*OFFICIAL* Alienware 15 R3 Owner's Lounge

I dont like to turn the brightness fullydown and run in minimal mode and i so use wifi. Or else no use to turn my laptop even on .

 

I meant AlienFX. I use brightness of the screen from 30-45%.

 

Afx is turned off on battery.

 

Well, the problem is words like "belive", "think", "probably" etc. Especially considering that Dell themselves does not seem to have a clue

 

OK, so you confirm with 100% certinty that you have optimus then? Normally the manufacturer should know this but as has been obvious times before, Dell just does not have a clue.

 

This would be mainly a work laptop as I have the GPU power I need elsewhere. The extra cooling etc has its merits even for CPU usage etc. This is more of an educated guess on my part though. The alternative is something like a ThinkPad P51/p52 but the Quadro graphics really push the prices upwards without any benefit to me. Great laptop though.

 

Heatsinks are the same. The cpu after a good paste job would be around 65c under load. But it can heat up when the gpu also kicks in. In my case around 80c while gaming after a repaste.

 

I have optimus yeah, 200% certain selected this laptop based on that. Just avoid the gsync models if you want optimus.

 

So, what do we know today about new versions of Alienware comming out, ie 15 R4?

 

I would not expect anything new until new 2000 series GPUs and/or 8 (6 core) series laptop CPUs.

 

Perhaps the new CPUs will just be an upgrade "within" the R3 line then?

Sent from my SM-N950F using Tapatalk

 

New CPUs will definitely be new chipset and new motherboard design needed

 

For anyone interested, got one of these stands for use with my AW 15 R3 and it works great. I put it on its side with the side CPU vent facing up next to my AGA. I just plug in the 2 cables (AGA and Power) and dock it and I am good to go. It is very stable - no worries about falling over.

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0769G51R7/

 

Not sure if the internal fans like that.

 

Why wouldn't they? Not impeded at all and no pressure on them.

 

Not sure what bearing type these fans have, nut various bearings dont like non horizontal orientations, they wear out unevenly like this and get unbalanced after a while.

 

How much of a PITA is that to take out and turn on the laptop, boot up, close screen then out it back?

 

Hadn't thought about bearings, I am not knowledgeable to the type in use here, will need to research it.

I undock every night and take the laptop upstairs to bed with me. In the morning, just plug it in, hit power button, then close and dock. Works easy so far.

 

Hi, community!!

Just wanted to drop a message due to me recently purchasing a 15R3, this post is for those on the fence about buying the laptop.

Mine was purchased early March 2018.
15R3
I7 7820HK
GTX 1070 8gb
16GB Ram
256gb Boot
1tb HDD
120Hz TN

Initially, I was very keen due to the optional warranty, build quality and it is AW. To begin with, I was torn between this system, Razer 14, Asus Zephyrus or the top contender AORUS V5 V7. I was about to place my £1700 pounds down on the AORUS after all my research but then whilst browsing eBay found the system described above with a 3-year warranty for about £400 less. I dived in and purchased before it was gone, happy with my purchase I did some more digging on the laptop I had just purchased. To my horror, all I could find online was the overheating issues etc I was somewhat worried, however, this was to be unjustified.

I think the majority of people who have purchased this laptop have not had issues as described all over the internet. Not to say they don't exist as I know they do. Faulty heatsinks, incorrect sized thermal pads and poor thermal paste quality and application have led to many issues. However, I think those with systems that are functioning as intended do not post to say "Hey my laptop is working as it should!"

To that end, I would just like to say that my laptop actually is performing as expected. After stress testing on various benchmarking suites and things like OCCT my temps for CPU and GPU never go over 82 degrees, and if they do the cooling system does its job to bring them back down. So if your on the fence about this laptop, go for it... it's amazing!!

To go into a little more detail, the CPU under 100% load averages 75 Degrees, and by average I mean that when starting a game it will hit 82 degrees or so then the fans will ramp up slightly and bring it back to 75... It will stay then around 75 - 78 throughout. (4 hours of 100% CPU usage tested) The GPU maxes out at 73 degrees at all times when the CPU and GPU are at 100% usage again tested at 100% CPU and GPU usage for 4 hours. GPU stress test on its own is a max of 65 degrees when the CPU is not fully utilized.

My plans now for this laptop are to eventually replace the 1tb HDD with an SDD, replace the original 256GB SSD and occupy the two free m.2 slots with 960 EVO M.2 SSD.Both 256gb (£100 each bargain) (The original had decent speeds though so that's going into my desktop setup!!) - as it stands UnigeneValley on Ultra is over 100fps I will then use one as a boot drive, the other for latest games and the 1tb SSD for older / casual games and general storage.

When reading the reviews about overheating I purchased some new thermal pad's (0.5,1,1.5mm) and Kryonought Grizzly, and that is on standby for when the hardware needs it in the future 24 - 36 months)

If anyone is on the fence about this laptop please feel free to ask me anything, I will be happy to assist.

To the community, I look forward to engaging with you all.

Mark.

 

Could you please test Cinebench R15. As well test WPrime (Run as adm, click advanced settings and select 8 threads. Then run 1024M test in main window. HWiNFO64 for temp monitoring. Use either highest default OC profile or your own prefered max overclock. Post results with pict. Thanks

 

Papusan, I am just downloading Dishonoured 2 to bench with MSI Afterburner for a real-time test. But sure once done I will follow your links above and post all findings. (I have already benched with GTA V and TR)

 

And you have made sure there are not thermal throttling then? If so temps isnt really comparable. Something like Prime 95 is a killer, although you could argue about how representative it is of "real usage".

 

Did some digging and it looks like these fans use Hydro (fluid-dynamic) bearings which are very quiet, long lifespan, and work well in any orientation. Many case fans in desktops that are almost always oriented vertically use the same bearing type. Thanks for making me think about something I had not considered but I am not worried in this instance

 

Ah thats good too know. Didnt check the part numbers yet only saw that it is a DC fan type. Those type fans should be fine. Mostly the problematic fans are sleeve bearing fans and variations based on that.

 

Hi,

So a little issue with your request, one of the apps would not open up.. just came to a blank screen.. That said I have found alternatives and here are my findings:

Dishonoured 2, 55 mins gameplay was no issue at all and all temps good.

https://photos.google.com/photo/AF1QipMqfZh6HKivpgzEOILdbNHkJRNBKKcDsPcVeLfy

Results with Cinebench the same:

https://photos.google.com/photo/AF1QipPeEZCTY2MRonk1UtdnxO1ibyIavVadDQQYCS6K

Prime 95 100% stress test:

https://photos.google.com/photo/AF1QipOnK4CRw2opEHJIVsqs6jncywvG0FniEp73uXlB

Should be pointed out that while posting on my desktop and looking at my R3 the temps for Prime95 currently read 69/67/67/65 say they have dropped further the longer the test has run now 15 mins.

 

I think those results speak for themselves but please feel free to throw any other requests my way for the next few hours before I pick up my little man from his creche.

 

I have a spare cooler for my laptop from the various repairs it needed so was easy to grab that and check the sticker on back

One of the fans on that cooler burnt out but otherwise it is all spare parts for me. Should be able to get a new fan for like $25 if I need it.

 

Since non of the links seem to work, I would say they dont

Again, have you confirmed that there is no thermal throttling going on?

 

Ahh thats pretty funny,

Must be because they are on my Google account so I can see the images but you guys cant.. Give me a second, I will run Intel XTU and post the results to Imageshack.

:-

 

Intel XTU

https://imageshack.com/a/img924/2834/o8xb7S.jpg

Prime 95

https://imageshack.com/a/img922/7949/jXaG3w.jpg

Cinebench

https://imageshack.com/a/img924/74/9I3CXr.jpg

Dishonoured 2

https://imageshack.com/a/img924/1083/eXnlal.jpg

New M.2 SSD that as mentioned earlyer ready to install. Thermal pads and Paste as mentioned earlier, shows I'm not just an AW fanboy.. just trying to give an honest review.

https://imageshack.com/a/img924/7523/EJorEV.jpg

No thermal throttle evident, to point out I have not repasted yet or undervolted.. These are straight out of the box results.

Thanks.

 

Better to make sure using something like HWInfo

 

Intel XTU reads the exact same flags as HWInfo - they will show the same outputs

 

But not quite, hwinfo is a necessity.

 

I agree, I use it regularly. Was simply pointing out for the sake of monitoring the CPU throttling, it is equivalent. For other things HWinfo is absolutely king

 

This is stock clocks for [email protected]
81C and 8C degrees between hotest and coldest core. Dell advertise it with 44x. What was the score?

 

Shouldn't have 8C core temp differences without an overclock. Either imbalanced heatsink, bad paste job from the factory, or thermal pad thickness issues. And please use HWinfo64. You don't need to take a phone picture. Just press print screen, shift print screen or control print screen (i forgot which), one of them takes a picture of the entire desktop, one takes a picture of the "client" area only, one allows you to capture a 3D video game image and then you can "paste" it into windows paint.

Hwinfo64 is useful because it also shows us minimum, maximum, average temps, as well as voltage (VID) used, so we can see if your CPU has too much voltage or too much heat at low voltage, etc. Very useful.

 

No issues, once I drop little man off at the creche and get back from my run I will run cinbench again using hwinfo and take a screen shot for you of the whole screen this time showing the score also

 

Thanks for the pictures.
Yeah you have a high core temp difference. It's probably best that you work on that, as discussed in several threads here.

 

Agreed, although the longer I run a benchmark the closer the difference becomes. But a repaste is definitely in order when I open her up.

 

First screen shows 10°C diff WITH Power Limit Throtlling (See the little bump in OCCT's frequency chart in the up-right corner ?). Your expensive 7820HK is overing between 3.1 and 3.4 GHz 'cause its performance mode is disabled. Wich means it's in silent running mode ! The less heat productive mode !

It's specs are 2.9-3.9 GHz and Dell advertised 4.4GHz

Now try to enable performance mode, select OC3, launch OCCT again and watch carefully the frequency and temps charts. Could a repast be enough ?

 

the only difference between performance mode on and off is the fanprofile. there are no other changes in how the CPU is running.

 

For those interested here is a comparison of the Toshiba SSD and the new Samsung 960 SSD

 

In answer to your question if I go into the BIOS enable performance mode for the CPU and FANS and go to OC3 then OCCT will not benchmark. On starting, it then states that it his a thermal throttle at 89 degrees then cancels the benchmark.

 

I mean Performance mode will increace PL1 and PL2 limits. Aka the unlocked chips won't be hampered by it's long term 45w limits. But not very useful for the fully locked down 7700Hq.

Could you enable Performance mode and run Aida64 Stability Stress Tests as the Guide. Even put Dells max OC profile for the tests. And don't forget use High performance in Win Power settings. Thanks.

Stock score for 7820Hk vs. locked down 7700Hq

 

Hi all,

So did some more testing, played Fallout 4 for around 2 hours and noticed some CPU thermals creeping at points into the 90's I think it started to hit 91 degrees at some points. It did not seem to effect gameplay and framerates were still slick, but I was not happy with the thermals.

So, I dived in, stripped her down for a repaste JOB and I am so happy I did. It was a daunting task, never stripped a laptop down before but here is what I found.



Thermal paste - on the GPU was a horrible very thick rubbery substance (Far too much of it) - On the CPU it was dry an un even.
Thermal pads - Some were too thick in places and some were even missing.



Not the best paste job but the best I could do:

Results

Before re padding and repaste FPS on Unigine Heaven was 98fps on ultra at 1080p
After my little bit of work FPS is now 124.7 on the same settings.

Temps are lower, fans are quieter. Overall temps have dropped over 18 degrees on the GPU and around 7 on the CPU.

Cinebench has only increased by around 4 points however.

 

So I have just tested the CPU on its own under OCCT. Although it is now managing a faster clock speed at 3.4ghz the temperatures when the cpu is stressed on its own are the same as before. I would say at this point that in bringing the GPU temperatures right down with the new thermal paste and pad job that has allowed the CPU to stay mid 70’s now whilst gaming. I read somewhere that the GPU and CPU share thermal pipes, so since the GPU was averaging around 80 degrees before and now does not go over 65 that would probably explain the better overall system temps.

In essence the much cooler GPU is allowing more headroom for the CPU.

Overall though, happy with the results, it’s quieter and cooler.. CPU does not go anywhere near the 90’s anymore and generally sits mid 70’s whilst gaming. GPU stays a rack solid 65 throughout.

Currently running UNIGENE VALLEY for a few hours to check stability since I opened her up.

 

Average temp of CPU on Unigene Valley was 77 degrees and GPU was 67 running it for two hours. Temps monitored by HWInfo. I'm now going to try to bring that down further with a -0.0120v undervoltage of the CPU and run it for another 2 hours. I'll post with the results.

 

You should be able to put up to +4.2GHz all 4 cores on 7820Hk with -0.0120v undervolt (of course this can vary on the chips quality). Why not run Dell's adverticed 4.4GHz clock speed istead of default clock speed in your tests?

 

Hi,

Definitely, now following the repaste I will try a little overclocking now the thermals are manageable.