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

Order 20 and let rest of us buy them off you!

 

you didn't send me that wallpaper bro

 

Is the Alienware Area-51m also referred to as the Alienware 17 R6 as seen the latest BIOS description or is that a typo?

Edit: I Tweeted this to Dell Cares, let's see their reply

 

Dell Cares replied:

 

Because this guy beat me to it lol:

That was the internal name before Area-51m was chosen

 

Really nice! I'm from Holland to, nice that your enjoying your 51M.
I wouldn't settle for less then a pixel perfect display for myself especially for this price! Hopefully its a stuck pixel and you can fix it with software.

I do have to say, i envy people who don't bother dead pixels, i can't live with it tbh.

 

If i got an aw 51m and got the 8th gen cpu and bought a silicon lottery binned and delidded i9 9900k seperately would it be worth the extra $130?

Would it impact the heatsink design in the model I recieve?

 

Pictures?

 

Dont go to Unidays. Contact Dell instead. Check the student discount link at the bottom of Dell page. Follow the instructions to provide whatever needed. But do take note that the code is not applicable on online purchases and i have no idea why.

But managed to place an order via live chat and i gave the code to the cust service officer.

 

I have access to his 9700K/2070 and I did see his 9900K/2080 running 200W as well

 

Check my post history. I posted pics a week or so back. The actual screen was scratched and the bezels looked like they were wiped down by sandpaper. Was really bad WC work. I’d link them but I’m traveling atm.

 

The best price I've gotten so far direct from dell was ~$3751
9900k
RTX 2800
8gb Ram
1tb SSHD
144hz gsync+tobi
4yr premium support warranty
4yr accidental damage protection
area 51m backpack

(plus eligible for about $116 in dell rewards)

How does that sound compared to the best prices seen on here?

Then add in your own
+$280 for 32gb Ram
+$500 for 2 x 1tb 970 Evo Plus NVME

-----$4531 total with the ram and nvme. Maybe $4650 with repaste and fujipoly pads.... When you stop and think about this for a second, isn't it quite a bit to spend? Not exactly that portable or mobile either to be honest, considering its size, weight and 2 power bricks.

 

Lol.. same feeling. In fact i was hopping that it is on sale on Amazon UK as their delivery n return policy are superb. But too bad.. have to deal with the Dell’s “trusted courier partner”.

 

A proper Delidded CPU with an aftermarket Copper IHS should have the IHS the exact same height as the Intel nickel IHS. They usually have a wider surface area to fill inside the socket bracket.

There is some wiggle room though if it not to spec. The copper heat-pipes are able to flex quite a bit if needed.

If you want/need an i9, dellided is definitely the way to go. Also mainperformancepc.com has binned and delidded i7s in stock.

Of course, you are welcome to try and delid whatever CPU you get from Dell yourself.

Binning is up to the user if it is worth it. In theory, the better the Bin the better it will stay cool at higher clocks. Be warned a binned 5.2 GHz i9 will not likely run sustained @ 5.2 GHz with laptop cooling. Probably about 300 mhz less. Also. in theory again, it would probably run near silent at lower clocks if thats what you are going for.

 

Wow that place is much more $$$ than where I was looking...
https://siliconlottery.com/collections/all/products/9900k50g

 

Did they lock down the performance settings in the BIOS in 1.3.0? Yesterday, I was able to set the OC via the BIOS, today, the option is not available. I downgraded to 1.2.0 but to no avail.
Is it even worth it to play with the OC in the BIOS vs AW CC?

Sent from my LG-H873 using Tapatalk

 

@mason2smart

Check my signature, that's what I got with my Alienware Area-51m (which I will receive in 3 weeks). I got the 5.1 GHz rated Silicon Lottery CPU not that I am expecting it to run @ 5.2 GHz since those ratings from Silicon Lottery have been achieved on a desktop rig but what it WILL do is operate much cooler than a standard 9900K due to its better silicon. If I can get it to run at the advertised speeds and not thermal throttle, I'd be very happy. that along with HIDevolution's thermal mods, I am only hoping for some superior results.

 

So, considering that the 51M is touted as "upgradeable," what kind of trouble am I looking at if I de-lid my 9900k? I mean, best case so long as it's not the processor itself, Dell should give me zero issues. If I break the keyboard and get a warranty replacement or if the motherboard dies which is unrelated, I'm covered, correct? Worst case scenerio, I could just go grab a cheap 8700 to throw into it should I have to send it in?

If warranty is going to be a pain in the ass, I'm tempted to...put in an order for a third 51m, lol. Yay big credit limits and nice return policies.

Here's my thinking. The 9900k is a $450 upgrade on the unit from Dell. I could buy it with the 8700, and just keep the 8700 around for any warranty purposes. Then I can tinker to my heart's content elsewhere. I can go to Silicon Lottery right now, and buy a 5ghz de-lidded 9900k for a couple extra hundred and likely get a much better binned chip with much lower temps. For ALL the money I'm spending, it seems worth it to spend an extra $200 for a guaranteed good CPU, lower temps, and a "back-up" CPU for any warranty/exchange work.

Thoughts?

EDIT: lol, just saw the posts above mine

 

I guess the short version is: an I gonna run into hell with Dell if I successfully de-lid the 9900k it comes with?

 

If you don't get it with the 9900K and reach out to them for any support like one user was complaining why is the OC Performance menu greyed out in his BIOS. They told him because you have an 87XX CPU (forgot the exact model). He told them no I have a 9900K now. They wouldn't offer him any support as it wasn't what was equipped with the system. Not a big deal but just worth mentioning that you won't get any support from them with regards to the upgrades you've done. He even complained to them that you guys advertise this laptop as an upgradeable laptop! Their reply was yes it is upgradeable but through US if you want the support not with components you install on your own.

 

I think it has to do with some of the problems i'm seeing here and my unit is in pristine condition otherwise. It's also in the bottom corner of the screen, i only discovered it when the screen is white. I do think it is a stuck pixel because it's not black, i think it's stuck on green. Will try tomorrow to get it unstuck hehe.

I really hope they adjust the power delivery so it uses the full 330watt provided by 1 brick. I'm already getting annoyed because i move across the house alot.

 

Yea, but unfortunately Silicon Lottery discontinued selling 8XXX series and never has i7s in stock. The i7-8700K's are decently priced

Interestingly enough mainperformancepc is actually cheaper if you go for 5.1 or 5.2 GHz i9 though.

 

Neither are worth it. Uninstall AW OC Tools and ignore BIOS. Do everything via ThrottleStop or XTU

 

Try being in Australia, we only get the choice of i7-8700 (non K) and i9-9900K and they are about $1000 more expensive per model compared to UK and USA.

I ordered my i7-8700, 2080, 32gb, 144hz Gsync + Tobii, 512GB PCIe M.2 SSD + 1TB SSHD which came to ~AUD$5,600
Estimated delivery has been pushed out to 22/3 so they threw in a free Seagate Expansion Portable 2TB USB 3.0 external HDD

 

So I updated the bios and vbios and did a bunch of AIDA64 stress tests.

Totally stock, no undervolting, I basically hit thermal throttling immediately. This was expected and performed exactly like prior to the updates.

Here is where it gets a little bit interesting. Before, when I undervolted -.125 mV core/cache on the CPU, without changing turbos, I would hit Power Limit Throttling after a few minutes of AIDA64. With the same undervolt after the updates, I haven't hit Power Limit Throttling. I do for a few moments hit thermal throttling (think for a couple of seconds every few minutes) and the temperatures are in the high 90s, but seemingly stable. This has some pretty big implications I think for those who are able to push the limits. This is on stock thermal paste and pads from Dell.

I think these updates gave us a noticeable amount of headroom to push things farther, but I don't think it will really do much for 'real world' use. I'm still going to turn turbos down a notch (exactly 100 mhz per core), which keeps the CPU in the low-mid 80s.

That said, I got a new fridge this last week with a huge freezer. Maybe I'll climb the ranks and become champ and chase some numbers!

I also discovered my 2080 can't be overclocked by 85mhz or more. Games or benchmarks crash instantly. 83 is stable and 75 on memory, though I need to experiment more with gpu memory overclocks. This is while running the CPU @ 5.2.

 

So how would j00 compare the Area-51m to your previous Alienware taptops since you owned a collection of 'em? Do you think it's a massive leap ahead? what about the screen in comparison to your previous Alienwares?

 

I think for not being an OLED and only being 1080p, the screen is fantastic. Comparing them all would be difficult since I don't have them here, so I'd be recalling from memory which is quite fallible. I loved all my other Alienware screens, and I love this one.

The 13 R3 was my most recent one, and that screen was fantastic. Certainly, the darks were a quite a bit darker and there was absolutely no BLB (as with all OLED). While the BLB on this panel is minimal, it is still there (much better than the HP Omen or Lenovo Y740 in that regard). The 13 R3 also had HDR support for streaming content, which was a nice to add some extra vivid images. I think that was an overall better screen, but it was tiny and underpowered. The 1060 had good legs, and RTX was a bit of a let down, but the 2080 is still leaps and bounds better. I appreciate the larger screen and higher refresh rate.

I installed DMC5... I'll let you know how I feel when I get through that. That game is going to benefit greatly from the fast frames and I'm a long time series vet and have some moderately high level play in the series.

I don't feel disadvantaged at all quality wise with this 1080p panel, though I feel it is leaving a lot on the table since the 2080 is said to excel at 1440p. From what Azor tells us, upgrading the screen may require buying an entire assembly in the future, so if this is important to people they may be wise to delay gratification. The next revision of the Area-51m hopefully will have faster ram capability and more screen options. I'm satisfied though and don't think people will be disappointed with this great screen.

 

Thanks for the reminder! I remember seeing that - such crappy support from Dell and I think it's a glimpse of the future trying to get support for this machine. I'm pretty confident Dell support is going to be a brick wall once we all start needing help but we've upgraded the components. So many questions - such as if there's an accidental damage replacement, but I have a different CPU... what happens? Just one thought off the top of my head.

Anyway, I think I'm gonna hold tight.

Let's see how the 9900k I get early next week performs, temps wise. I don't need 5.1 or 5.2... I just want simple 5.0 with semi-quiet fans and a small undervolt for good temps. If I can get close to what I want, I may just send in the chip for a SiliconLottery de-lidding.

 

Oh, funny story - someone bought the display model of the Area 51m at Microcenter. I played with it the other day, it was gone today, and so I asked... that's what the employee told me.

 

Send it where? where are you buying your lappy from?

 

Whichever BIOS you decide to stick with, pull the battery and CMOS battery, drain all power from system, let sit for a while, put CMOS battery back in and laptop battery, power up and hopefully it will give you the option again. Other people that have lost the ability to OC have fixed it by doing this.

 

From Dell direct.

SL will de-lid the 9900k it comes with for like $60. So assuming it performs decent enough for the investment, I'll send it in to help my temps a bit. If it just seems like a poor bin/dud right from the start, comparatively, then I'll return the whole unit and wait for my original order to come from Xotic and try again.

I'd have loved to go with HID - but both Dell and Xotic come out to like ~$750 cheaper.

 

Is the CMOS battery right under the bottom service panel and easily accessible or do you need to disassemble the laptop to reach under the keyboard to get to it?

 

Has anyone tried custom ordering through microcenter? Will they take negotiated prices/discounts from dell direct?

 

I bought mine there.
Usually they don't unless it's exactly the same part #.
I may try to go in and see if I can get them to drop their price, because I can get almost the same notebook from Dell for $250 less right now. Only difference is they advertise the RAM as only being 2400 on the web site, and the RAM that came with this machine is actually 2666 (however, only running at 2400) and there is no option for a single 512GB SSD online, only 2x256GB.
I doubt they will work with me on the price. But we'll see. If they don't, then I need to decide if I want to return it there and buy from dell.com, perhaps with the 9900k or 2080.

 

It's easily accessible under the bottom panel next to the second M.2 drive. Removing the main battery makes it easier to access but it has a simple plug that pulls right off the main board.

 

Greetings,

Super interested in this thing but two deal-killing heretofore unknowns:
0) Lack of 4K display. Is this ever going to be a thing? Rumors/ETA?
1) Can/will/does the AW pull all required full wattage from one port if a capable supply is provided or does it require two regardless? I have a Eurocom 780W supply happily powering my GT75 Titan. Would require to not have to lug dual supplies around.

Thanks!

Sent from my Pixel 3 XL using Tapatalk

 

Can't wait to see how the silicon lottery @ 5.1ghz with thermal mods compares to my stock 9900k @ 5.1ghz. My laptop runs very hot and needs a repaste. I'll be doing that next month probably.

I have it available still. Maybe try restoring bios defaults.

Can you post a CB R15 result with your 5.2Ghz?

Yes they increased power limits from before which is great, still need more increase though if we want 5.2-5.3Ghz unless you have a good CPU. Mine hits VR current limit @ 5.1Ghz still a bit, I'll try fine tuning more and see. Thermal throttling becomes an issue faster though.

 

looks like my ,,Dell,, i9 9900k is a realy bad sample XD blurescreened yesterday during Cinebench @4,8ghz @1,19v...

hopefully my selected i9 will be delivered today...

 

When you say 5+ GHz. On how many cores do you mean? all of em?

 

It is under the second m.2 drive slot. Since you are getting (2) m.2's in your system you will have to remove the second drive in order to access the CMOS battery. Will be a total of 7 screws (6 to get bottom cover off and the 1 holding in the m.2 drive).

This pic from @ssj92 video on YT shows it exposed and is super easy to get to with only (1) m.2 drive installed.

 

Not at all, I actually have a job where I get paid in US$ so am glad the AUD$ is low However ordering from the US/UK with shipping and then paying 10% GST works out to be more expensive too. I could just about fly to the US and pick it up in person for the same cost. I'm more annoyed about the lack of CPU/GPU/RAM configurations offered from Dell Australia as we are missing the 9700k entirely and cant have the i9-9900k with anything less than 64gb.

I was wondering if anyone can comment on the thermals expected from the i7-8700? or can link to any benchmarks with both the i7-8700 and 2080?

 

That sucks that you are so limited in configs. Also, really sucks about tariffs everywhere, but the US. I have bought two phones (Xperia Z a few years ago and Sumsung Note 9 about 4 months ago) in Dubai at the airport due to not being able to buy dual sim card phones in the US unless you buy from ebay or Amazon and run the risk of getting scammed and you have no warranty. I have never had to pay duties or tariffs when bringing in products from overseas into the US.

 

Of course all of them.

I can hit 5Ghz stock voltage all cores
I can hit 5.1Ghz stock voltage all cores as well but temps are an issue.

Stock voltage is also kinda high. I can do -100mV on 4.7Ghz stock all core, haven't gone all out to test stability. Just hasn't caused any issues yet.

Some people are undervolting -150mV+ on stock clocks, it's crazy. I can't go higher than -100mV otherwise it crashes or BSODs.

 

That's insane man!

As for the undervolt, more than -100mV is way too much man. A better way to solve heat issues at this point is repasting your CPU with Liquid Metal rather than going for an unstable undervolt. Sooner or later those people with such high undervolts will BSOD or have random reboots when the CPU is getting hammered.

 

My previous 7700K in my P870DM3 could also do 5Ghz all cores on stock voltage.

I'm planning on doing the thermals next month...just waiting on thermal grizzly.

 

For those who are having issues with Thunderbolt Control Center:

https://www.reddit.com/r/Alienware/comments/b0xchn/having_trouble_downloading_and_installing/

 

Would you mind sending me a screen shot of settings to base my 5Ghz OC off of? I'm not familiar with throttlestop/XTU at all, couldn't even find voltage in throttle stop.. only ever used them to undervolt my old 8750H.

Just trying to find a baseline of settings for 5Ghz on my 9700k. I've hit 5.1Ghz with AWCC, ran some benchmarks and it was stable, but I don't like that the voltage goes up and down constantly.. not only that but only 6 cores hit 5.1.

I've tried searching quite a bit, couldn't find a guide on throttlestop or XTU that made sense.

Sorry I'm pretty new to overclocking, just trying to see what my 9700k/2070 can do! My first unlocked processor.

 

Mine just shipped. Anyone know how long it takes to get to UK?

 

Wonder if this will fix my TB issue:

https://twitter.com/ssj925/status/1104854460738592768

All I did was increase multiplier to 50x on all cores. This can be done in bios as well.