*OFFICIAL* Alienware 15 R3 Owner's Lounge

I ordered the 6700HQ, 1070, 120Hz G-Sync with the fast RAM and 99 watt battery on Oct 31, and still waiting for mine to ship. I am actually kind of glad now, as it seems they have most of the bugs out in the manufacturing process now. I am glad the 120hz panel does not seem to have as many light bleed issues also. It seems they have issues with paying with Bitcoin, so it held up the order. I was thinking of canceling and doing the 13 with OLED, but the Veterans discount, along with the TenOFF discount are too good to pass up for the 15.

I am also an employee, and noticing the dis-satisfaction with the service experience some of you seem to be having, I have already notified one of the management folks in support to look into it. Good support is one of the main reasons folks buy Dell instead of other offshore brands.

 

I'm in the same boat as you. Ordered my 17 on the 28th and the estimate has been pushed back twice to Nov 28th now. I talk to customer service and get 0 answers. It's pretty frustrating. I just hope when it finally ships everything is fixed or I'll be pretty pissed.

 

I'm looking to purchase AW15 6700HQ, 1060, 120hz g-sync with 256gb ssd and I'm being quoted $1,654 from the representative with tenoff which comes down to $31 discount compared to the dell site. The rep says if i can pull up a order number with a lower price he can price match.

What price did you guys purchase AW 15? I would ideally want to wait until black friday but I'm off to a business trip for a month.

 

Hi guys I'm in need of advice.

So im going to order a r3 15 tomorrow, but am not sure what screen / processor to get.

The 6820 comes with its only - a better processor is awesome and if I go with its id go with the 6820. But it also offers 4k.

Is 4k worth it?

Does 4k down scale well from 1080p? Or does 1080p look crap on a 4k screen? I'm sure not many games will run well on 4k, hence the question.

Also, does its really, look that much better than the 120hz one?

I really can't decide, it's either 6700hq and gsync or 6820 and its (fhd or uhd).

Any suggestions?

I'll be using it for gaming and work / game audio / music production.

 

I May not be the best person to ask, as I used multiple coupons which are expired now. This is what I ordered I skipped the upgrade to to Killer 1535 after the review by Lisa at MobileTech. I also skipped the SSD, as I am putting in 1TB of Samsung 960 PRO NVMe M.2, 1TB of 850 EVO M.2, and 1TB of 850 2.5 inch SSD (I am a storage guy, so I love NVMe over PCIe for it's 64000 queue's and 64K commands per Queue!) SCSI over anything else will be dead soon.

Quantity Item Number Description

1 210-AJSS Alienware 15 R3
1 338-BKXW Intel(R)Core(TM) i7-6700HQ (Quad-Core, 6MB Cache, up to 3.5GHz w/Turbo Boost, Base frequency 2.3GHz)
1 555-BDEP N1435 & N1535 Wireless Driver
1 801-2232 Onsite/In-Home Service After Remote Diagnosis, 1 Year
1 658-BCSC Microsoft Office 30 Day Trial
1 801-2185 Dell Limited Hardware Warranty Initial Year
1 490-BDHS NVIDIA(R) GeForce(R) GTX 1070 with 8GB GDDR5 $
1 619-AHCR Windows 10 Pro (64bit) English
1 391-BCYB 15.6 inch FHD (1920 x 1080) 120Hz TN+WVA Anti-Glare 400-nits Display
1 400-AHHF 1TB (64MB Cache) 7200 RPM SATA 6Gb/s
1 555-BDFG Killer 1435 802.11ac 2x2 WiFi and Bluetooth 4.1
1 370-ACUY 16GB DDR4 at 2667MHz (2x8GB)
1 451-BBXO Lithium Ion (99 Wh) Battery
1 580-AFPS English Backlit Keyboard, powered by AlienFX
1 450-AAGO US Power Cord
1 389-BRFC Regulatory Label
1 450-AAJI 240W AC Adapter
1 340-AGUD Safety/Environment and Regulatory Guide (English/French)
1 658-BCUO Additional Software
1 631-ABDU Skylake Driver
My total was $1785.13 including tax and 1 year in-home support

 

Please watch all of the great technical reviews on YouTube about refresh rates, screen resolution and gaming. 4K is great if you are editing pictures and need clarity and lots of real estate, but if your display is anything LESS than 120Hz refresh rate, you will NEVER experience the full value of your expensive video card. From the information I have researched, if you have a 60hz screen, that's all your going to get, around 60FPS, especially with V-sync or G-Sync. The higher refresh rate means smoother gaming and no tearing when gaming, and 1080P in my opinion on a 15.6 inch screen at the distance from your eyes should be fine for games.

Here is a good explanation:

Here is another interesting take:

Forget the 60Hz IPS or 4K at 60Hz screens when gaming with a powerful GTX 1060, 1070, or 1080! Get the 120Hz G-Sync. (My humble opinion of course)
OR, for the best screen possible, get the 13 inch with OLED. I don't care if the action is tearing, the screen is just that Awesome, and the high contrast with TRUE blacks will make your mouth water. My LG OLED TV is 120Hz, and is the best picture I have ever seen on a TV. I am hoping to hook it up to this laptop for gaming at 60 inches in OLED!

 

can 1070 owners run firestrike or a short game session to see the max voltage on the gpu?

monitor either with gpuz or hwinfo64

 

Does anyone have any advice for the trackpad? My trackpad is really really jumpy. I remember with the older R2 there was a reg edit that made it a heck of a lot better. I just used a cheap acer and switched back to the aw and this trackpad is unbearable.

 

Can anyone confirm is it safe to get 6820HK for Alienware 15 now or heating issues still persists ? I was talking to sales rep and he said the issues are resolved and for obvious reasons I don't want to take his word for it. So please advice.

 

Anyone knows if dell.se live-chat ever works? Been refreshing their website for an hour, but no success

 

Just cancelled my £2k order. The handling and communication around this heatsink issue is terrible. Not what I expect from a premiu, top of the line, very expensive laptop provider. Bending metal myself post-delivery is not acceptable, and neither is the 'update' from alienware.

 

We now know the issue is a result of uneven screw tension around the cpu die. This issue is not limited only to the 6820HK but effects all cpus on the system.

 

Chat is closed on weekends and open during normal business hours...

 

I disaggree with you. First of all, this is a laptop, so battery time is important. If you opt for a 120hz gsync screen, that means you cannot have optimus. With a normal 60hz panel you can have 6 hours or so battery life. With the 120hz gsync you can only have 2-3 hours or so (because it always uses the nvidia gpu, not the igp...) Thats a huge downside! Ofc. when you game, the battery life will be the same (****, around 1 hour)
Second, you can have a 24inch gsync 120 or 144hz monitor home for serious business. So you have the benefits of both words!

It depends on the user: you game anywhere else then home?
If not, and can afford a gsync monitor, go for the 60hz non gsync panels!
If you plan to game elsewhere, decide whats important for you:
twice the battery life when away
or 120hz gsync when away.


Dont neglect the battery life with a laptop ffs

 

There is only -1 hour differences, I didn't mention that I am in Estonia
In Estonia today is 14.11.2016 and Monday

 

the gsync display is also brighter so although it will last you less time you have a better ability to use it outside.

 

The uneven pressure has been reportedly FIXED in the factories and AW is offering you to RMA the laptop if you have an issue related to uneven temps.

What do you want more regarding the 'handling' ? Just let me understand, because NO one is telling you that you most bend the metal (didn't bend btw and got rid of the uneven temps, just screwed tightly the heatsink ), because they're offering you to RMA it so that they can fix this issue affecting only (I hope) early units.

You can complain about " the 90°C+ is okay because it's within intel spec" comment that's for sure ^^ !

 

I think if you change the refresh rate of the 120hz to 60hz, you get better battery life. I get my new one this week (hopefully) so I will doublecheck.

 

I'm curious what real world difference will be in battery life.

Namely:

Screen brightness up, wifi on streaming video on each, both set to 60 hz.

I understand you have to use the 1060 at all times on the gsync vs the imbedded card on the non g sync but I wonder how much that will actually change battery life when using the machine.

Not just theoretical battery loss when sitting with screen brightness at minimum wifi off writing a document or something.


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I want the company selling me a top of the range, premium, expensive, best of the best laptop to have quality control such that this doesn't happen in the first place. I want that company to be transparent about when/if they discovered the fault. I don't want them saying it affects 1 percent of users when it clearly does not. I don't want them issuing bios updates killing the overclockability, dropping voltages and reporting false Temps, then saying those bios updates will help a hardware fault. I don't want them telling me 90 is a normal temp. I want them to tell us exactly what they fixed and when.

This is alienware, supposedly the best gaming performance laptops in the world, not a $400 Acer I bought down best buy. This whole thing stinks of a big mess-up and an attempt to keep it quiet. That's not something I'm willing to spend 2 - 3k on, I've had more than one performance laptop melt on me in the past.

 

All good points, but to be fair we really have no idea how widespread the issue really was/is. I don't know if I would necessarily characterize it as an attempt to keep things quiet vs really incompetent people working the technical/sales support at Dell/Alienware. I am thoroughly convinced that dell's plan is to replace humans with robots who work off a script

 

or you can send it to me and I'll fix those issues for you

 

They did recognize the issue, but yes I agree sadly ALL gaming laptop manufacturers lack QC believe me no one can deny that unless they're anti-bga and will tell you that Clevos are flawless ^^...

Again, the heatsink fault is RECOGNIZED by alienware and you can send your AW back anytime. The only problem here is the crappy thermal paste used. They didn't put a bios out there to hide the uneven heatsink.

I 20000% agree with you that we shouldn't have those issues in the first place but my point would be that AW is still a good contender because its opponents have also QC problems since Apple doesn't make gaming laptops ^^.

thing is once those early quirks are off this laptop is really cool (litterally speaking) .
To sum up (according to AW messages and official answers on twitter/reddit) :
Uneven temps : Fixed in factory for future orders
Light bleeds : Fixed in factory for future orders
Bad thermal paste : Not fixed and won't likely be IMO

AW is seriously really great regarding RMA (but NOT on-site repairs), replacement, and you can quickly have an answer on twitter, I never have that with ASUS, CLEVO (not resellers like XMG but CLEVO itself the manufacturer). MSI is really improving itself in that area and that's great.

So once you put in some IC Diamond 7/Gelid/Kryonaut (toxic for the environment btw) or liquid metal paste you're good to go. I won't advise a friend to buy a gaming laptop if he or she cannot repaste the unit...because sooner or later the paste will dry up and you'll have to replace it.

edit : Regarding the 1% it's not impossible that it's <5%, I mean few people actually check their temps...and others like me had the issue but did not RMA since I tried and succeeded thankfully in fixing the issues (high uneven temps).
If you read between the lines a lot of users returned their units because of lightbleed not counted in the 1%.

 

Can we expect Touch screen in AW15 or it's not going to happen ?

 

lol no they are not, i have the 6700 that arrived Wednesday, the temps are cool but core 0 is 10 hotter on load.

 

Hi, should I send this back to get the light bleeding fixed?

 

Ummm Ya... I would. Mine is not as bad as yours but I am debating it.

Here is mine... taken in a room that wasn't pitch black... but I am pretty sure you can still see the issue. Also my unit has a crack on the right side near the palm rest. That one is super annoying as I can feel it in my forearm as I type... very uncomfortable. Thats pic 2.

Pics removed due to bad hosting.

 

It's a gaming laptop. I agree about battery life for mobile use on a normal laptop. I bought the Lenovo X220 with the huge bottom battery and was getting around 20 hrs, but I would not use it to play games. Get the big 99wh battery, or plug it in. I don't want to have to carry around a monitor to get good refresh rates. It's all personal preference though, and everyone is different.

 

I'll probably end up doing that. How many people have sent you one of these to fix? A lot of people seem to have issues!

 

PM me and we can discuss this.

 

Why would you want it to?

Now Digitizer input, that is something I could get behind in a Laptop with a DGPU. (I think Surface Book is only one).

 

Not a necessity but would make using Windows 10 fun.

 

Alright guys so this is what I am looking at currently. Any suggestions.

Alienware 15
i7 6820HK
GTX 1070
256GB SSD + 1TB HDD
FHD with G-Sync
16GB 2667MHZ
Killer 1535

Does this look good ? I am very confused regarding choosing between 6820 and 6700. I am getting 6820 at -113 from 6700. Also decided to settle for FHD and not go UHD since I am not a fan of 4k gamer and let's be honest 1070 might not be able to handle 4K gaming next year released games.

 

6820hk is far superior, you have unlocked multiplier and can overclock for better fps in games/benchmarking scores

 

You can't do the 6820 with gsync.

It's -113 because the monitor is changing back to the basic monitor.


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I am under the impression that 6820HK is having heating issues that haven't been fixed yet and I see that you have decided not to get an Alienware

 

That's not true. I have received the quote from Dell rep. FHD G-Sync with 6820HK

 

Heating issues and uneven core difference applies to all used processors in the new Aw line. Not only 6820hk

 

I wouldn't say its far superior. Stock vs stock its 200mhz faster, and it has 2mb extra l3 cache. For normal gaming you wont even notice the difference in the performance. The fps will be 1-2 higher in most games. Now for the overclocking good luck, the fans are already loud and people are having temp problems with the 6820hq. If you dont plan on overclocking and just want a decent processor to game on get the 6700hq. I just spent four solid hours with mine and it stayed around 68c every once and a while jumping up to 75c due to the cores being off (heatsink problem) the GPU max was 60c. This is playing Arkham Knight 1080p max settings minus Nvidia junk and it never dipped below 60fps except on the given cut scenes.

 

I cancelled my order of 6700, GTX1070 + gSync FHD. They told me that the GTX1070 is no longer available with a gSync display (!) and offered me a GTX1060 with a slightly upgraded SSD for the same price (seriously?!). No ETA on when it will be available...

 

they haven't run out of g sync here in aus yet

 

I think that's more likely a mistake by the rep. The G-Sync panel isn't available with the 6820HK as they use a different motherboard for G-Sync and they simply haven't made G-Sync motherboards with the 6820HK.

Not even that; it's only 100MHz faster at stock clocks.

 

Well, they were adamant about not willing to sell me a gSync with the 1070..
They also mentioned that they are about to remove the option from online, it isn't available anymore in the US. I asked multiple times, saying I can wait for it to come back into stock, but no..

They also shifted some configurations online, the HK processor is now only available with 512GB SSD, and no more 8GB RAM option with the 1070. Probably can still get this stuff from sales rep..

 

I'd go for the 4K display, but so much light bleeding complains....

 

I actually have one coming in if you want it. Ended up getting the same one swapped out for the one that I had the standard FHD screen that had a bad wireless card and overheating. Was going to originally return it but if you are interested in it let me know. Will be brand new.

 

They went unavailable last weekend and then they were re available early this week. Must be out of 1070 g sync mobos.


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You forgot that the HK is overclockable

 

Thank you gentlemen, I appreciate the response. Yea, I will be doing a repasting tomorrow as soon as I receive my grizzly and arctic clean in the mail. I will post a before and after.

 

i have a 15 r3 i7 4k panel gtx 1070

what else do i need to look out for apart from light bleed or would theese issues be changed in the factory already ?