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

I literaly said the build quality of the M18x is superior. Never said anything else. I've also owned a Clevo P570WM with 10-core HEDT Xeon CPU.

Yes the P870DM3 has the best cooling out of the laptops I've owned.

I was purely speaking of build quality, chassis construction. Ease of access was also annoying on the M18x. I still have 2 of my M18x models, my friend has my old P870DM, maybe I'll do a build quality comparison video on all three side by side.

I hope you realize by build quality we mean chassis quality etc. The only fragile connector was the HDD clip. If you were careful and did things right nothing else should break.

I've probably disassembled my current M18x 50 times at least. Probably 5 times in the last 2 months. After 7 years its still fine.

My friend dropped it down stairs and it doesn't even have a dent. Don't think my P870DM would have survived the same.

yes! it already has high refresh rate 144hz gsync, tobii, 72% NTSC color gamut. Just need 100% AdobeRGB and it'll be great!

Where is this post y'all talking about? Nvm just saw it. For what it's worth, they're actually talking to the team about adding 8700K support. Whether they do it or not we'll see but it's better than nothing. @EepoSaurus

If anything you can order from Dell and try to get them to lower price. My final config was still $400+ cheaper than HID with the best discount they could provide. I didn't add any of their services so for me it was purely price although if ordering from them you should definitely take advantage of the delid/repaste service.

XoticPC idk....I didn't like the answer style to my questions so I stuck with Dell. I also don't like having to wait 2-3 weeks and paying return shipping on repairs.
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@Khenglish from what you can see from this pic....do you think the MB is build well enough for 9900K?

 

I thought 4K is supported natively in win 10 w/o scaling issues and text and icons were too damn small. Well, I didn't think of changing scaling haha...

 

Well build quality by my definition is more than just using an aluminum chassis, it includes everything about the design and the materials used under the hood too!
Example - the 17 R4 I owned not long ago had a decent chassis, but it was still using a very thin cheap mobo, with terrible ribbon connectors on and a defective heatsink from the factory (tripod design - uneven core distro) ... this is poor build quality.

I myself am careful with the ribbon connectors, but I can say that 99% of your joe blogs damage the connector under the hard disk and the little connectors for the keyboard + macro key LED's, for example, i see this time and time again.. for it to be such a repeat occurrence this clearly a build quality issue on the mobo, and the GPU's overheated - this was well known in the community too, again build quality.

I am a massive M18X R2 veteran myself, and I mean years with my system, but in comparison and in my persona l opinion, it isn't as overall built as good, when you factor the whole package in.

The P870KM1-G is better thought out design, better thermal performance in terms of its watts in Vs heat dissipation, better audio, it pips the m18x on a like for like in all areas except for the metal chassis, that is literally it as far as I'm concerned.

 

Donald says that if you change cpu you can no longer OC with Dell software? This is just for 8700k models right? If you went from a 9700k to a 9900k the software should still work?

 

Right and Umar kinda said the 8700k will be added soon.

 

You should be using ThrottleStop anyway.

 

Tpu holder I 3d printed for 180/240w. If you guys want I'll upload the stl when I get home later.

 

@EepoSaurus i7-8700K installed BTW

Maybe he can shed some light on the AW tools working or not (I presume he is using Throttlestop though)

 

Which cable was this? The 330 watt one or the 180 watt one?

 

There are scaling issues only with badly written Windows apps, and as time goes by all apps become better. So I have experienced a couple of apps like that, but by far, apps work perfectly in 4K. Text on 4K is of unparalleled clarity and detail. Both on 15" and on 17" and even on my wife's 13" MacBook Pro, "retina" screens are instantly recognisable for their immaculate fonts and great graphics. It is as if you're reading a very expensive book printed at the best presses.

 

Just got to the desktop on mine. Immediately noticeable backlight bleed but I'll give it a minute to warm up. Doing a fresh install of windows to an SSD

Edit: the SSHD is so bad lol, just wanted to download drivers but it's so slow its unusable with that useless drive. I wouldn't even consider it for games.

 

I'm in Sweden too, lets see who gets it first
Hope we both get one without big issues.

Gonna change anyhting in it or repaste etc?

 

SSHD's are the biggest gimmick ever known to humanity. Like if they claim that the drive has part HDD and part SSD, how in the world does the drive know what data to put on the faster SSD part and what data to put on the slower HDD section of it? Do you trust its controller to be smart enough to know that? I wouldn't, not in a million years. Either get an SSD or get an SSD, there's no way around that.

 

What cave have you been living in? DPI Scaling has been one of the biggest issues since Windows 8 and Windows 10, reason being is that Windows 7 although wasn't perfect, at least it was way better since it performs DPI scaling on a system wide level. Windows 8 and Windows 10 do DPI scaling on a per app basis. That means some apps will scale perfectly and others that don't support DPI scaling well will either have blurry text or misaligned buttons.

Still not a perfect solution but way better than the default DPI Scaling:

• How to fix the bad Windows 10 DPI Scaling which makes some programs appear blurry

Also read this: How to change DPI settings for 'classic' apps on Windows 10 April 2018 Update

 

I have zero Clevo hate, infact it was the brand I was about to buy before the A51m was announced.

But should anyone compare a supercar that's been enhanced performance wise (prema-mod) to a car thats just been released? Give it a chance?

In my opinion there has been too many prema mod Clevo users bashing the A51m.

 

Overall appearance - M18x
Overall chassis material - M18x (metal inside out)
LCD enclosure - M18x (edge to edge glass, aluminum back panel)
LCD choices - P870 (newer times, more standard 17.3" panels so many options)
Ports - Tie (for their time both have good selection) [Although M18x has HDMI IN which is very useful for me]
Performance - P870 series (obviously)
Cooling - P870 (vapor chamber)
Speakers - P870 for overall loudness/sound stage, M18x for bass
Keyboard - M18x
Trackpad - Tie (I've owned 2 P870 and 5 M18x and they're both on a similar level IMO)
Battery life - M18x (iGPU only mode detroys P870 dGPU only mode battery obviously)
Power delivery - Tie in terms of power usage (both can use 2x330w ac adapters although P870 has better overall power delivery design due to desktop class hardware
Upgradability - Tie (M18x can use 580M - 880M series, R2 can use 580M to 1060/1070) (P870DM was crippled and requires MXM mods to support newer Clevo cards but P870DM3+ can use newer cards with minimal mods)
Workability - P870 (M18x requires disassembly just to get to CPU/GPU but P870 has almost everything under the bottom panel)

I wouldn't consider any Clevo w/o a PremaMod bios. Anyways this is my personal opinion.

Yup, MacOS destroys Windows in DPI scaling. My macbook looks really good but windows still has many DPI issues.

Yup, just wait until I get this thing. I'll make it run like a super car (hoping those firmware limits aren't too harsh)

 

So doing some early testing. Doing AIDA64, Intel XTU, and ThrottleStop.

With stock thermal pads/paste, about 5 seconds after I start the benchmark I hit 90C. The fans then start to play catch up. I hit thermal throttling after probably about 30 seconds. After the fans catch up and the system seems content with 90C, the thermal throttling stops and the power throttling kicks in.

So, I went to do an undervolt. Core and cache at -.125, system didn't crash. No thermal throttling this time, but very fast to 90C. Power limit throttling still. I set ALL turbos to 40 in TS - instantly stopped power limit throttling and temps dropped to the mid 70s. Like, within 3 seconds.

I don't think my CPU likes going near its max turbo. Overall, THIS IS A GOOD THING. I haven't owned a laptop in a few years that didn't take a little undervolting or tweaking, and this is super cool when just dropping down a little bit. I think the OC profiles will have 0 real world application, but you might be able to get a huge run in from cold boot on a benchmark if you want to do that for whatever reason.

I'm comparing this to a Lenovo Legion y740 2080 max-q. They basically have mirrored settings and both are doing good thermally. The Alienware Area-51m is running extremely cool and all I had to do was drop the turbos a bit. Will continue to tweak and report back.

edit: Setting all to 45 (4.5ghz) made it go into the mid 80sC and brought back power limit throttling. Lowering to 43 seems a nice "sweet" spot for my build - 75-85C stable with no power limit throttling. I'll run Firestrike a handful of times at this setting to see what a "real world"/"stable" score looks like. 44 makes it go mid 80s, but no power limit throttle. That said, its a bit hot for my liking.

Also, where is manual fan control for Alienware? Is there a hot key? On the Lenovo I just hit FN+Q and the fans go full blast. When I updated the A51m bios, the thing went on an insane fan loudness that I've never seen in a laptop before, I'd love for that to be an option!

edit: Just found in command center the "thermal" options, which when I clicked "performance" kicked the fans on to full notch even from a cold boot, so I guess that is how to get fans going. According to my phone, not over 50 db at any time. I'll run some tests on "thermal performance mode"

edit: "thermal full speed" is well... full speed and A LOT louder. It isn't really necessary though. This laptop seems to hit its power limits if it doesn't hit its thermal limit. Requires some massive reduction of turbos, but leads to an overall stable system. I don't think anyone can claim it is a thermal disaster, but it isn't anything to necessarily brag about either.

 

In case anyone is interested the Dell US website has the 51m with the RTX2060 starting at $1949.99.

 

edit 6-21-19: RTX 2080 list cost to replace from Dell = $2,325

below is my original post

Below you will find GPU CPU Memory Estimated Costs

​

Purpose: Cost estimate 2060 2070 2080 GRFX cards

• 2060 = X | 2070 = $600 + X | 2080 = $1050 + X

Personal Opinion: 2060 = ~$ 525 | 2070 ~$ 1125 | 2080 ~$ 1575

Est. Cost vs Desktop GRFX MSRP:

• 2070 add +600 = 1125 = $600~ over MSRP ($500)
• 2080 add +1050 = 1575 = $850~ over MSRP ($700)
• ... ... ...

Desktop GRFX MSRP Multipliers:

• 2060 $350 x 1.5 = 525
• 2070 $500 x 2.25 = 1125 (double: 525 x 2.15 = 1125)
• 2080 $700 x 2.25 = 1575 (triple: 525 x 3 = 1575)

_________________
​

Cost, SideVent Heatsink: disclaimer added a few days ago to sales page: Intel® Core™ i7-8700 with NVIDIA® GeForce RTX™ 2060 configuration does not have side-exhaust

• an unknown cost is factored into total GPU cost for optional side vent heatsink that 2070 & 2080 come with, it's up to you to est. that cost, mine's $25

• an unknown 2060 GPU cost is factored into base $1950 laptop which can not be known; it's 'hidden' inside of the base price & must be estimated relative to known 2070 & 2080 price differentials where a pattern may emerge
• ~Pattern: 2060 = X, 2070 = 2X, 2080 = 3X (525 / 1125 / 1575)

I'm glad the 2060 is here, we can now estimate how much 2070 & 2080 buyers paid for their DGFF GRFX cards (*Day 1 prices above may be subject to change later)

The cost of 2060 is 'hidden', it is Included In Price & simply makes up some cost inside of the $1950 / US base price & must be estimated by the public; to upgrade to 2070 or 2080, the buyer must 1st pay the estimated cost of this base 2060 & add it into the cost of 2070 / 2080 where:

• 2060 est. cost = X
• 2070 est. cost = $600 + X
• 2070 est. cost = $1050 + X

Buyers paid at least $600 for 2070 & at least $1050 for 2080 - plus X - the cost of original 2060 they must 1st pay for & then opt out of ... we already knew the difference in cost between 2070 / 2080 is $450 & still is; we know that by adding a $600 2070 into the cart today reveals the original $2550 base price; when adding 2080 the original $3000 price appears (2550 + 450), so the prices today are legit

Lo-Hi MSRP for desktop GRFX shown only for comparison:

$350 FE | $500-$600 FE | $700-$800 FE

*Note: Due to proprietary DGFF, desktop MSRPs are our sole point of reference

Relative to desktop 2060 MSRP, the +$600 2070 is quite a stretch between their normal $150-$250 disparity; when moving from 2070 > 2080 > add $450 is another stretch between their normal $200 disparity

For Mobile RTX, I'd like to see a ~$300 relative difference between (60>70) due to the $450 difference (70>80) but I don't think I can get there, in fact I know I can't since 70 80 incur a very steep premium as seen in this Table as we go looking for 2060 = X:

Tables:
350 | 950 | 1400
400 | 1000 | 1450
450 | 1050 | 1500
500 | 1100 | 1550
525 | 1125 | 1575
550 | 1150 | 1600
600 | 1200 | 1650

Ex: if 2060 = 450 then 2070 = $1050 & 2080 = $1500
*Note: Table loses symmetry & doesn't 'scale' due to 60 > 70 +600, 70 > 80 +450

At 1st blush, when 2060 = 450, it's a reasonable estimate (slightly less than 25% of entire $1950 cost); however, the disparity is quite large, 450 > 1050 > 1500 & a 'pattern' develops: X 2X 3X; now's a good time for 2060's base MSRP:

• 350 | 950 | 1400

Here, even at $350, the 2080 grows to $1400 ($700 MSRP) or double the price of its desktop counterpart & w/ less TDP (180w-200w vs 215-225w) even as 2060 is at its MSRP

$350 for 2060 is unrealistic in the face of 2080 costing double-MSRP*, where no correctly thinking person will assume the Aliens are giving 2060s away - clearly they're not - given the estimated but bloated 70 & 80 price points uncovered above

Is 2060 $500? More? If so, why, &, wouldn't it make 70 80 cost more?

Rather than just $350 - desktop MSRP - I find it more likely the 2060 represents ~$525 of the base price so that the Aliens can make big profit over MSRP* which they've plainly done & are doing with the 70 & 80 without even blushing; we can not however estimate the 2060 under its MSRP* either; the lower it goes the more out of whack the 70 80 prices are relative to it:

• 300 | 900 | 1350 > X 3X 4.5X <

If you as buyer must 'decrease' the cost of 2060 below $525 in order to 'correct for' high 70 & 80 prices (& make yourself feel better from sticker shock), you will - & must - do so in the face of exorbitant 70 & 80 which is to say it is far more likely that 2060 is itself well over MSRP* than it is likely for it to be near it ... so forget about at or under it

This is brand new Mobile RTX upgradeable & inside 'the world's most powerful laptop' & all that bundled hype needs to be cashed in on ... is being, rather

2060 as a hot new product must also fetch a big price like its bigger brothers are already doing; which is to say the 70 & 80 move so far past their MSRP* it is a given the 60 does too; with the 60 however, it isn't as drastic, so whether buyer has really payed $500 or $600, +/- $100 isn't the worst AlienTax I've encountered, hardly ...

You'd be wrong to move too far under those 2060 estimates though, & you may be wrong to try to even budge from them: these proprietary GPUs are costly ...

... all three flavors are, that u can be sure of ...

See spoiler at bottom of page which outlines my reasoning for why 2060 is ~$525, 70 is ~$1125, 80 is ~$1575

• 2060 MSRP 350 x 1.5 = 525
• 2070 MSRP 500 x 2.25 = 1125
• 2080 MSRP 700 x 2.25 = 1575
• see Tables from earlier or in spoiler

Come Full Circle:

• our $1100 2070 includes $25 for side vents
• our $1550 2080 includes $25 for side vents
• ... ... ...

Cost Over Eqwivalent Desktop GRFX MSRP (500 & 700):

• 2070 add +$600 = $600 over MSRP
• 2080 add $1050 = $850 over MSRP
• ... ... ...

CPU Price Estimates: 8700 $360 | 9700k $460 | 9900k $810

MSRP for base 8700 = $303 & represents ~that amount in the new $1950 base price (& in the prior $2550 base price when 2070 was base GPU):

• add $100 9700k = ~$400 (Newegg $420)

• add $450 9900k = ~$750 (Newegg $530)

We already have a price issue at $303, since 9700k prices BELOW Newegg, this is a non-no; it is far more likely that 8700 represents $50/$75 more so that the Aliens can make profit off of new Gen9 & new GEN9 HYPE (you won't milk them: they will milk you); I'll estimate it as a $360 CPU then, so 9700k = $460 9900k = $810

When 8700 = $360 & 2060 = $525, CPU GPU = $885 & therefore buyer pays $1085 for 'the rest of the laptop', a rationale estimate (as is a $600 2060 is rationale, while over $600 begins to encroach into territory I can't easily sponsor but could, given all the price bloat going around); however, if the above CPU/GPU prices are considered valid by you the reader then when the buyer:

• adds $810 9900k & adds $1575 2080
• $2385 invests into CPU GPU HS

$2385 - $530 (Newegg 9900k) = ~$ 1850 into just GPU (+ Heatsink)

Memory Price Estimates

If you value 8Gb of included mem as $50 / $70, add 700 = $750 / $770 is your cost, then shop for equivalent 2666 kit online & that is the overcharge. I'll use 8Gb = $60 (avg)

Ex: Kingston 2666 32Gb = $ 240 >< x2 Kits 64Gb = $480

• 32Gb: 360 - 240 = 120 overcharge
• 64Gb: 760 - 480 = 280

DGFF GPU Price Rationale in spoiler for those wishing to analyze potential costs as I have

Spoiler: Multipliers 1.5x 2.25x Over MSRP

Sales Menu 2060 > 2070 = +600
Sales Menu 2070 > 2080 = +450
MSRPs: 350 > 500 / 600 > 700 / 800

• MSRP Disparities between SKUs: 250 & 200

$250 is to $562 (250 x 2.25) as $200 is to $450 (200 x 2.25)

• (250 x 2.4 = $600) | avg: 2.325 (e.g. 2.4 - 2.25)

Multipliers of 2.25, 2.325, 2.4 are suspect as the result:

• MSRP 2070 > 2080 = $200 Disparity (500/600 > 700/800)
• 2070 > 2080 = add $450
• $200 MSRP disparity x 2.25 = $450
• MSRP 2060 > 2070 = $250 disparity (350 > 600)
• 2060 > 2070 = add $600
  
• $250 MSRP disparity x 2.25 = $562
• (note: 250 x 2.4 = $600 | avg = 2.325)

Relative Tables: 2060 2070 2080

500 | 1100 | 1550

525 | 1125 | 1575

550 | 1150 | 1600

• 2080 $700 MSRP x 2.25 = 1575
• When 2080 = 1575 | 2070 = 1125 | 2060 = 525
• 525 x 2.15 = 1128 (note: x 2.25 = 1180 - 1128 = $53)
• 2.15 for 2070 is less than 2.25 for 2080
• 2070 is 'worth $50 less' than 2080 as a GRFX Card, which is to say 2080 is worth $50 more (higher multiplier: 2.25 vs 2.15) since it is the top GRFX Card
• 2060 is also 'worth less' than 70 & 80 as a GRFX Card

Notes: Since 2060s are new, they've already been out-sold by 70 & 80; moving forward they may, may incur less sales volume; they're also 'worth less' as a product-for-profit (& so priced less)

2060 MSRP vs est. Price: 350 vs 525 > 350 x 1.5 = 525

2070 MSRP vs est. Price: 500 vs 1125 > 500 x 2.25 = 1125

2080 MSRP vs est. Price: 700 vs 1575 > 700 x 2.25 = 1575

2.25 as a multiplier for 70 & 80 ... ... ...

(*Note: 2.25 will not work for 2060: 350 x 2.25 = 787 > (2070 then = 1387 > 2080 then = 1837), only because I find it difficult to price the 2060 so high; however, $600 2070 MSRP x 2.25 = 1350 | $800 MSRP 2080 x 2.25 = 1800 ... so the math jives nicely)

However, 2060s may be worth more to Dellware in the long run: DGFF upgradeable GRFX like 2070 2080 should fetch a pretty penny when bought direct from DellSales; there's profit in the sales menu starter 2060 (1.5x), then later when customer upgrades to 70 80 (2.25x); I suspect that when customer buys direct DGFF card they will pay more than they would've at checkout, estimate might be $1200 2070 & $1700 2080 for example; when DGFF cards go live in the SparePartsDirectory, we can check, will check

It is possible they're going low (1.5x) on 2060 at checkout, based on projected future 70 & 80 Sales later as the over-priced discrete upgrade parts (2.25x +) that they are

Feel free to comment

 

Surprisingly solid pricing... but sheds light on the insanity of the 2080 pricing. ONE THOUSAND DOLLARS to bump up from a 2060 to a 2080?! That’s kind of insane.

2060 + 9700K + 16GB for $2149 is clearly the sweet spot on price erformance.

 

I can't get to 23000 in Firestrike no matter how hard I try with the i7-9700k. Went to Overclock Profile 2 and still hitting around 22500. At my actual prolonged stable settings I hit 21500, so that seems to be where I'll let it stay.

 

https://imgur.com/a/c5jhSSi


Got the laptop today.
1- attached above pictures for it outside and inside.
2- build quality is very good
3- Gets super hot with NO overclocking at all
4- keyboard is good but not like the MSI GT75
5- will compare games benchmarks with the MSI GT75 titan-013 ( which i am getting tomorrow ). if same results with less heat, i will keep the MSI.
6- will compare gaming frame rates, screen, sound, keyboard, temps and disk speed.

 

Looking forward to your review

 

Go back to Balanced Power Plan from Ultimate Power and run tests again. This also goes for anyone using TS. In Bob of All Trades video on taming the hot ass 8750H CPU he mentions that changing your power plan from balanced to any type of perfromance mode pretty much makes what you did in TS null and void.

 

With respect, you're not the only one around here who has hands on experience with varies laptops. @ssj92 said most of what I was going to say so read his reply, but just to be clear I too was talking about the chassis and material of the body. I had made no mention of the internals or superior heat sink that the 870 surely has.

I'm hands on with a system (laptops, desktops, delidding, resurfacing, modding, testing, tuning, benching etc...) literally almost every day. Therefore, I hold no bias when it comes to certain things as I just look at it for what it is.

We can agree to disagree, but the keyboard, mouse pad and overall material quality on the 870 is a joke IMO. I've made many mentions of this throughout the years where even a wally world chrome book has a better track pad and keyboard quality than an 870 and that is a fact. Go visit your local wally world and check out the $100-150 chrome books on display to see for yourself. It's sad but true.

So I too stand on my point of knowing what I know with hands on experience like you...and I have my own non bias opinions based on reality and not emotions. (Not referring to you, but to the obvious trolls who linger these forums who don't have any hands on experience or even own a system they constantly belittle. Childish I know..)

I would take what he said in the video with a grain of salt... As we know, at least here in the US and EU, a company can only deny a warranty (unless it is written, which to my knowledge it is not) that the cause of the damage was related to something that the user did.

Yea it's a pity to have any limits that's for sure. As for the proprietary stuff, a lot of that is nothing new...

Also, keep in mind that the power limits can be changed and as you've saw in the article, they have already announced that they plan to up the power limit so let's not forget that...

As I've mentioned above, take what he said with a grain of salt. I've inquired about the whole repasting thing, specifically for the Area 51M and basically nothing has changed in that it does NOT void your warranty ... the only real difference here is that they would like for users to use their thermal paste, but ..... ok enough said lol...

Don't worry about. I can tell you one thing for sure having dealt with varies companies, in that out of all of them, Dell is the most lenient and helpful, despite their horrific CS if you connect with india reps... I'd recommend speaking to SA reps instead and anyone here who has dealt with them will tell you the same. It's just the truth... no sugar coating.

Well said and exactly my point too...

Like what @ThatOldGuy said, you should be using Throttle Stop anyway. As for the microcodes, if they haven't been added before shipping, they will be added.

 

Why? Because of the temps?

Where have he posted that he plan to up the power limit for Cpu? or you meant the announced 200w for graphics?

 

Been away from forums a bit so no idea what's going on since I last posted but some updates. For those that haven't seen my old posts, I have max spec 9900k, rtx 2080, 64gb ram.

I've repasted using 4 thermal pastes. Arctic silver 5, liquid metal (grizzly), thermonaut (grizzly) and MX-5. None made a single degree of difference in temps for the CPU so the cooler itself seems to be at its maximum cooling capacity with factory thermal paste.

For the GPU, it's a different story. Some of the thermal tape wasn't touching the copper cooling pipes and the factory thermal paste had air pockets. I repasted, retaped, and added graphite pads on top of the tape and GPU temps went from 89 to 92C benchmarking to 73 to 78C. Huge difference.

Highest single run cinebench: 2280
Highest 20 consecutive run cinebench: 2042

Highest Firestrike: 24,877
Highest 20 consecutive run firestrike: 24,103

Anthem 1080p ultra everything FPS Avg: 118
Anthem 1440p ultra everything fps avg: 92

Time spy max score: 11,020
Time spy 20 consecutive run score: 10,776

Rtx 2080 at +160core +95memory, any higher and bluescreens.

CPU at 5.3ghz, 1.24v, -32mv offset.

Tldr: thermal paste helped GPU performance but stock thermal paste on CPU already maxes out the copper coolers cooling capacity. Dont think GPU repasting would have helped me if my factory thermal paste didnt have air gaps- so if you're seeing 70s to 80s GPU, repasting from factory likely wont improve temps much. Did nothing for me.

I did not delid and I think delidding the 51m is pointless. I think the copper cooler is already maxed in its cooling capacity- moving more heat to it wont help.

 

Tried but same results. NFS is my favorite but it always pushes the cpu to 100 and the gpu very high.

 

Correct the power limit for the GPU.

Perhaps if they are being proactive with doing this, maybe we will see other "lifts," in the future?

That would be nice.

 

Futuremark validation links and Cinebench screen shots?

The highest recorded Fire Strike run I can find for any system with a RTX 2080 Notebook GPU is more than that and it's not from an Area 51m... https://www.3dmark.com/fs/18089754

The highest recorded Time Spy run I can find for an RTX 2080 Notebook GPU is slightly more than that and it is not from an Area 51m... https://www.3dmark.com/spy/6038087 and the highest I can find for the Area 51m is less than that... https://www.3dmark.com/spy/6374437

 

In his pics on Imgur, one of them shows the power plan and it is set to Ultimate Power.

ETA: Somebody else above said that they tried going back to balanced and it didn't help any. I was not sure if what Bob of All Trades said in his video was valid or not as I never use anything other than Balanced power plan.

 

A lot of people are saying things but not posting. When I get the Area-51M I'll be sure to post the links and SS as well.

@Mr. Fox does the rockit delid tool from 6700K/7700K also work on 9900K?

 

I will as well so everyone can see if delidding the 9700K makes a huge difference.

 

Yeah, but does this matter? Nope. I have used High and Ultimate power plans with Throttlestop a long time on Coffee. Ultimate power plan is only M$'s expencive Scam. One or two small changes vs. High performance power plan and none affect cpu performance.. Balanced plan is in short used due crippled cooling. Some people recommend it for those with heat problems.

 

I believe it will, but I have not used it on a 9900K myself. I am not sure if that is what Steve Burke (GamersNexus) used or if he used the one made by Roman (der8auer), but I have no reason to believe it will not work fine.

It's kind of sad that the BIOS is so gimped. Good that ThrottleStop and XTU work though, because that stupid Windows 10 UWP app looks like an utter piece of crap. I don't get the 2666 memory speed limit either. That's just pure nonsense. We have been running 3000 and 3200 on Clevos for a couple of years now. There's no reason (other than ignorance on the part of their engineers) for them to be capping the RAM speed like that. They need to just release a BIOS that is actually worthy of the 9900K and stop playing silly control freak games with their firmware.

 

I do believe Steve at Gamers Nexus used the der8aur tool.

 

Thanks for this. I was wondering why my download was so slow. I used the program and now the Download speed is so much quicker.

 

RIP Monday's midterm......my Area-51M delivery date was changed to THIS thursday

I'm also baffled about the 2666 memory issue! I've been communicating with them over twitter and there's so positive things going on and some mystery stuff that still needs to be solved.

If they listen to us I'd be surprised. I requested them to add BIOS OC support for @EepoSaurus 8700K which he said runs amazing in the system. He can already use XTU to OC but said TS doesn't work with that CPU.

I was also surprised 200W vBIOS is coming which is nice and all but we'll see how much it helps...


When I flashed my 1060 with a 88w vBIOS compared to 78W stock, it wasn't much of a difference.

 

Don't have any screenshots for any single run high scores, frankly because I don't care about them. They're not indicative of what the system can do in most situations. Everything runs better before heat sets in. I do have screenshots of the 20 runs though. Anyone can cold start a PC, immediately run a benchmark, and score much higher than the following runs.

My 3Dmark software isn't "official" so I cant submit them online- so I don't have validation links but you can see the valid check in the screenshot. Also have Cinebench 20 run screenshot.

 

Not sure who this is in response to, but you'll see I have posted a LOT in the past 30 or so pages.

 

Here is the part of the video where he is discussing it for reference. I misspoke earlier. What he is saying is that by setting it to Better Performance in the battery tab Windows is going to run all your CPU cores at their max frequency whether they are under load or not which will mask your actual performance.



For whatever reason the video will not attach here at the timestamp I told it to start at. Go to about 7:15 in the video. This is where he talks about it.

 

https://www.3dmark.com/compare/fs/18507677/fs/18507602/fs/18507525/fs/18508422/fs/18508342

All runs is from today.

All my computers is put to High performance. They run as expected.

 

Some people are actually very interested in that and think that is does matter, and posting proof is always good. It gives the person posting and the product they are proud of a whole lot more credibility. Even if you're not interested in cold-boot performance, if you post the information about it, including the evidence to support it, this appreciated by just about everyone that reads the post whether they are planning to overclock and run benchmarks or not.

I have always benched my laptops on a portable AC unit and this one would be no exception. The rest of the time I run them at a clock speed the cooling system is capable of managing without the portable AC unit. It would be pretty disappointing to run into a firmware-induced performance limitation at a point where thermal management capabilities become irrelevant.

 

Hmm. Interesting.

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Speaking of firmware-induced performance limitations, has anyone been able to get Windows 7 running properly on the Area 51m yet? Any CSM support in the BIOS?

Anyone buying a new laptop with an RTX GPU because they are excited about ray tracing and DLSS could likely benefit from a reality check. I love my modded RTX 2080 Ti, but not for those reasons. I love it because it gives me higher benchmark scores than what I could achieve with my modded 1080 Ti.

Here is a reality check on the RTX/DLSS gimmick. (Be sure to watch it full screen in 4K for the full effect.)

 

Legacy mode is supported if I remember correctly. Issue will be drivers.

I'll try and get 7 working on the Area-51M and post a guide if I do...I have some spare WD Blacks I can use. Probably won't see much from me until after Monday once my exams are done.


But expect a barrage of content after that LOL

 

That's on my baseline, still stock 51m that has steam on it and steam 3dmark. You'll see screenshots and posts from it on this thread around page 278 or so. My repasted version does not have official software on it. Why? I'm running benchmarks side by side and the steam version can only run on one machine at a time. I dont have 2 steam accounts.

 

You should be able to get modded drivers from Fernando and friends over at win-raid forum. Maybe not for the crappy Intel iGPU, but that's not important unless the system has some kind of dependency on it being functional.

 

Here is the stl file for the 180w/240w ac adapter holder I made. Enjoy!

https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:3455977

 

I'll have to take a look over there.

As far as I know, nVidia GPU is connected directly to internal display so nVidia drivers probably just need a modified inf?

 

http://forum.notebookreview.com/search/21823557/

The test I showed was posted today. + You have a lot scores on Futuremark. From several days. And from what I know the i9-9900K doesn't run stock.