*OFFICIAL* Alienware 17 R4 Owner's Lounge

I heard the rumor pegged the AW 17 GTX 1080 release on Nov 15th or 16th?

 

Why would you waste your $ on 950 pro when 960 pro is out and offers MUCH better performance?

 

almost made the same mistake. didn't realize the prices of the 960 evo were cheaper AND had much better performance than current 950 pros until recently.

 

Anyone know which panel(brand,model)for the UHD panel? I swear, I'm going to be a little down if I see a lot of light bleed like everyone else is getting.

 

I think the effect is quite noticeable in your cel phone shot. Had I that screen, I'm sure I would simply get used to it. Sort of like some of the bad anti glare coatings I've seen that

Saw that one coming ... LOL ...

I *was* going to pre order the 960 but Amazon sold out so fast that I just opted for the 950's ... I'd have been super happy with just a plain old SATA3 SSD so completely happy with the 950's ...

 

I've seen a few reviews of the qhd and they have said the screens look good and do not notice Any banding. I wonder if only a percentage of the screens are affected or some people just can't see it at first.

 

It is a definite physical characteristic of the panel in question and is present in all of those panels (whether said panel is in an AW or Aorus machine); users are more or less sensitive to it depending on their eyesite, etc. ...

 

How's the 6820hk on the 17?
Is too hot like on the 15? Or it runs cool enough

 

I'm not sure what effect you're talking about, but I'm specifically talking about the banding/horizontal lines that everyone else has in their QHD lines. I don't see the lines. Actually I might see them very faintly, compared to the other screen. His screen shows them a lot more pronounced than mine. Any other issues you are seeing could be because of the cell phone image itself.

The screen looks really good to me. I couldn't stand the light bleed on the FHD screens. Plus the 120hz and fast refresh are awesome in a gaming notebook. The QHD just seems like a better match for this notebook vs the slower IPS screen that is meant more for color accuracy than gaming.

But even though I got 3 bad machines with 3 screens that had light bleeding, 2 display model machines I saw at 2 different Best Buy's did not have any bleeding at all. Or at least none that I could perceive in their well lit stores.

 

To be honest I got all hung up on nvme drives and thier performance, and on paper there seem to be big differences

But in real world usage I noticed no difference between the "slow" pm951 and the 950 pro I had, in fact if anything the the pro was a pain in the ass due to heat throttling it would go slower than a HDD when transferring very large amounts of data.

So much so I sold the pro

Now the new Polaris spec drives are out well the PM 961 is almost as fast as the older 950 pro half the price and doesn't throttle

Samsung have worked this out and most U.K. Online retailers have been told to pull them from general sale saying they are oem drives and not for sale unless it's for system builds! , I had real problems getting a pm961 1tb

 

Just curious as to why you would bother with a raid 0 set up when you have a crazy fast nvme drive ? I hope I don't sound critical it's just you won't really notice any difference in performance and just Import risk of failure due to raid. Raid 0 used to be awesome back in days of raptors but now with nvme / m2 it's fairly irrelevant for anything but critical parity usage like raid 1, 10 or 5 and jbod

 

The MSI 120hz screen does not have the lines issue. It has a tiny bit of color banding due to the fact that it is 6-bit (I believe), but no lines. It is a Chi Mei screen, not the AUO used in Aorus and Alienware models.

 

Is that screen you mention 1440p then?

 

No, MSI's only 120hz screen is a 1080p Chi Mei option. Alienware and Aorus have 120hz 1080p and 1440p options made by AUO. Very different screens as I have seen both makes in person.

 

Regards the relevant m2 SSD recommendations just gonna put this here

http://www.tweaktown.com/reviews/7762/samsung-sm961-1tb-2-nvme-pcie-ssd-review/index.html

 

Anyone had problems with a M.2 ssd install? My R4 came with a 1 Tb mech drive and I promptly used alienware respawn to make a factory image USB. Then I remove the mech drive and drop in the ssd and boot with the alienware respawn USB in. It writes the files, but when I reboot, I get a 0xc0000225 error. I tried a clean win 10 install, but had to change to legacy boot just to see the drive. once the files are written, the system doesn't boot off the ssd. I'm googling this, but haven't found anything conclusive.

 

Are the included dell m.2 drives bad? Or are people just upgrading because they want better drives?

 

I'll be attempting the same when mine arrives this week hopefully

What I did with my r3 was use the option in windows to make a back up USB (not respawn)

Took the HDD out popped in the m2 booted off the USB and recovered it all went fine

I've used macrium reflect as well on the r3 which worked also

Don't know if this will help or not you got me worried now I'll probably hit the same issues.

But won't be using respawn though

 

Most people are upgrading because it's much cheaper to buy the SSD m2 from other retailers than pay dell exorbitant prices, you can save a lot of money doing it yourself and it's very straightforward

 

I wonder if I nee

I wonder if I need to use Rufus to make my Windows 10 USB uefi bootable.

 

This was exactly my plan, but it isn't going well LOL

 

Not sure mate I just used windows "make a back up USB" option the kept the USB to one side reformatted my r3 a few times with no problems always came back as stock Alienware logo's n all that just like factory.

Will let you know how I get in with mine

Mean time just try doing the windows built in option

I made sure I made my USB when the PC was new though no programs of data than the factory install it will all fit on a 32gb stick then

 

I'll give this a shot tomorrow eve and report back!

 

finally been able to see this in person at best buy.

god damn. the build quality is glorious. sturdy as ****. the other gaming laptops next to it really solidified how much better this thing feels and looks.

only 1 more week for 1080....

 

Never mind..

 

the cheaper models dont have all the parts im after so im not paying more for the bigger ssd


the 6820 is only $100 more
512gb ssd included
32gb ram included
and the 4k screen

$2750 - 10% discount + any haggling you do with dell.

i could probably put my 950 in the dell if the m.2 is the same size

 

Guys does anyone have any hints on the release date of the 17R4 with 1080GTX?

 

18th... but that might mean that preorders are soon. The 1070 models were available for order about a week before their launch date etc.

 

Already 18th November?! Nice! Thanks for the answer man

 

Every expected report from a new Clevo owner waiting for his 120hz screen to arrive has resulted in the same report, the lines / banding is clearly noticeable in day to day use. More visible in some modes than others.

 

It is a shame that such display is on sale. I am more than sure that Alienware will do nothing to replace the 5ms/gsync option.

 

The issue isn't Alienware. AUO is the only manufacturer of the panel. And people want 1440p 120hz g-sync 5ms panels. I'm sure if LG or another company made one, they would use it instead. I've considered going with a msi for their chi-mei 120hz 5ms 1080p panel, buuut I find their build quality...lacking. And not 1440p. And bulky. Etc etc. Just my feeling on them though.

 

Is there a 17inch laptop g-sync display clearly better than the AUO 1440p 120hz ?

 

Not yet AFAIK

 

From what I was seeing the MSI also has the AUO display... But well seems like all the nice Aorus and AW g-sync display options just went to ****..

Although apparently 15" AW seems to be ok

 

No banding reported on the 15inch g-sync display? Is there a video anywhere?

 

I have no proof but that's what I have heard from some 15R3 Users.. I believe CarbonTwelve has this display.

 

It's all good man ... no worries on sounding critical .. .LOL ... I'm impossible to bother or offend and critical thinking makes the world go round ... so ;-)

I wanted 1tb boot drive and the 960Pro's were going to be a couple weeks wait and so decided on x2 512gb 950Pros to config as my 1tb boot drive. Only reason ... and I agree, the performance differences just won't be noticeable to my sort of daily use ... (I think the same could be said for regular old SATA m.2's like the 840 Evo and the 950 Pros ... I'd probably not notice the difference).

That said, your comments about the 950 and heat have me a tad concerned; I'm wondering if splitting the load between the two drives in RAID0 will lessen the heat issue a bit? I may well just send them right back to Amazon and get a single 850 Evo or even a 1TB 961 like you have (there are some 961's on Ebay).

You've found the 961 to work good in a laptop scenario? How have you monitored temps?

Thansk

x2 on Macrium Reflect. Kick ass software and free. I've used it many times to do system image/restore on new drives...

 

Does anyone know a rolling tote / trolley which will fit the new 17 r4? Almost every trolley I see does not fit the AW

 

Of course the issue is Alienware. They sell their product with this embarrassing display. They could offer the 120hz FHD like MSI.

 

so the alienware support account is claiming no official release date for the 1080, can they be lying?

 

Then the same would have to be said about Aorus and Clevo laptops. From what I've heard on the MSI side of things, the 120hz FHD Chi-Mei screens do not support g-sync because the screen supplier simply didn't want to go through nVidia's g-sync registration process. This way they're first to market. Personally, I like g-sync and I'm not keen on going down in resolution or features. I do hope the screen banding issue going on gets resolved through manufacturing adjustments and that the issues seen now are just byproducts of what Iike to think of as the "early adoption" batch.

 

They're probably not allowed to disclose the information. While there hasn't been any official word on the 1080 models, Frank Azor mentioned during a Q&A that they were wanting to get it out no later than November 18th. Just gotta wait and see.

 

You already created the raid0? how does it work? In the previous model 17 R3, one of the ports only worked as pcie x2.

 

I never done anything so scientific as monitor temps, although you can i believe with HW Monitor / info... lol

my experience is with the AW17 R3 i had i was using the 950 pro 512gb and when doing large file transfers the transfer would start off real fast then performance would drop right off a cliff to slower than USB 3 speeds.

so i read a bit about the throttling and took the bottom cover off started a transfer and touched the 950 when it slowed down and it nearly burnt my finger!, so i tried propping the 17 on its side with my mini desk fan blowing on the ssd and speeds went back up, heavy throttling confirmed.

so put my old PM951 back in and had no throttling at all so sold my 950 pro and bought a 1tb 951 and was totally happy with it.

now I've got a 17r4 on the way I saw the polaris 961 was out with awesome performance (pretty much as fast as 950 pro) and have one ready for the new 17

Apparently there are report that even the 960 which is silly money hasn't fixed these issues its a bit better with a copper sticker on it but still throttles in a desktop test bed so i wouldn't bother putting one in a laptop myself.

 

Also very curious about this my self-would really appreciate an answer! Very curious if both run @ x4 or just the one on x4 & 2nd one on x2?! Really hoping they fixed it this time around so both use the full x4.

 

Just order some Fujipolly thermal pads and place them on the drive; permanently say good-bye to any throttling.

 

Are there any other m.2 ssds you guys would recommend besides 950/960 that don't have heat issues?

 

but placing it on the drive doesn't really do anything if you don't have a heatsink on top of it



@nemoris - OCZ RD400 but it is not RAID capable like the 950/960

 

PM951 or the new polaris PM961 / SM961

http://www.anandtech.com/show/10168/samsung-shows-off-sm961-and-pm961-ssds-oem-drives-get-a-boost