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

Not today, but who know about 2-3 years down the road. You can use almost whatever Cpu now. Game Tests 1440p who is the normal screen for laptops nowadays. Game Tests with 1080p.

Test setup graphics NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1080 Ti

Expect about same performance differences as with Pascal.

 

So basically the i7 and i9 for gaming perform the same. Good to know.

 

Honestly, I plan to remove the 9900k from the laptop and swap with my 8700k in my desktop.

 

I've read all the post on this thread, I'm a big fan of Alienware's laptops. I've owned the M17x R1 and the AW18, I loved both of them, though the M17X R1 had all kind of issues lol, but the chassis was the best I've seen on a laptop.

My thoughts on all topics I've seen so far PS: *I just use the laptop to play pc games and web browsing*:

• I have no doubts that the chassis on the Area-51M will be top notch. You might like or dislike the design but Alienware use first class materials on their laptops, at least the ones I've owned.
• A 4k resolution on a 17 inchs screen, makes no sense at all. Windows scalling is not good enough, sometimes makes stuffs blurry or sometimes it just doesn't work at all. When gaming you won't notice the difference between 4k and FHD, that's because the screen is too small. What you'll notice is your frame rate going down, and in case you try to down the resolution then you face the no native resolution blurry effect. I'd be happier honestly with HDR screen than 4K
• 138W is a limit high enough for a LGA CPU on a laptop form factor. I have the 8700K with 118W limit and when running all six cores at 4.3GHz on 100% AVX load (Prime95) temperature goes as high as 90+ºC, to me 90+ºC is not really healthy or is not a temperature I want for my sistem. So good luck trying to cool down 138W
• Even if the Area-51m has desktop cpu socket it probably won't get a cpu refresh support, but IMO the cpu is overrated when gaming so in case you get the 9700k you'll be fine for a couple of years.
• The Area-51m not being a SLI machine has nothing to do with Dell, it was a decition from Nvidia. RTX mobile series won't be able to operate on SLI, that really sucks. There were always good use for a second GPU, being that use SLI or PhysX.
• Based on preliminary information I'd still go for SLI 1080 instead of single 2080, but that's just me.

Well, I'm not going to buy this laptop given I bought the P870TM1 just a few months ago, but believe me Alienware chassis alone make a world of difference. Overall I'm happy with the news that AW is going back to an upgradeable machine

 

Well that just sounds like you do it for fun then.

I watched some benchmarks that put the 9900k against the 9700k and 8700k. The 9700k and 9900k trade blows in games unless it's a title that takes advantage of hyper threading. So in my eyes there is no need to get the 9900k. And the 9700k is a modest bump over the 8700k. Nothing earth shattering but I felt the $100 upgrade price is worth it.

The difference from a 2070 and 2080 is like the difference of a 1080 and a 1080ti. If you plan on using an external monitor at a higher resolution like I am then the 2080 is an easy sell. 2070 is going to be great at 1080p or if you're just on a budget.

 

Intel was stalling innovation till AMD came around with ryzen. Now they're forced to innovate so expect cooler running cpu's. If not Intel it would be AMD. Also again with AND it's possible to run newer cpu's on older chipset. They actively work to make it backwards compatible. 7nm will run on the b450 and even 350 boards. Maybe the x400 board will even get pcie 4.0 something Intel wouldn't give us. As long as manucters will give is the option, enthusiast will buy. If it's quality stuff offcoarse. But I see where coming from.

 

Yeah they have no choice at this point. So there is definitely hope. If AMD keeps on doing what they're doing I'd actually like to see them beat intel performance wise too. Would be nice to have them in an area 51m. I'd support them just for stirring things up.

 

Always just buy the highest end you can to avoid spending more in the long run upgrading, cheaper up front first time around.

 

Ordered today in Lunar Light color. Base model but with 9700K, 2080 and 144hz. Going to upgrade later. I don't know, it is a good idea to order now, maybe in few months they gonna offer 240hz screen, but who knows, maybe its only for 15" or just a TN screen, will see. Do you know any backpack to fit this laptop except the Alienware's one?

 

Welcome to the club. Is there any reason you don't like the new Area 51m backpacks? They're alot more toned down with the alien look than the older vindicator backpacks. There are others out there. I'd have to take a look.

 

Not sure, have to try it. The backpack looks cheap, but costs 150$, besides that I don't like all the logos and texts on it. I wish is there something like Lowepro Protactic 450 AW II to fit this laptop. At least would be great if it has enough space for PS4 and portable monitor. Im not going to use the laptop outside, but sometimes I travel for few weeks or months and I want to have everything with me.

 

Are you referring to these? I actually thought they were pretty clean looking compared to the old ones. But if you don't like them, you don't like them. Lol. I used the points from buying the Area 51m to basically get the Area 51m back pack for free.

Some members were mentioning Waterfield Bags. I've never used them. But several members talked highly of them. So might be a good place to start.

 

Yes I don't like backpacks that say "hey everyone I have an expensive laptop in here."

 

the cooler running cpu wont come out until end of 2019 or early 2020

the real cooler cpu is from AMD. 16 cores running at around 120w with turbo boost, that IS something.

 

It won't run at 5GHz on all cores like Intel but the performance should be greater than Intel with lesser core and more speed.

 

7nm is going to be released at second quarter this year around june on the AMD platform. Intel wil release @ the end of the year or 2020

 

Don’t expect that AMD’s 16 cores mainstream chips will be pushed out 2nd quarter.

 

Most OEMs won't use AMD Ryzen in DTR laptops since they won't mass manufacture them!

 

Sadly, no indeed. But Acer has a helios laptop with socked CPU

https://www.pcworld.com/article/327...d-acer-predator-helios-500-gaming-laptop.html

And comes with a 2700x

 

2700x@105w TDP. Nope!

 

Don't know if this has been mentioned yet, but the service manual for the Area 51m is up on Dell's Support Site.

 

Audio board is separate, that's nice

 

Please school me, Papusan, because I've been wondering about something for a while now, and you may be the person to enlighten me about this (and no, I'm not being sarcastic...I REALLY want to know the answer to this):

Why is it that boutique laptop manufacturers think nothing of making, say, SLI laptops with each card pushing 180w+ and a CPU pushing 95w+, and there seems to be very little objection on the part of many who peruse these threads when it comes to buying one, yet a laptop with a single 180w+ GPU and a CPU pushing, say, 105w+ would present a problem to these same buyers?

Heck, I'll take a laptop with a single card pushing 180+w and a CPU pushing the same (I'd love to see a Threadripper 2 laptop!)...in fact, my understanding is that with RTX there is no laptop SLI option at the moment...so....what's the objection/problem on the part of, say, a consumer such as yourself, insofar as TDP is concerned?

 

TDP on GPU is not equal to TDP on CPU for cooling purposes. A lot to do with die size and the architecture. Also neither would create a linear graph as far as heat generated per watt. Almost impossible to compare the two.

180w on CPU would need liquid cooling at a minimum.

 

The setup and specs file for the laptop is also up.

 

Finally! Confirmation that it works normally on 1 power adapter.

 

Thanks...I'll take your word for it, since I never did get my doctorate in physics! So as a followup...I'm running my P570WM with a 1680v2 (130wTDP) and SLI 780M GPUs (122w TDP each). I can't see any objection to a modern-day laptop running a CPU with a 105w TDP and pushing one GPU @ 180w+...do you?

 

If the Bios were hackable somehow and you could bypass the 119W and 139W TDP limits, like if you could access the CPU VR settings and change (negative) IMON OFFSET and IMON SLOPE to trick the CPU TDP, I would consider one of these things. But I'm sure someone will find out in February if Bios Guard is enabled on these things or not.

Changing Imon slope and negative imon offset works on MSI throttlebooks even when the EC overrides the bios power limits when you do something past EC limits (Like exceeding 230W system power usage on a GTX 1070 system, or unplugging the battery (Disables NOS, forces EC RAM register C6 from value C0/C1 (NOS enabled) to 40/41 (NOS disabled) and caps max system power allowed) and exceeding 160W power usage).

But watch everything be locked down hard.

 

Shouldn't be a problem. Will be hot. But many DTRs do reach those TDP numbers.

 

Speed Up to 3.6 GHz Base, 5.0 GHz Boost, 5.20 GHz Overclocked

Up to 5.20Ghz overclocked, let's see how true that holds. Probably single core boost.

 

The advanced menu for processor settings (Area-51M). It looks like overclocking, all types voltage and power settings has to be done with Dell's own AWCC/OC software. This bios is more locked than Forth Knox. You can at least disable Turbo Boost from bios. As you can see here BIOS features disabled (XMP profile and Overclocking)? Not much have really changed vs last years Alienware's.


No love in Bios. Everyting need to be tuned from an proprietary App!

 

thats not it. 180w cooling for cpu would work with just a bigger heatsink, as big as GPU heatsink normally is enough, something along the line of MSI GT83's GPU heatsink.

 

The die is just so small. I dont think you can get enough heat transfer to the copper for 180W and actively cool with laptop fans.

Would love to see some unlocked firmware so at the very least we can try though...

 

Well guys if this is anything to go off of, the mobile 2080 is nothing to be excited about and actually loses to the mobile 1080 in games. Hope this isn’t that accurate lol




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Its not actual hardware:

Underclocking the desktop RTX 2080 allows us to see how the mobile RTX 2080, and RTX 2080 Max-Q graphics cards perform in gaming laptops versus the GTX 1080 and GTX 1070 Max Q. Games Tested are Far Cry 5, PUBG, Shadow Of The Tomb Raider and BF V.

The reviews are close to be out, lets wait a few more days.

 

A power gimped Max-Q isn’t the real Mobile laptop version. This is the Scam version from Nvidia.

 

He also had the setting for a full Mobile 2080 in the video, not just the MQ


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This is a bit disappointing to see. But, like others have said we'll have to see how things turn out when the actual laptops come out. And I'm sure with good cooling you could push them a bit more.

I mentioned so long as the 2080 in the area 51m can match a desktop 2080 even with an overclock I'll be happy. But if it performs poorly it's for sure going back. You don't sell me a desktop replacement and not giving my desktop performance out of the box.

 

Look like bullcrap results to me. 2080 laptop slower then 1080? Highly doubt it. We will see on the 29th.

 

That was the absolute stupidest video I have seen..

 

Though in theory it should be accurate. If mobile RTX uses the same architecture (i.e. GDDR6, and the same nm ) and the same quantity of cuda cores than the desktop RTX and only difference is clock speed and TDP, then in theory you should get the mobile performance by lowering the clock speed and TDP in the desktop RTX.. or am I wrong?

 

How come the "80W" 2080 was beating the "90W" 2080 in one of his "tests"?

 

I had a question about the SSD's of these laptops. Now this isn't necessarily about the area 51m, although I'm planning to buy this one with the SSD's so here I am, posting it on this form.

So They advertise these PCIe NVME SSD's right. But how do they actually perform, as they are really pricey.
I don't know if you guys know, but for instance, the major difference between the samsung pro and evo SSD's is the TurboWrite feature on the Evo drives.
In layman's terms this feature is basically a very large cache, that makes the EVO drive as fast as the Pro drive for majority of the time when it comes to standard consumer use. While the Pro drive doesn't require such a thing as the whole drive is as fast as that "cache" of the Evo drive.

Now, I'm planning to get 1 TB SSD. And I can buy the Samsung 970 PRO 1TB easily for 350€. And on my countries website, for a simply upgrade from 512 GB to 1TB, they ask more then 400€. Is then safe to assume that these drives that Alienware uses are PRO grade MLC-NAND (2b/cell) based SSD's? I mean, normally I'd go for the cheapest drive solution and buy the SSD myself, but I wanted to make sure that I won't have compatibility, warranty issues by doing so, as someone mentioned having trouble with warranty due to this.

 

Speed wise it's hard to say as I'm sure you're aware the larger the capacity of the SSD the faster the read and write speeds. I don't think they have a set brand for their SSD's so it's hard to say what they use. And if you get another laptop from another manufacturer they may use something all together different.

I haven't heard of anyone have compatibility issues with SSD's. Unless you straight up bought one that does not fit you should be fine with any m.2 ssd. Nvme or otherwise. And the samsung EVO and Pro are very common upgrades so you're definitely safe using them.

 

They do advertise Class 40/50 NVMe drives but in truth they are OEM versions of PRO and EVO series of Samsung or even Toshiba/WD/Micron SSDs.
Buy bare minimum 128GB SSD and buy your own for peace of mind and save some cash. Same applies for RAM sticks as well. If you have HyperX 2667MHz from old skylake/kaby model w/ SODIMM you can put those in for best performance. The same rule applies for G-skill ripjaws,Crucial Ballistix,Apacer,ADATA etc..

 

Highly skeptical. As much as I hate Nvidia for marketing "Ray Tracing" even when it's clear that it's not ready yet, I don't think they'll be stupid enough to do this.

 

thats where you're wrong. you'll be surprised what LM could do with that small die, or even bare die cooling.

 

Sure, that's why I said "in theory". In normal conditions I'd say that down in performance should be due thermal throttling but that is most likely an issue related to the software the reviewer is using to cap the RTX

 

The more I read about this the more close I am to cancelling the order lol. 4200 bucks for a laptop, it better be an amazing performer that easily surpasses any 1080 notebook today. The only issue I’m worried about is the screen, being a 300nit 1080p 144hz screen is a little underwhelming and I know they will release a 1440P 400+ nit screen soon. Having buyers remorse so quickly after receiving it is not something I want to have


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you have 30 days to return, never had an issue with a return, why not keep your order and at least see it for yourself then decide?