*OFFICIAL* Alienware 17 R2/R3 Owner's Lounge

Hmmm any one with the 17R3 notice there left speaker louder then there right speaker? they are both equally balanced in Windows options just seems like the left has more treble on mine..

 

Hi! Maybe I'm in the wrong forum, forgive me if so..

I'm very interested in buying the Alienware 17 R3. Going to use it for music production, gaming and studies. For gaming, I was wondering how well this computer would run Fallout 4? Any ideas what I could expect?
In the specs for Fallout 4 they recommend a CPU with 3.6 GHz. Could I just overclock the AW laptop to run F4 on high/ultra?

Was also looking into the Asus G751JT-T7220H (i7 4720HQ 2.6 GHz (3.6), GeForce 970M, 8GB RAM) but I'm not sure how well it would run F4 compared to AW laptop. Same here, could I just overclock the Asus laptop to run F4 in high/ultra?

I'm not very concerned about the price.

And again, sorry if this is the wrong forum,
Peace

 

I posted this on the *OFFICIAL* Alienware 17 R2/R3 Benchmark Thread as well, but I thought you guys would appreciate it here too...


I finally got around to finalizing (well, it's never final is it? ) my tweaks on my AW17R2 (Ordered August 18, and delivered September 9, 2015) and benchmarking the results.

First, my specs:
i7-4720HQ (Funny - I ordered it with the 4710HQ but it shipped with the 4720HQ. Happy surprise!)
980m video card (Prema vBIOS and 358.50 nVIDIA driver released Oct 7, 2015)
16GB 1600 RAM
1TB 7200 RPM HDD (only for archived photos, etc. - I still don't know why they are shipping these systems with HDDs!)
128GB Lite-On SSD (shipped with system as OS drive - I cloned the drive to a Samsung 850 EVO 500GB drive and moved it to M.2 slot #3 - I haven't used it since. It's a bit slower than the 850 EVO)
2x Samsung 850 EVO SSD's (500 GB each) I wanted faster SSD's, and these things ROCK! (So, I have 4 drives - one slot still open, but it's the slower SATA 2 M.2 slot, so I probably won't fill that one for a total of 2.128 TB storage)
HD 1080p screen (matte finish)
Coolermaster U3 laptop cooling pad (a MUST HAVE - this drops my temps an easy 10°C and it's super quiet and looks sexy - Amazon has them for $25-$30, which is a steal for what you get)
240W PSU (I called the day my system arrived with the 180W PSU and they promptly sent me the 240W. It arrived NEXT DAY! Now THAT's customer service!)
I also use a NetGear wireless HDMI transmitter (Full 1080p uncompressed video, with 5.1 surround WIRELESS connection to my 52" Sharp Aquos TV - pretty F'ing cool I think)

Ok, so here are the numbers...

Time from power button pressed on to playing games, etc. = ~23 seconds (From blue Windows 7 "Welcome" screen to desktop = 2 seconds!)
FireStrike 1.1 = 9482 Link: http://www.3dmark.com/fs/6233653
SkyDiver 1.0 = 24504 Link: http://www.3dmark.com/sd/3434357 (BTW, this is the #1 score on there with 4720HQ and single 980m card! Can I get a "WHOOP WHOOP"?!?!?)
CloudGate 1.1 = 24078 Link: http://www.3dmark.com/cg/3113026 (#2 score - Almost there!!! )
IceStorm 1.2 = 86432 Link: http://www.3dmark.com/is/3289835

I have Prema's vbios installed and overclock the 980m +150 core and +275 mem. (completely stable) I've gone higher, but noticed some anomolies like random flashes of green and other weird **** that made me take it back down to +150/275. Haven't touched the CPU yet - that'll be my next task...

Temps run around 68°-70°C on CPU / 58°- 62°C on GPU sustained. Max temp I ever got was 76°C on GPU but that was only for about 2 seconds - then my internal fans kicked on full blast and dropped it quickly to 60°C.

I'm pretty damn happy with my rig now.

If you want any other info, just ask!

Happy gaming!

-Atomicbear

*EDIT* I'm running A06 BIOS if you were wondering
*EDIT 2* I'm running Windows 7 Pro - I paid the extra $80 for it so I wouldn't have to suffer with 8.1 or 10 yet, and I'm glad I went that route.
*EDIT 3* In case you were wondering, with stock clocks on my 980m I was running at constant 52°C with A06 BIOS and 240w PSU (with cooling pad)

 

My R3 just arrived at my house. But I'm not home for another few hours! :'(

Here's hoping everything's awesome about it!

 

OMG. Hate that feeling. Funny story - when mine was delivered, my wife was home, but out on the back patio having a smoke and she DIDN'T HEAR THE DOORBELL!!! GRRRRR! I had to pick it up the next day at Purolator after work. Longest wait EVER!!

Hope you like yours as much as I like my 17R2 - see my benchmark post above yours - use that as your target; see if you can top my scores!

--Atomicbear

 

No!!! Having to wait is the WORST.

I'll get Firestrike up and running here as soon as I can. You're goin' down

The computer is so pretty.

 

:'

Ha! Awesome. Can't wait to see what your scores are. I'm gonna work on OC'ing my CPU when I get home... I'm sure I can squeeze a few more points out of my rig.
I know - the AW case is really nice. SOLID and beautiful. It's a work of art. And I LOVE the soft-touch padding around the trackpad, etc. Feels soooo silky!
Ok man - challenge is on! See you on the "battlefield" LOL

 

have fun brother!

 

Hi ya'll.

Anybody who has an AW17 R3 and AND IS WILLING TO HELP ME TEST YOUR SKYLAKE CPUS, please come leave a post over in THIS THREAD, because I want results consolidated.

 

Alienware 17 R3 - out of the box
980m (no OC ... yet)
6820hk 2.7-3.6 (no OC ... yet)
16gb ram
240w PSU
A02 Bios

Firestrike
8290
Graphics: 9555
Physics: 10219
Combined: 3643

Still coming for you Atomicbear!

 

I have the 17 R2 with 970M. Great machine so far accept for issue with sleeping (not fussed about at this point), but some games give me a strange artifact.

When I pan in some games, lights or strongly lit lines will leave a trail across the screen, it would appear the trail is a line of pixels left from the bright object edge, hard to explain. The result is inconsistent and is not there with games like Skyrim, making me think its something to do with the drivers and Direct X or something. Full driver wipe and reinstall for 358.50 has not helped, I may roll back to the previous, I've only had the laptop a week, still enjoying the new GPU over my old 765m in the ROG.

I've tried to screen cap it without success, I'll find a better way to demonstrate the issue, my Google-Fu has not been much help so far. HWMon shows temps to be maxing out at ~70deg for the GPU, so not heat related.

If this sounds familiar, can you possibly help me with the terminology so I can better search, I'm not good with what to search for in this case other than rendering, artifacts, pixelation, etc.

 

Is the Alienware 17 4K screen Matt or glossy (hoping its glossy). And what kind of frames are you achieving in 4K with gta 5 or some example games ?

 

Matte. It is explained on Alienware website. But I got the matte FHD and looks very good while gaming/browsering and watching films.

I also fancied a glossy one but the matte is pretty good.

 

Roger that. Looks very close to my stock R2 score - I was in the 8170 range. I'm curious to see where you end up after tweaking... I didn't have a chance over the weekend to touch my rig, but I'm going to OC my CPU this week and see if I can bump my score a bit higher.
How are you liking it so far? Any glaring issues or is everything running as it should? Hope you're having fun!
-Atomicbear

 

Everything seems to be running fantastically! Haven't had a chance to do any actual gaming yet, so we'll see how that goes. Fans seem more than willing to kick on, everything's running cool 60-65 celcius, according to Afterburner, benchmarking seems good, battery life is awesome, no cosmetic damage.

So far, a much better experience than the AW15 R1 I had earlier this year.

 

When you say the fans are more than willing to kick on, are we saying they randomly kick on while idle or just under significant load?

 

I've only noticed them under load. Also the palm rest seems cooler to the touch than the previous one I had.

 

ok i have a m17 r2. just upgraded hdd to the seagate dual drive 1 tb and 16 gig vengence ram. what fastiset cpu i can put in it. there has go to be something faster then a 2.0 920. after i upgrade cpu all thats left is upgradeing the gpu's

 

i have both the m17 r2 and the g75. so far the g75 is way better in every way. and runs alot cooler

 

He asked about the R3 there is a difference.

 

The g75 is a much bigger machine in general.......

 

i am

aware of that but the asus g series is so much better, so much cheaper, and runs so much cooler

 

Because its running a 5th gen Intel chip while the R3 runs 6th gen, supports USB 3.1/TB3 and DDR4 so of course its going to be more expensive. Plus pricing is pretty close if you are looking at asus.com vs alienware.com, there are some deals out there for the non g-sync models but you can find similar deals on R2's which is a better comparison.

 

I FINALLY received my 17 R3 fully loaded. i7-6820, 1 TB PCIe, 16GB, 980, UHD screen. I initially ordered early September but had to go through the cancel and reorder process three times and waste many hours on the phone. Worst. Experience. Ever. Never would I have imagined it would be so hard to give a company over 3,000 USD. If it wasn't for my Dell MPP 17% discount and a further $100 price adjustment I would have waited for the new Asus beast.

I can confirm that the 1TB PCI-e drive is indeed a single PM951. I did not know they were out yet - but I definitely have one empty slot. The UHD screen is stunning.

 

Hi, Can you confirm if the 4K screen on a17 r3 is glossy? I ask as I've been advised in the uk is glossy. However, it's dependant on the country according to Dell chat team.

 

The 17R3 UHD is DEFINITELY matte - sadly. It also has the cheap plastic bezel around it - double whammie.

hwinfo indicates the panel is: "AU Optronics Unknown Model: AUO109B, Manuf name is B173ZAN, Dell part number 2DK4K

Dell told me this was a g-sync panel but I have not had the chance yet to investigate that part.

If the UK gets the glossy then I may return this and reorder through the UK. I was planning to spend some time in the UK and Europe next month anyways.

 

Oh dear that's really disappointing (about the bazel), the chat sales rep yesterday confirmed to me it's definetly 4K glossy in the uk. Different countries seem to be able to choose. I must say I much prefer glossy and and bazel on the Alienware 15 4K looks really cool. I wish dell would give customers an option.

 

Can you tell me which PM951 is in your machine as I just received mine and want to install ssd. Is it NVME or AHCI? Also if you would double check shouldn't that be SM951? thank you.

 

Definitely NVME PM951. You don't want the SM951 in a laptop.

I think my 17 is sick. Before I even installed anything I was getting display errors and Windows reported issues with the Dell downloader. I don't know why yet but the laptop takes several minutes to boot up - it seems to take most of that time before it ever gets to Windows. Others have reported their new laptops boot up in 15 seconds.

 

Sorry to disappoint you, but sales rep can't confirm s%$t.

 

I don't have an SSD yet just the standard 1TB drive that came with it, and this one take 1:31 to boot. I hard screen flashes when I first got this machine. I downloaded the GTX980M drivers. I then uninstalled and reinstalled the drivers and everything is operating as it should.

 

This is ridiculous. My CPUs at idle are running 59 to 71c / 138 to 160 F and the GPU is holding steady at 60 c / 140 f. The bottom of the laptop is so hot (just left of center and towards the rear underside vents) that I cannot put the laptop on my lap for more than a few seconds. I have not changed any BIOS settings or tried any overclocking, and I have not even tried playing games yet. As far as I can tell the fans are not working as I do not hear anything I feel air movement. And now it appears the WiFi adapter has failed as the system does not see any available networks. After a reboot its back working - for the moment. But the last reboot only temporarily stopped the wireless issues.

The system still takes almost two minutes to boot every time. Once it actually gets to the log on screen and I enter my PIN it only takes 5 seconds to get to the desktop. 2 minutes for a PCIe SSD? What the heck?

Right out of the box the system was throwing various Windows errors. Several Dell programs are unusable due to these errors.

Almost $4,000 USD price before my discount - and all these errors. There is no excuse. By the way - I'm a seasoned Windows Server / datacenter engineer so it's not exactly like I'm a novice at computers.

What are you guys seeing as the idle temperature for your CPU and GPU?

 

cruisin5268d,

If this is a new unit you should just send it back. Dell will pay the return shipping.

Order a new one or go with a different brand.

If you are in the 30 day return period no point being frustrated. It is disappointing when an expensive product is defective but it happens. The good news is you may have choices.....

Rob

 

Looking to install an SM951 SSD in this allienware 17 R3. Does anyone know if I should use the NVME or AHCI ones? I did try AHCI a week ago but couldn't get the bios to see it. Could of been a bad stick who knows. I see some are using the NVME, but want to make sure before I purchase again, thanks.

I agree that your new Laptop isn't right. I would contact support and get that thing back to them, and get another one. I really like this one, it does not run hot and seems well made time will tell. Good luck.

 

Look up a few posts for the nvme / ahci. You don't want the SM951 in a laptop - get the PM951.

 

I haven't even had this 24 hours or been able to at least try a few games! I waited over 6 weeks for this to arrive and invested many hours on the phone with various Dell people trying to make this order happen. I don't want to walk away - but at this point there's not a whole lot left to go wrong. They sent me a brand new laptop that has multiple significant issues - this is unacceptable at any price range but especially offensive when we are talking about this price range and class of computer.

I'm hoping they'll let me keep this whilst a new one is being produced. Otherwise it's almost certain I'll walk away and go with a competitor.

 

man

man is NVME and if i were you,I would wait for the new ssd from samsung= 950 EVO pro m.2 (NVME)= more speed, less heat.

 

Don't get mad. The laptop is worth 100%. You may be the small % that has issues. Did you try to reinstall windows? other brands have same problems. That is why the laptop comes with guarantee.

I have had issues with HP, ASUS, etc... But well, if you are sure about moving to the competitor is up to you. Just make sure you won't regret later on. I was going to do so but my AW17 r3 works fine and I am really enthusiastic how it runs. It is less noisy than my old AW17. In my opinion the investment has been worthy.

 

Hey pals, does anyone know what enabling "Fan Performance" in the BIOS does, and whether it's particularly advisable? Similarly, is it a bad idea to activate the level 1 overclock if you're not changing any of the cooling from stock?

 

It just makes the fans spin fast ALL the time, not needed at all on this machine IMO. I wish there was a fan option in bios for a touch more aggressive fan profile but not full speed all the time......the performance option is just silly. Level 1 overclock should be just fine.

 

Ahh, that slightly more aggressive profile was just what I was looking for, but that sounds nuts, haha. Thanks a lot!

 

You make a very good point. Unfortunately I was already at the end of my rope before I even opened the box. To encounter so many issues is unprecedented in my experiences. The factory OS install should be stable and error free as AW should test every image before pressing it into production. I deploy Windows at work - I don't want to do it on my brand new laptop!

I have managed to resolve some of the issues but there's still more that I'm finding.

 

That bios setting mentioned above would be a good way to make sure the fans are working at all.

Sorry to hear you have had problems... My last gaming laptop was an MSI, and the one before that was an ASUS. I have an 17r3 coming today though and I'm hoping its not a lemon. However, I will mention that I bought a dell precision laptop two months back and I have never had such good support. My experience is that everything eventually does go wrong, including customer service and tech support. But my experience with Dell has been heads and shoulders above MSI or ASUS. I immediately had problems with both the MSI and ASUS and it was almost impossible for me to get ASUS to take responsibility. I ended up buying a replacement fan on my own. MSI was somewhat better. While under warranty I sent it back once and it came back almost perfect, but it failed soon after the warranty was up. Frankly I never intended to buy a gaming laptop ever again because they are so finicky. It was only my Dell support experience that gave me hope that even when things go bad, it will be better than whats happened last time. I'll admit that story sounds frustrating but I've heard of worse. I wouldn't give up yet. At least a refund or replacement are still possibilities, let alone sending it back for repairs with a chance of them actually fixing it.

 

Hi guys
Does anyone know if the Alienware 17 R3 supports 32GB of RAM ( 2 x 16GB). Why I ask this, is beacause I saw some sites selling 32GB of RAM Alienware 17 R3

EDIT :I just talked to a DELL representative and apparently it has 4 RAM slots. Can any of you guys confirm?

 

4 RAM slots ? WHAT. About time he updates himself on Dell's products or or find another job .

 

Where can I get Alienware UHD wallpapers? I don't like the white background one. I saw an Alienware demo at Dell World this week and their wallpaper was a black background and white alien head - It looked sexy. THe default one looks like the screen is dirty!

 

http://o.aolcdn.com/hss/storage/fss/cbf61e7b0f607f7085529e4d779ce444/AW_ChromeHead_72dpi.jpg

 

There are 2 RAM slots, not 4.

Rob

 

THANK YOU! That is a sexy and classy wallpaper.

 

I am a noob of the laptop world... is there much risk inherent in overclocking a mobile GPU (980m in a 17 R3)? I'm looking to produce a moderate boost but remain cautious when it comes to heat, lifespan etc...