disappointing. I should have just gone cheaper with an xps 8900 with the same specs for less. I do love the form factor and already owning an amplifier was attractive to me though.

 

This is my Fire Strike....on a laptop that is.......

What driver are you using? Also please ensure you disable G-Sync and V-SYNC and set the Texture Filter Quality to High Performance. the below test was on drivers v362.00 on a desktop class 980 GTX in my laptop

Fire Strike - GTX 980 (362.00) CPU 4.6 GHz-GPU OC 300-400 [W10]

 

All newer AW laptops / mini desktops also their high end desktops offer lower performance than what the hardwareand or other brands models can deliver. This is by design... Thank Dellienware/Dell for this . Forexample a brand new Aw "Echo" gaming laptop deliver inferior benchmarks results than much cheaper brand such as... Acer, Gigabyte and eMachine. These are hard facts + also lower bench score than Asus, Msi and Clevo



BTW Reviews of Gtx970 http://www.guru3d.com/articles_pages/gigabyte_geforce_gtx_970_oc_mini_itx_review,23.html

http://www.guru3d.com/articles_pages/gigabyte_geforce_gtx_970_oc_mini_itx_review,28.html

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@Phoenix BTW Nice Firestrike score I can easily see you haven't a BgaBook from AW

Review of latest rebadged AWBOOK 17R3 http://www.notebookcheck.net/Alienware-17-R3-Notebook-Review.159535.0.html

 

If you can lend the guy the 5k it costs to get your laptop, I'm sure he'll be all over it. Does Clevo even build desktops? How was mentioning that even relevant to the conversation? Are you recommending that he buy an Acer, Gigabyte, or eMachine instead?

 

Just showing you how Alienware has destroyed the "High Performance" slogan they once had. It is pathetic that a laptop can run circles around an expensive desktop Machone and I am sure that desktop costs more than my laptop

And finally, what's up with the "are you recommending him to buy an eMachine part?" You make absolutely no sense I never said that. All I was hinting is that he must be getting a higher score with his machine.

 

I paid 5K for my laptop??? You are really crazy man I paid $ 3750 for the BGA KILLER in the sig if you really want to know the price, LOL
Ps. New Wprime 32M score if you also want to know what a nice laptop can perform in bench. Fastest system of all 4 core i7 with 4800MHz in Hwbot world ranking. Faster than desktop pc's with fancy cooling and same clockspeed. This by a laptop with stock cooling, LOL http://hwbot.org/submission/3199816_papusan_wprime___32m_core_i7_6700k_4sec_222ms?recalculate=true
See also bench in my sig if you want. @Phoenix @soulvengeance @MSGaldenzi I would probably skipped AW and go for those other cheaper models, YEAH Only if you wanted a BGA machine or even a low performing desktop

 

LOL! Look at both of you willfully not answering the correct part of my response, so cute. I highly doubt that an X51 would cost more then your Eurocom, did you even read the specs? Why comment and show your score if you didn't even read what he said his specs were? I mean, I guess I could have randomly posted my scores like you two did for no reason. Pussy Crusher's Owner, so you still spent more then what this guy spent for his desktop, and you randomly posted your score, that's great. If you can lend the fella the extra money to obtain the same laptop you have, I'm sure he would be delighted.

 

I was responding to your claim that I paid 5000K. I came with the facts for you ... I posted also what a Gtx970 should provide in benchmarks...
What he paid for his machine is not of big importance. The main thing is that his machine don't deliver the performance his hardware should manage. If you believe that his graphics deliver the correct performance, maybe you should search more about what the proper performance should be from Gtx970... Or you can take a peak in those links I posted. Don't come with wrong facts about other forum members purchase...!!

 

I already posted above that I was referring to Phoenix, did you see/read that part? I'm sure you could deduce that by reading the complete post. I know you didn't pay that much for your laptop, we've discussed this previously. You then posted scores for 980m laptops which had nothing to do with the discussion. In your response to me, you then posted your laptop score which had nothing to do with the discussion at hand at all. If you like to show off your laptop scores in the proper place, I have no issues with that; it just had no relevance here. Let me make this clear for anyone else who may have been confused though, I meant Phoenix spent 5k on his laptop, and Pussy Crusher's Owner spent 3750.

 

I shoved Gtx980m because @MSGaldenzi can see that it's totally normal that DELLIENWARE deliver crippled performance vs other brands models. Remember he switched from previous Gtx980m who perform normally compared to Aw machines...
But I post a new link so you self can go into and self see that DELLIENWARE also deliver CRIPPLED performance in their mini desktops... Compared to other with same hardware. You will see Alienware machines in the lower part in 3Dmark.com performance rating in Firestrike... I have seen it before. THIS IS BY DESIGN!!!
http://www.3dmark.com/search?_ga=1.185771117.510117341.1461847381#/?mode=advanced&url=/proxycon/ajax/search/cpugpu/fs/P/2042/982/8800?minScore=0&cpuName=Intel Core i5-6400 Processor&gpuName=NVIDIA GeForce GTX 970
Gtx970 is a crippled card.., I know, but the performance from this graphics is crippled even more by DELLIENWARE. Sorry, so it is... 3Dm Firestrike score below 8000 isn't normal for this medium/low end desktop graphics. Aren't you agree?

 

See, it isn't so hard to post on topic, is it? You can agree that this post is much more constructive then your previous post, and you didn't even need to post your Pussy Crusher scores for no apparent reason. Amazing!

 

I presume you looked into my Hwbot wall and saw my benchmark scores by you self. Therefore I thought I don't need to post more nice bench results from Pussy Crusher. It's important to show everyone how hardware should work in a non Crippled computer...
BTW Have you peaked in the Futuremark link I posted and searched for Gtx970 bench scores from a non Crippled pc and Aw's lower results ? Because the very very low bench score was the reason for posting in this thread. 7950P in Firestrike from that AW **** machine is more likely normal behavior from any DELLINWARE computer. You will definitely see more low bench scores from Aw in the lower end in the Firestrike bench rankings.
I expected your comments about this Aw machines low Firestrike score. But you couldn't answer on this.

 

@Papusan Here's another benchmark of the X51 R3 with a GTX 970. I chose a stock benchmark since it's easier to compare stock for stock.
Remember to not come to conclusions based off of one source. I know you already posted the link above, but it's just a reminder. This whole argument stemmed from one result. There may have been problems with the refurbished X51 R3 we don't know.

 

You are allowed to react when the benchmark score people showing is lower than what is normal for the hardware. Whether you run the cards stock or overclocked. In addition, use also Dell one of the weakest performing Gtx970 you can purchase. Dell must do this because the better performing Gtx970 cards can't be cooled well enough in this small enclosure/cabinet. This is a well known topic if you follow what's been sold today. Better performing hardware need better cabinet to allow for better cooling. You can't put in 980 desktop version for laptops in a Aw14 either That's how it is.

 

You're dodging what I said. I said come to conclusions, not to respond to something. They are completely different things. I leave it at that.
The last thing I want this owner's lounge to become is another debate thread about whose computer (not desktop, not laptop; their own computer, regardless of brand) is better and whose is worse. This is a place for those who own an X51. At least respect that.

 

I agree with much of what you say, but when benchmark does not correspond with the reality, you should speak up. I shall not harp more on this.
Ps. Maybe put in what performance this hardware should deliver with well working hardware in first post in the thread, so people know what they should expect from their purchase.

 

1. I agree about being skeptical of something and talking about it.
2. I wish we [X51 owners] could do that. There aren't many X51 owners here, and aside from the GPUs I have (GTX 960 / R9 285, which work well in the X51 R1), we would have to go to other forums to see their performance can compare to the average performance (and AWA is not one of those forums). I know my GTX 960 isn't comparable since it has a voltage problem (but it works fine, so I don't really care), but my R9 285 seems to be around the average/expected. I know a GTX 980 can work in an X51 with an R2 power board (you need a smaller front fan for the upgrade to fit), so if I can do that (money + time), I can do some GTX 980 comparisons.

 

Whoa... I have spent quite a bit of time away from the forums and I return to all this... lol. Guys, lets all just hug it out and leave the bashing for youtube... this is a community of like minded individuals who enjoy computers.

My choice of getting an alienware x51r3 was because I don't have time to fiddle with things... I just want a stable computer that I can turn on, dl/run a game and play... not to stomp benchmarks. I got out of the "pissing contest" when I grew up and realized that fast computers and fast cars are more about how much money you throw at it. Now I stick to price/performance/warranty on computers and with cars I just do spec miata.

So as I brought up my issues to dell and they wanted to keep my business. They ended up sending me an upgraded x51r3 with an i7/970 and threw in a pcie ssd and blueray. I have since upgraded the ram to 32gb (why not) and it seems to be running like a champ. I ran a firestrike a while ago but can't remember what it was and it was still setteling anyway. Either way I am into it for <900 and I was able to sell my old AW17r3 for 1200 so with the little gaming I do, I am still ahead.

 

any1 know if the new GTX 1070 will work on x51 R2?
GTX 1080 uses TDP 180W,<<tdp way to high. would need PSU mods.
GTX 980 uses TDP 165W, <<works but, tdp to high needs PSU mods.
GTX 970 uses TDP 145W,<<works, tdp is in perfect PSU range no mods.
but the GTX 1070 is unknown atm. if its under TDP 160W, i think it would work but might need PSU mods. so i hope its closer to around TDP 150W!