*OFFICIAL* Alienware Area-51M R1 Owner's Lounge

While not everyone’s priority what disappoints me about this kit is the lack of subwoofer for laptop this size and premium price.

Suspect sound (bass) will be a step back from excellent r4/r5, and very poor compared to MSI laptops which have subwoofer(s).

Wonder if we can fit the auo 4K / QHD panel into this if it has the same number of pins on the lead ??? An get this rather low res 1080p panel out

 

Employee discount is 17% They sent a code out a few days ago for 15% for old customers hoping to get them to return so maybe he used one of those?

 

So while the Area 51m is definitely falling a bit short of a desktop 2080 / 9900k setup. It looks like however it will be right in line with my desktop setup of a 1080Ti / 5820k. I'm curious to see frame rates in real games and not just pure numbers in a benchmark. But considering I'm hoping this will be a side grade from my current desktop setup, I'm still pretty excited to get mine.

https://www.3dmark.com/fs/13293668

 

About which part? The turdbook with an eGPU or the 2080 versus 1080?

I'm going off of my modded 1080 Ti versus modded 2080 Ti. Upgrade yes, but not anywhere near $1,200 worth of upgrade. Big bucks for a comparatively modest performance improvement and a mod-resistant piece of new hardware kind of sucks. I am happy with it overall, but it is regrettable having to spend so much for such a comparatively modest performance gain in return. That might not be a good measurement for the notebook 2080 versus notebook 1080.

And, for those that are strictly interestied in playing games, is the boost in FPS enough to justify the cost of an RTX card? If and when ray tracing actually matters in gaming, at that point the RTX features might better separate the men from the boys.

 

Probably firmware cancer. Alienware does a great job of castrating things, and memory is one of them. They do it to their desktops as well. If you don't have access to memory settings, the RAM is going to run at the default SPD, or whatever limit they have set in the firmware, whichever is less.

 

I'm sure they said RAM speeds would be increased in the future, don't think they clarified to which speeds though.

 

A glimmer of hope.... i guess....

Alienware Area-51m System BIOS

Fixes & Enhancements
Fixes:
- Fixed the issue where the system does not reflect the charging status immediately when plugged in.
- Fixed the unwanted noise from the speaker that is triggered by using the mute/unmute toggle key on the keyboard.

Enhancements:
- Added the CPU overclock option in BIOS settings.
- Added the Intel Hyper Thread Control option in BIOS settings.
- Supports Alienware On Screen Display (OSD) application version 1.3.1.0.
- Improved the power management feature to balance the CPU performance, power consumption, and thermal management.

Version
Version 1.2.0, 1.2.0

 

Great! I really put my hope on. Still waiting for a reliable review.

Sent from my MIX 3 using Tapatalk

 

Just checking, because people get it in their heads that they want it to run low 40's with no fans on running 100 percent prime95/furmark at the same time while in a room where it's already 85F. Just making sure your not one of these people.

 

No wonder I got such a good deal... Checked the specs on the order confirmation that came through this morning. Wrong color, wrong screen. They had me marked down for the "Dark Side of the Moon" and "1080p 60hz" screen (why is that even an option?). I asked for Lunar Light and 1080p144w/gsync. I e-mailed who I was working with, he had an auto reply pushing me to someone else since he would be out for a few days. I did this process 3 or 4 times before giving up. I better have this resolved quickly by Monday evening or I'm done.

The joys of placing an order via phone!

 

here in austria it actually isn't^^ and also gsync is always included as long as you go 9700k or higher

 

Yeah, I agree. 60Hz screens is silly. They should not even be manufactured any more... garbage. 60Hz should have gone bye-bye around 2015. Minimum ordinary low-budget spec available anywhere today for 1080p should be 120Hz. If you have 120Hz or more, there is no compelling reason to waste your money on silly G-Stink or FreeSlink unless you have some kind of weird fetish for input lag. You certainly shouldn't be expected to pay extra for crappy gimmicks like that. Now that NVIDIA stands to make almost nothing off of it to speak of any more, (due to FreeSync compatibility,) maybe they'll stop supporting it as well. Although, their latest gimmick (ray tracing) is kind of backfiring on them. Wonder if they will stop supporting that, too? First MXM, then SLI, then G-Stink... yup, once AMD gives it up for free, ray tracing won't be important any more. The Green Goblin has got to have their holy cash cow gimmicks to peddle to the gamer kids.

 

Hey, a man can dream! Also, for the record, I know for a fact that you used to put your AWs in your freezer with a huge 20lbs copper pipe pressed on top of the CPU die to make us envy those 5Ghz+ clocks and 30C temps! So yeah, I want it to be AT LEAST that cold and fast now, 20 years later!

 

If you got from 12.5% to 15% you squeezed an extra 2.5% out of them, and if that extra 2.5% was $300 then the original order was $12,000 ? But if you mean that the $300 off was the *total* discount you got, then the ticket price was a more modest $2,000 and your extra 2.5% only got you $50.00 off.

 

I disagree. There are plenty/most people who cannot tell anything over 50Hz, even with peripheral vision (look that one up). But anyone can tell UHD from FHD down to 13" and even smaller (think those high res tablets), and anyone can tell OLED from everything else. Just walk into a large electrical store and look at the TVs on display, the LG OLED screens are miles ahead of the competition, and your ordinary house wife can tell the difference from miles. Look at those tablets with 300+ dpi and (AME)OLED. Look at Apple laptops with Retina displays. Or look at the XPS 15 or AW17 at 4K.

Resolution, colours, brightness.

My son, who is an avid FPS gamer (PubG), and has spent time adjusting his seating position and training in order to shoot opponents accurately and quickly (PubG), has now got my old AW17R5 with 4K panel at 60Hz, and he is not complaining all that much, but is commenting on the unparalleled contrast and clarity of this 4K panel.

Therefore the jump from 60Hz to 120Hz is much less perceptible and relevant to the common folk, than the jump from a low-res TN LCD to a high-res IPS/Retina/(AME)OLED. If you were asking for something to be banned, I'd start at the TN FHD first. Considering FHD was out in electric stores and available to the masses more than 10 years ago, I would say it's high time we gave it up right now on $3,000 laptops.

 

You ordered one?

Interesting to see my old Titan (X) Pascal + AW13 R3 can hang with a 2080Ti in the amp

https://www.3dmark.com/fs/13653218

Are those stock GPU scores or OC?

Nice start, let's see what else is changed in the future.

 

I'm waiting for these: https://www.blurbusters.com/new-8k-120hz-oled-demoed-by-sel-japan/
OLED + 120/144hz + 8k
But for now, between OLED and 120/144hz IPS I would ALWAYS choose the OLED. Can't get enough of it in my AW 13!

 

I would beg to differ. On a 27, sure I can see the difference and greatly appreciate having my QHD instead of FHD, but once you fit something to a laptop I really won't notice it. However increase the refreshate to 120 Hz and I instantly notice it, even playing for short amounts of time in certain games below 100 Hz and I start to feel ill due to it simply becoming a "slideshow".

Although I might be able to tell the resolution apart on even a small screen, I wouldn't have any gain from it during actual usage, except for it being harder for the hardware to drive, and if you show my any display that happens to be glossy I will prefer it above all others.

Ideally everyone should get what they desire, and there will clearly be a QHD and probably 4K option at some point, as the market is there.

The only thing that really should die is FHD and below at 60 Hz, atleast in anything that wants to brand itself as productivity or "gaming".

 

Its not perceptible if Vsync etc is in place and the target framerate is not met. But I can assure you it is very easy to see the difference between 60hz and 120hz. Even in plain windows the mouse pointer is so much smoorther. It throws me off every time when I go from my external 165hz screen back to my 60hz laptop screen.Games also feel more jerky at 60hz because not only is image smoother, input lag is lower.

 

For me, this is news of the century. I wonder, If I had it in my A13 R3 and played games at 1080p as I play now on 1440p OLED, would there be any tangible visual difference except for 120Hz?

 

Well said. I am so used to 120+ that it drives me batty to just look at the mouse cursor or moving an open file folder or browser window as it stutters across the screen. Not pretty. I never knew the difference when I was used to 60Hz, but it did not take long to get spoiled.

 

That's a fancy name for "improved throttle". I would wait with updating until someone compares before and after results.

Someone he knows is getting a "review unit".

The CPUs are overclocked (the 9700K more so than the 9900K)
Going by the numbers both GPUs should be stock, but it really depends on ASIC and the resulting automatic overboost.

 

Damn. My score are much higher than the RTX 2070 when I OC my 1080 to 2000Mhz.

 

So...I wonder how having RTX and G-sync screen and Intel 630 work together in Area-51. Is it bios switch or keyboard combination? 630 can not work at the same time with G-sync on, right?

Is it an automatic switch?

 

There is but Oled is different. 60hz on oled looks smoother because the pixels that change color, do this quicker, so you have less blur and streaking. Pretty much if you move quickly and take a photo of that movement, you see a fairly crisp image while on LCD you see trails. 120+ hz Oled would be insanely nice for movement (I still hate the burn in issues).

 

Thanx.

@rinneh

I want to know your opinion:

OLED vs. OLED


Do you think (the 13 inch is 8k!!! native resolution) that games would look any different/okey if played @1080p?

Say, vs. games played on my 1440p OLED @1080p. They look completely 98% okey compared to native.

I guess it is almost like if I played 800x600 on my OLED LOL, but now...with the SAME screen size, would it be really SO noticeable?

I guess 60 Hz vs. 120Hz would play also huge role there, but secondary for this case.

 

It would be interesting if anybody here in this forum has already an 51m and could tell us some details about Fans, Temperature etc..

Btw this is not an oled / Display Discussion Thread!

 

Heavily depends the scaler of the panel. For example on my 27inch 1440P gsync screen with the Gsync scaler, 1080 still looks fairly sharp without too many soft edges. Some 4K panels do real pixel doubling with smoothing which is best. But some have horrible scalers. I only saw the 13inch Oled in native resolutions. But yeah Oled is so different, im not sure if they have a pentile pixel arrangement as well?

 

Where do you get this info from of the burn in effect. I have my 13r3 oled for over 2 years. It is on each day for at least 4-5 hours since I got it. I have never heard anyone post or complain about burn in.

 

@rinneh

This is OLED in AW13r3.



In Everspace I tried 1440p vs 1080p saw 98% no difference.

Anything lower (1600x1200) introduced some jaggies on space-stations, going lower they were only getting more pronounced.

However, colors were okey at any lower resolution, even till 1280x800. Anything lower and all looked like 'planet chainsaw' LOL

Good news. Trying this I just found out that this laptop will play game a bit longer than expected, by lowering resolution and forcing AA.

I remember on my old 15 inch. 1080p P150 EM with 7970M and 3610QM, colors would look terrible anything under 1600x1200, but juggies would be less pronounced than with OLED. (slow response time).

Thanx for your time, highly appreciate it.

 

I think we have pretty good OLED model (I have not seen one AW13r3 user complain about burn-in yet too).

But, with TVs and smartphones people get it much more.

There is not much static stuff on my OLED screen except for Google Chrome, but even then, if I leave computer, in 2 minutes screen is set to turn off itself. I also use Dark reader extension when browsing.

 

LOL. My apologies. I hope Dellwill eventually pull out 17 inch 120 HZ OLED g-sync, otherwise no business.

 

They can only sell what the market has to offer. Most vendor have gone with narrow bezel, while Dell went one step further with slim-bezel for the 51M. The screens they are selling are currently the only ones available in that format.

 

I assumed that u have area-51m for testing. What are your thoughts on this laptop?

 

My desktop Icons have remained exactly on the same location for over 2+ years (I am anal with desktop icons!) I just moved them from their usual location and there is zero burn in effect.

 

When I saw that all the other 17" thin bezel laptops were also only 1080 I kinda figured that was the case. It was all about the 15" before so no one was making a thin bezel screen for a size that wasn't selling. Hopefully that changes and 17" laptops get some popularity this time around.

 

You are referring to an older generation of OLED screens. That used to be the case, but not anymore I think, as I also have a 2.5 year old Galaxy S6 and there's no burn in either.

 

I know LG's TVs still have burn in issues even with pixel shifting and such. Most people don't leave their cell phone screens on the same image for minutes or hours at a time (think of HUD in gaming). It's a concern I have about OLED (even though I LOVE the picture).

 

Not all users come across the same burn in. it depends usage ofcourse, brightness levels and content. But I have seen the burn-in in person on a couple of Lenovo X1 laptops with the same panel in the office. Its a wonderful looking screen, but those laptops belonged to coders and you could see their code editor windows being retained on a light background.

 

I think the higher contrast makes it appear sharper which is a good thing. In terms of pure image quality it is unmatched ofcourse.

Also the 1060 is still no slouch for gaming. I think you can enjoy easily 2 years more out of it!

 

Even the most modern S8 and S9 Galaxy phones are prone to burn-in. My S6 had it after 6 months because I had it on automatic high brightness. Burn in is even present on LG televisions which have no separate color leds but uniform white leds with a filter on top to "make" colors.

 

I hope that's not actually the case. I liked that in my r5 since it drowns the fan noise when I'm tiree or wearing headphones.

 

Yeah, that would not be a fact. As I never put my laptop in a freezer. You are talking about scook9 and Mr Moo. I always had an A/C unit and Dry Ice for the AW. And of course the copper blocks from my LN2 pot.

But I hear ya though!

 

I think Bob is following this thread closely...



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I must be getting old then, but those names do ring some fancy bells! Great times. Good to know you are still in business! Gonna watch this thread closely Still not sure though if I'm gonna pull the trigger on this model or try the 15" Clevo instead.

 

I have an LG 65 inch OLED from 2017 and I haven’t had a burn in at all.


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don't know how much it says about the area 51m though

 

The X1 is a 14" panel/laptop. The AW 13 is 13"

Can't have had same panel.

Unfortunate that they did not know how to take care of their panel though. Light bleed is seldom a problem for a properly used panel.

 

Nice. He always gives honest reviews on laptops. So this might be as close as we get until memebers get their units in.

 

It definitely has 2.0 speaker set up an no sub as per the spec sheet. It’s the same for the m17 that has no sub either. Without a small sub you won’t get as good / any meaningful bass sadly.