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

The Xotic price seems really good. I could do rush processing and a bunch of thermal upgrades and still pay less than base price at dell. Only Nebraska has tax for them, so that saves me 8.75%. They don't offer cashback on financing, so that is an increase of 6%. BUT, they do offer 3% back if paying by cash.

Common Specs:
i7-9700k
RTX 2080
1080p 144hz GSynch Panel w/Tobii
Lunar Light

Dell Specs:
1TB SSHD
8GB Ram
5 Years Warranty+Accidental
Dell-Alienware Total: $3734.60 ($224.08 Cashback)

Xotic Specs:
500GB Samsung Evo NVMe
16GB Ram
Intel 9260 Upgrade
Thermal Grizzly Kryonaut Thermal Paste- GPU & CPU
Fujipoly Extreme Thermal Pads
3 Years Warranty
Xotic Subtotal: $3,345.40
3% Cash Discount: -$100.36
$3,245.04

Xotics price is REALLY good. I had a 16% discount with Dell and Xotic still beat it with better specs.

I highly recommend you give them a call and talk to them. They close at 6:30PM CST. I just got off the phone with sales. Guy was really cool, they all live and work in Nebraska. Answered all my questions knowledgeably and didn't feel like I was going to the local bazaar.

One important question: I asked him about the heat pipes and what thermal solution we would be getting. He said the processors and GPUs are ordered in the configs available, so the heat sink sent from Dell will match. These guys seem pretty legit from the call I made and the price is hard to deny. Not only is the price lower, I can return $300 worth of ram and nvme that I had purchased.

Another important question: He said they will be receiving their first run of units at the end of February, with first orders heading out early March.

I think I'll do it. Maybe I'll request a further discount from Dell Gonna place an order for Xotic PC and can cancel later if need be. https://www.xoticpc.com/warranty Their cancellation and return policy is solid.

Also their 9900k upgrade is $199.99. Tempting, but I think the 9700k is actually a better option. It out-benches the 9900k occasionally and will probably due better thermally (as we have all already covered ad nauseum in this thread).

 

Did anyone get ahold of the little M2 caddy/heatsink separately from dell? Would be interested in grabbing one for the 960 evo...

 

Mine just shipped and i'll be getting them on Wednesday.

 

How did you go about ordering them?

 

I just got on chat and gave them the part number and said I needed two.

 

What is the part number?

 

JV98R

 

Thanks!

Side note, does anyone know what CAS latency stock dell ram is? Assuming it’s going to be CL19.

 

Anyone have a measurement on the thermal pad thickness on the CPU+ GPU, and on the M.2 heatsinks?

I want to buy pads if needed before I receive my machine!

 

I don't quite understand what you mean here. Do you mean that both 9700k / 2080 and 9700k / 2080 are part of "1 configuration" and will both receive the same heatsink?

Or do you mean that 9700k and 9900k are different configurations, receive different heatsinks, but that there is no need to worry because you'll get the right one for your configuration?

Thanks!

 

Does anyone have a pic of this heatsink?

 

Oh shoot... the 9900k comes from Dell, ensuring the right cooling? Nice! I’m really curious how they get the pricing so low (bulk buys)? But I won’t complain...

 

I originally order through a sales rep. Original price was. $4600 CAD (9900k, 2080, 144hz tobii $ gsync upgrades) and after a lot of talking, I only managed to talk him down to $4069. But for the most part, I was satisfied.

Later I called order support telling them I couldn't get my MPP coupon to apply at the time of order. So they gave they created a ticket, saying that they'll reimburse the 5% to me after the order ships. So roughly another $200.

This was all before my order was cancelled and I had to reorder due to... Whatever issues Dell was facing. The representative called me saying I can reorder at the same price but....

Ebates was running I guess a Valentin's Day promo where you could get 14% back from Dell. I also had a 10% off coupon from Unidays that I couldn't get working the first time. And. I called to make sure the 5% MPP discount for earlier was still valid.
So after calculating everything, after tax price should be just under $4000 CAD.

Unfortunately ebates promo is done, so you'll have to do without the 14%, but everything else still works (Unidays for 10%, MPP for 5%, ebates for 2%)

 

The part number specific for 51m is 3N3W3... The other one is specific to Alienware 15/17 they might be the same but the Dell parts guy I spoke to in chat said they are very much different... I dunno how much I can trust those guys ..

 

nothing a grinding wheel can't fix I'm sure

 

There is a lower configuration likely tied to ordering with a 2070 IIRC. There was concern that XoticPC was ordering Area-51m's with lower spec and adding in 9900k/9700k that they had on hand, not from Dell. This is not the case, so you will get the correct cooling solution for the config you are ordering.

Yeah, honestly it is crazy and almost seems like a mistake! It is much, much cheaper and the customer service is much easier to deal with. I subtracted the useless 1tb SSHD and added a 500gb NVMe, which wasn't even much more expensive than if I deal hunted it myself.

I sent an e-mail to Dell asking to price match or cancel. We'll see how this goes, but I'm perfectly happy giving my business to Xotic.

 

Alright, I think I’m finally ready to order this laptop, here are the specs/price... still a little concerned about having 1 year warranty, but its so darn expensive!

i7-9700k, 2080, 16gb RAM, 1TB HD (going to add my own NVMe), 144hz G-sync
MSRP: $3,399
Price w/ Tax: $3,636.93
Cash back: $618.96 (ebates 15% plus 3% DPA)
Total: $3,017.97

I’m debating adding the 51m backpack since its reduced to $99 plus the 15% cash back on top, or use the 3% I get back via DPA and order it through Dell once I get it.

Thoughts?

 

I have a Samsonite Tectonic 17 backpack that I'm pretty sure will fit the 51m. The laptop compartment is adjustable and I used to carry my Sager NP9377-s in it. I also have no doubt that it is a better quality bag than the overpriced crap Dell is pedaling...

EDIT: after looking at the dimesions of both laptops the area 51m is smaller than the sager so yea it will fit no problem.

 

What is ebates? Do you live in USA? I've tried few reps from Dell and the best I had 400$ off. I told one of them that I have 3000$ I want to spend for laptop, but he said he's sorry and he recommends to look at refurbished laptops for this price.

 

Got two of the 3N3W3 ordered no problem. $4.99 Canadian each with $15 shipping.

 

NBR Member @carlodelmazo tweeted @ Fazor about the 9900k 2080 heatsink 15hours ago, he partially replied just now, has asked for Umar's help on this, so we wait for that reply now

Spoiler

I hesitate to discuss an '8pipe' HS that's been pulled from production that no one will get (if that's the verdict of course), but since u invited me to look closer, to my eyes & on paper, CES '8pipe' HS has & is the superior cooling design, fabbed, marketed & trotted out to CES for that very reason, to keep things extra-chilly for the Tech Press because that's what it does; I typed a response over the why of it all but will hold off until Azor / Umar tweets a final answer

If it ain't in production I shan't run to its defense, & if we find out the CES '8pipe' HS is in production?, it should go without saying it's because they deemed it the superior sink to have (& so I wouldn't feel compelled to post the why of it all anyways, but I do feel it's the better cooling solution & was prepped to say why as a rebuttal), '8pipes' nice to have though given the 200watts incoming: Azor just tweeted 2080 rated @200w soon

If as u & others may say: ' Either way, this system doesn't seem to have trouble cooling the GPU', well, should this '8pipe' prove to be a live product & prove even better cooling when placed over a 2080, & 9900k of course, it'd be an embarrassment of riches then wouldn't it, & one more for the win column

Spoiler

Someone here needs a heatsink comparison?

Owner '7pipe' top >< CES '8pipe' bottom

edit: Or was it the HS for the SSD?

Intel has several mainstream socket versions, collectively known as 115x, 1158 is a random number I picked to indicate a 'future' socket which is not 1151. Either new Comet Lake (rumored 14nm+++++++++++ 10core) will also be skt 1151 (as 3rd upgrade path when normal is two) or it will not be 1151 & will be a new socket (call it 1158 if u like, 1168, make one up that denotes it is not 1151); Intel can then release a new 10nm chip (for us to upgrade to) for that theoretical '1158' as the 2nd upgrade path ... it's too far out to know. This article tells us it may be a long time til we see a new Gen10 CPU, like Spring 2020 & nuthin for 2019 which defies belief actually. Stay focused on Comet & Ice Lake: Intel allegedly responds to Ryzen 3000 with 14nm Comet Lake, not Ice Lake

 

Ninja2000 posted pics of his lappy, here is one where the heatsink can be seen: (that’s his 51m)

 

Fair enough I suppose.

For the record, even if they do not release the CES one:
I still can't imagine there is anywhere near enough difference between the two if you consider where the die(s) actually lies and Heat pipe position matters the most. I think the one shipping will do a small margin better in combined loads for the CPU; and the CES model will cool the GPU somewhat better in GPU heavy tasks. Hardly enough to make or break either way. The way you word it sounds like a conspiracy.

Either heat-sink costs about the same to manufacture (if you consider the relatively low volume of expected sales on this niche model). Saving money on copper (almost exclusively from "heatpipe 7") is a non-factor. This is a guarantee from someone in the manufacturing business, who's job it is to quote stuff like this.

 

White color is +50usd

White privilege much? Racist!



/s

 

So pardon my logical opinion here. . . The "8" pipe heatsink is technically a 7 pipe heat sink. Since it was shared between the gpu and cpu. And the "7" pipe heat sink we seem to be getting has one wider heatpipe. So maybe the one we're getting is just the final version of that heatsink because they got better temps on the gpu by not sharing that heat pipe. And based on what members have shown we really don't need to be making such a fuss about it. The cooling solution seems to run very well and quiet of all things.

Btw the 200w update Azor tweeted has my interest. The more power the better.

 

From an engineering standpoint (albeit, civil...), I’d say it would be 99% that Dell would release the next card series compatible. So much money went into developing a new form factor vs recycling MXM, it would have to be a colossal failure or an incompatibility out of their hands (Nvidia) to cause that.

As far as Intel goes... Unless they break the normal cycle, expect the i9 9900 to be the best this laptop sees. Not to say that’s a bad thing. That processor will outlast any other component in terms of gaming performance anyways.

I’m honestly just happy to be away from BGA... My biggest fear with the i7 8750 laptops is that they will cook themselves in a year or two and leave you needing a new board. No more worries there, if my i7 9700 dies in the 2-4 years I plan to own this, I’ll probably be able to get a i9 9900 for cheap as it’s not a specialized part.

And hey, even if we only get 1-2 more video cards, that’s a mid lifecycle upgrade for me and maybe an end of lifecycle upgrade.

The prospect of a laptop that will stay fairly relevant over 5 years even is quite nice, for $4000 Canadian, I don’t think it can be beat. If I had to buy even 2 laptops within that time period I’d likely be over $6000-7000 already. Especially one that looks nice and isn’t some sort of black stoic block.

 

Thanks for the shutout bro, yes I’m quite curious what’s going on it’s the heatsink, even tho shouldn’t be that much difference and probably was just a prototype model what we saw at CES, but I do think will be good to have clear understanding what happened.

Yes agree the 200w sounds very good indeed, let’s see if later or very soon they update ram to 2666

 

Welp, I did it!

Still might cancel - few questions are out there - the heatsink, more build-quality impressions this week, and I want to stay comfortably under 90c on CPU with low-ish fans. Also, there's more volatility to the pricing of this damn thing than searching for a used car. But with Xotic running a President's Day sale that I imagine has to be ending any minute now, I went ahead and pulled the trigger:

ALIENWARE AREA-51M 2080
51M2080 $3,514.60
Ordered: 1
$3,514.60
Thermal Cooling

1 x Fujipoly Extreme Thermal Pads on heat sensitive surfaces for Superior Cooling Performance $49.00
131996
1 x Thermal Grizzly Kryonaut Thermal Paste- GPU & CPU (XPC Service) $36.75
10222
Warranty

1 x 2 Year Parts & LIFETIME Ltd Labor Warranty Tech Support w/ LCD Accidental Damage Protection $99.00
12011
Prioritized Build Options by XOTIC PC

1 x Rush Build (Ships in 1-4 Business Days After Order Is Successfully Processed) (Subject to Parts Availability) [List Unique Delivery Requirements in Comments Box] (XPC Service) $49.00
12061
Display Options

1 x 30 Day "No Dead Pixel" Guarantee $35.00
12073
Processor

1 x 9th Generation Intel® Core™ i9-9900K Processor (16MB Cache, 3.60-5.00GHz, 8 core | 16 thread) 95W $199.00
9692
M.2 SATA / PCIe / NVMe SSD Drive Slot 1

1 x 256GB Certified M.2 PCIe NVMe SSD (Seq. Read 2000MB/s, Seq. Write 1750MB/s) $53.10
137244
PCIe / NVMe SSD Drive Slot 2

1 x 256GB Certified M.2 PCIe NVMe SSD (Seq. Read 2000MB/s, Seq. Write 1750MB/s) $53.10
137244
Wireless Networking / Bluetooth

1 x Intel® 5th Generation Dual Band Wireless-AC 9260 802.11ac, 2x2 Wi-Fi + Bluetooth⁺ 5 $41.65
100000

***

So, for less than Dell even AFTER a 18% rebate (DPA + eBates), I get better paste and fujipoly applied for me, a bump to 16GB of RAM from the 8, and get 2x256GB SSDs in RAID0; plus a dead pixel guarantee and a supposedly better wireless chip.

I intend to upgrade the SSDs to 2x1TB 970 Evo Plus in RAID0, and will probably find a 4TB platter for the 2.5.

Also looking to bump RAM to 64GB if I can find a good deal. I remember someone on this thread posting they had some Vengeance for sale, but I can't find that post. Hit me up if that was you! ;p

Went back and forth on the warranty. Hopefully 2 years gets me by. My thinking is if something goes kaput after that, since this is a pretty modular machine, hopefully I'll be able to replace myself without much issue. And I doubt I'll want to be using this thing 3-4 years from now.

 

You can look Ebates up online; they have one for Canada and USA. Basically, if you order from Dell after you visit their site, they'll get a kickback from Dell and as a result they'll also give you cashback. The % cashback will vary depending on if they are running a promo, but promo % goes up to like 15%

 

Does anybody else find it hilarious that when selecting the GPU option for the Area 51-m, it shows MXM cards in the picture?

 

HeHe, forced by the other OEM's a second time At least it looks like the change will come faster this time.

https://www.techradar.com/news/mobi...-we-don-t-feel-that-benefit-right-now-1327167

Would be nice if some could test how the NVMe ssd's works in Area-51m.

 

That 200w tweet doe LOL

LOL which one

 

Yeah that’s quite annoying, I was going to order the white one then I saw they charge for that model more than the black one, I end up ordering the black one, not paying more for a damn color, I put that money and bought more extra ram.

 

Xotic PC charges more for the black!

 

Which makes me think they do get the discounts doing massive bulk orders and then trying to make up some margin on services and warranty. I mean, at the end of the day, I did pay them $100 basically to apply some thermal paste and do it quickly, lol.

 

And I gladly paid that 80 bucks and still getting the machine with lots of upgrades for less than Dell wants for it including tax and shipping.



Sent from my SM-N960F using Tapatalk

 

despite piss poor CPU temp with R4 and R5, alienware has done EXTREMELY well in GPU cooling department, even with GTX 1080 full 180W. Temps are just excellent even when overclocked and it's even better when undervolted. My temps with GTX1080 overclocked to 1960MHz barely touch 70C when running witcher 3. In fact it's hovering under 65C majority of the time. I have utmost confidence in their ability to cool GPU.

having said that, in some shipped laptops, owners might run into stuttering issue due to poor contact cooling for GPU power delivery circuit especially when running at 180W. this is a quality issue which requires a complete overhaul of the VRM and chokes thermal pad on the GPU side, something which i hope will not happen again in area-51m.

I kept looking at area-51m DGFF board and i cant help but notice the VRMs are not visible on the top side of the board. it's just the chokes. how are the VRMs cooled?

 

maybe it's not


or maybe the mylar sheet is just insulating the heat within? can't possibly transfer heat effectively though that, esp that thermal pad on the heatsink is only for the vram

 

To send you a swap they have to order a new build from China, and that will take ~20 days, and in the meantime there goes your 15-day no-questions-asked return-full-refund period, plus your year's warranty has already started ticking when you first received it. So in ALL cases the logical choice is to return it for full refund within the allocated period.

IIRC consumer plastics come out in black and any other colour requires extra manufacturing steps.

Yeah, I think that was money down the drain, if you got bad temps which is not what others have been reporting, you could have done it yourself for a fraction of the cost.

Please note that on the sister AW17R5 I have completely removed the chokes' pads and so far it's been fantastic. I have done this on two working AW17R5 laptops. I think trying to cool the chokes is a terrible idea. (a) chokes are not ICs, they are very hardy to 100s of degrees C, (b) their pads lift the heatsink off the nearby VRMs, (c) their heat adds to the VRMs as they are at the edges of the heatsink.

Please also note that thermal pads placed loosely over the contoured heatpipes without making proper contact, is another joke. At least on the AW17R5.

 

im not worried about the chokes but more on the VRMs. The imprints on area 51m thermal pads did not show any sign of VRMs

 

yes all the imprints on the thermal pads for area-51m GPU side did not indicate any VRMs being cooled directly. the imprints are mostly for chokes and GDDR6. should we be concerned?

 

Hi @ all,

coming back to AW after 3 years of using my P870DMG and I but I still have to wait till the 8th of march!

The system comes preinstalled but for sure I will setup the system myself, question is which drivers to use?
The ones we get from DELL (contaminated and bloated) OR from the manufacturer (Realtec, Intel, ...)

Would it be a good idea to start a "download-thread"for our AW Area - 51m?

 

I just emailed them complaining there was a problem with my order and explained I was in the UK yet received a US keyboard so would like either the keyboard changed or a replacement machine and they offered either £100 refund or return

 

I'd love this and I haven't even placed my order yet

 

Can some share these massive discount deals they are able to get or have gotten so others can get better pricing? Several tries and the best was maybe $500. $5000 system for $3600? Yes, please.

 

I've always found that about 5-7 days before the end of the month was the best time to upgrade/buy most services as thats when agents start getting twitchy about meeting their monthly target and are therefore more willing to use their available 'spend' to ensure they hit their target.

Might not be the same for laptops though but just a thought.

 

They have an available spend? Thanks for the tip! Something to keep in mind though these others have gotten it couple of weeks ago.

 

Agree, I would like to do a fresh clean install to get ride of all the crap they send it with.

 

Apart from the audio driver which is customized, I always prefer the manufacturer drivers over those of Dell. Some of those Dell drivers block updates from the manufacturers which means you have to fully uninstall those first before you can even use the original drivers.

 

I'm not 100% if they do within Dell, but I used to work for a phone company and thats how sales and retentions used to work.

Hope it works out well for you though .