*OFFICIAL* Alienware Area-51M R2 Owner's Lounge

Hello, I just did two Hitman 2 benchmarks on ultra at 1080p with max fans. CPU got up to around 75°C, and GPU 70°C. I have stock thermal paste and no undervolt, and the temperature in my room is between 20 and 25 °C. However the benchmark results today were quite lower than what I got when I did it two weeks ago, I’ll have to look into that, maybe I did something wrong so be careful with the temps I reported.
Oh and while typing this, with fans off, CPU is at 55-60°C, and GPU at 50, but it’s slowly going up.

As for your question about vapor chambers, when I bought mine the guy at Dell told me that all models come with the same cooling on the R2.

I’m sorry I don’t have much time right now to do more extensive testing with undervolting and all that, maybe someone else has the 10700/2080S, otherwise I’ll do it as soon as I can.

PS : the fans kicked in for a bit at 35% (barely audible), CPU was at 50 and GPU at 40

 

Doesn’t matter with stock or slightly oc’d if CPU temp is below the throttling point. Aka clocks stay put in the benchmark.

Binned means possible higher overclock/or lower temp at same clock speed. Not lower bench scores if both run at same clock speed.

And for the records. Haven’t seen Spartan run his 10900K overclocked. Only with default/TVB.

 

You are correct i misread it to begin with. The R2 score does seem low though.

You are right but my all core turbo is 4.9GHz anyway by default, i have noticed even during highly multithreaded workloads like cinebench cores will still reach max turbo as i assume the multithreading isn't perfect.

 

It does seem a bit low and it was the #1 score before Prema uploaded his new score when I searched for the ranking. So, apparently you did not upload yours?

What we don't know from the submission is what kind of environment (temperature) or how skilled at performance tuning that person is. I would assume they have a fairly good idea of what they are doing since they had the top score, but maybe a lot of people are only taking screenshots and not uploading results. Hard to know these things.

 

I imagine the driver ofc but also GPU hardware scheduling feature would have some impact as well? The only other thing I've done is removed the bloatware and changed telemetry settings.

 

Those things can make a huge difference. The graphics driver version can massively impact the GPU scores in 3DMark runs. So can settings in the NVIDIA Control Panel. Another important tuning consideration for benching is killing the services that add no value. Windows 10 has a list of worthless services big enough to choke a mule. There is a crap ton of rubbish that will leech performance, consumer memory bandwidth and CPU clock cycles that literally suck the life out of a system without adding anything of value in return. Unless you're really into the silly gimmick garbage from Windows Store and think it's nifty to let all of the app crap "talk" to one another, there is just a lot of stuff that needs to be shut down.

I haven't identified a benefit to the GPU hardware scheduling so far. It hasn't done anything to enhance benchmark scores as far as I can tell. It might do something useful running software designed to take advantage of it, but I am not aware of a benchmark that does. There could be something I am not aware of.

 

Just looking at the average GPU temps, it seems that with the x170 it's easier to tame those hot running cores. even with a shared (but probably highly efficient/tuned) HS

 

The part of the heatsink that comes in contact with the CPU just needs a vapor chamber instead of a copper coldplate to allow us to go crazy with clock speeds.

 

Something that I have noticed as well is that dell hasn't raised enough the computer to let enough air in the intake fans and if you put your hand on the side and slightly raise the computer you can feel much more air going out through the sides exhausts .
So what I did on top of delid and repad/repaste is raised the computer with two feet of 1,5 cm each with allowed me for example to bring the GPU down to 73-74 max after two hours of gaming instead of 78 .
Doesn't seem to be affecting that much the cpu temps though

 

Regarding the cpu I have the same as @Spartan@HIDevolution binned 5.1
I just did cinebenchr20 stable with 5.1 GHz on every core it reached 99 degrees on the very last 2 seconds of the benchmark
I did the test a second time and it reached maximum 97 degrees so mine can handle 5.1 GHz on every core without an issue

 

Excellent point and great idea, I've always been using the following Belkin cooling tray for my fiancées and own computers the last few years. Its not necceassily the most effective "gaming" type but its smart thats great for when I use any of the desktop replacements on my lap for any length. Main thing is it has a natural curve that adds space under the system to better ventilate, whilst I like the slight and relatively subtle raised and angled placement, so I have it under the laptop everywhere I place it, without the in built fans on usually (saves on noise). Overall like your raised feet i think it makes such a difference. Had used it so long and regularly that I forgot this may be a significant factor to improved thermals.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B00Y0M32IG/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_i_gzVpFb4VCXFYA

 

I like the concept but so far I haven't been able to find one big enough for the area 51 m.
How does this cooling tray with a laptop as big as the area 51m ?
I mean dell could have easily improved the thermals just by raising the feet a bit higher wonder why they haven't done it

 

Probably because some extra-silly people would whine and complain that it is too thick even if the chassis was the same dimensions simply because the taller feet would make it appear to be thicker. That screwed-up mindset has ruined laptops of all sizes. Too big, too thick, too heavy, and too loud is how peasant consumers think, not how enthusiasts think. Unfortunately, they care too much about what the wrong people think.

 

My Dell rep also told me they would release a cooling pad for the 51M soon, no proof that it's true though...

 

Well, the peasant consumers have the numbers. It's a bit like democracy, just with people voting with their wallets.

 

Very true. And, it's really sad. So much potential, so little value. Allowing reprobate idiots to reproduce and vote is what got us into such a mess. Elitists should never apologize for their superiority, but I do support the concept of showing pity to the inferior as long as they don't get too cocky. After all, they do not even realize that they are wretched, pitiful, poor, blind and naked

 

If it's the size of the whole cpu substrate not just the Die it would make a significant difference.

 

I've been through the whole 137 pages and I'm almost sold with this laptop. Seems to fix a lot of R1 flaws, temps looks great, solid performance and AW quality is always at the top. I was just wondering what's the price reference for my laptop (the one from my signature). I can't find my laptop anywhere (eBay, marketplace, etc)

 

I really couldn't recommend it enough and think it would be a nice improvement for what you have, certainly for consistency (as opposed to SLI), thermals, CPU, size and sheer design. Are you after a reference price to enable you to sell it?

I sold my AW 17 R5 for £1800 on eBay which had a relatively comparable spec? (not SLI ofc, but 32GB 3200MHz HyperX and i9 8950HK). If you are selling i suggest £2000 would be a good ball park figure, amending as you see fit based on offers. Though different country markets and current demand will ofc change prices i appreciate.

 

There is a category for “Price Check” down in the marketplace category.

 

You will love it more after you see my review. Best laptop I owned:

 

You're right about the consistency. This is my third SLI laptop, but since I bought this laptop in mid 2018 I don't remember a single new AAA game that was SLI compatible. Only AC Origins, but SLI was working only for the new RTX cards, it was broken for GTX cards. I really regret expending an extra 1k on the secondary card which has done nothing for me than consume power lol

Thanks! I had no idea about that section, lol

I'll check it.. though is a bit of a suffering seeing this baby and not having it, lol

 

How long are you planning to keep it? If medium/long term, the laptop will become obsolete in a couple of months.

 

Fair point, @Tyranus07 as @etern4l has previously highlighted if may be worth waiting out for the next gen GPUs, though if like me your worried about your old systems resell price and needing/wanting an upgrade immediately then thats justified, your decision ofc.

I'm likely going to see about selling mine and getting the next gen, the cost incurred mitigated by the savings I've made on tax (buisness purchase) and as a dell partner reseller, on top of defence discount I could compound.

Whatever the case I highly recommend you check the EPP/Dell Advantage portal if not already and eligible.

 

Here is a picture will all the measurements to replace the thermal pads .
I used fujipoly extreme pads .
Watch out if you are using more compressible pads you might want to increase the thickness.
I didn't have a picture for the heatsink of the GPU but it was 1 mm for the vrm and 1,5 mm for the two MOSFETs

 

Woah, this is wild. I presume this is your completely stock heatsink, but it has the Delta fans and part of your vapor chamber is black where mine is copper.

 

No I also have the same heatsink as you .
The one in the attached file is the one I got from eBay to try to mod it for my area 51m r1

I have no idea why the heatsink is different than the stock one though

 

Actually I used to keep my laptops for 3+ years. But I got a bit tired of the resell price going down so fast. I remember paying around 3k for my AW 18 in 2014 I think, and sold it in 2018 for like $500, with upgraded video card an all. So I'm gonna try different this time and sell the P870TM while still has some of it's value

 

Hi,

just to let you know, I just installed the latest driver from Nvidia and now I have no more artifact with HZD.
No more error message regarding the driver at startup.
By the way, i launched the benchmark of HZD ang got a nice boost from 72fps to 88!
I'll let u know if I have any problems with these drivers but for the moment I'll stick to the latest from NVidia

Ciao.

 

Real talk, THE ONLY REASON I got the 10700K was due to thermal fears. Would you have gotten the 10900K (without doing thermal mods)?

 

I appreciate your review. 5.3GHZ with those temperatures the notebook is damn good with the vapor chamber cooling this time around. With your Silicon Lottery 10900K those temperatures are excellent. I disagree about the keyboard though. Im not a fan of the Chiclet layout unless its rubber. LOL. The R1 keyboard is better as I have not had any keys popping off like others I have seen in the wild. As we were the crash test dummies who bought the R1 the R2 is a small improvement. The speakers do sound better with a little bit of bass. Hopefully Dell/Alienware will not disable being able to undervolt the CPU in the future. After Prema brings his bios updates to the X170-SMG we can get a better idea of which notebook is better between the Alienware Area 51M R2 and Clevo X170 with a 10900K.

 

5.3gGHz ? Where? You mean this? Its a big difference between 5.3GHz all core boost vs. stock single core TVB. He can even add in 5.5GHz and Cpu temp will still be ok if he run that clock speed on single core


Even Intel's BGA chips can show up with 5.3GHz for single core TVB

 

AUO has finally made a 17.3", 4K 144Hz panel : https://www.panelook.com/B173ZAN03.3_AUO_17.3_LCM_overview_45254.html

However am not sure about AdobeRGB gamut and response times.

Maybe worth holding out a bit longer ?

 

Depends what you do more. If it's content creation then the 4k is worth it but if you mostly game like i do it's not worth it. The 2080 super driving a 1080p panel means much better framerates and more chance of actually hitting 144fps or higher.

 

I've seen side by side a game running on a 17 inch 1080p screen vs a 17 inch 3k screen and the only difference I could tell is the 3k screen had slower frame rates, lol... For gaming there is absolutely no advantage on playing on a 4k 17 inch screen over a 1080p 17 inch screen. left aside all the legacy software that would look all blurry because the Windows font escalation, that really annoys me

 

I had an XPS 15 9570 with a 4K Screen. NEVER again will I buy a 4K screen on a laptop. Even popular programs like Nero Platinum Suite 2020 don't scale well. Everything was so tiny. Same goes for my HP printer software and scanning app. Just to name a few.

 

For what it's worth, Nvidia's integer scaling is fantastic if you have a 4k display but want to scale to 1080p without NN interpolation. It's my preferred way to use a 4k notebook display.

 

Is that something that you'd have to do seperately from the nVIDIA control panel in addition to setting the scaling from the Windows settings? or do you set the scaling to 100% from the Windows setting and do the scaling from the NVCPL? Would you mind sharing a few images tutorial?

 

Integer scaling is set through the NVIDIA control panel and is independent from any Windows setting. It basically makes the screen look like it is running natively at 1080p. It only works while gaming. You still need to rely on Windows for the desktop.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

I see, while that's good, it doesn't solve my issues with programs that don't play well with scaling so I'm stuck with 1080P because Microsoft till this date can't seem to figure out scaling properly. Wish they could learn one thing from Apple.

 

Does anyone know how I would go about unlocking GPU power limit?

 

Does anyone know how I would go about unlocking GPU power limit?

 

My bad I was looking at the max temperatures for that run. 4.9GHZ on all cores at those temperatures is still very good. I have my 9900K running at 4.9GHZ on all cores but i have a -125uv with Phobya nanogrease repaste. If I had not all ready had the R1 and all ready experienced several Dell/Alienwares the R2 would be an exciting notebook to own. We will see how the run goes but this is a cash grab until Ampere mobile comes......

 

You can't.

 

Oh- I see.

What do you guys use the undervolt & overclock the CPU by the way? Throttlestop doesn't seem to support 10-core processors, I've tried XTU before but people keep telling me to use TS.

Also, The Iccmax values for CPU core and CPU cache are different for me, is it suppose to be that way?

 

TS works perfectly well with +10 cores. Max out Iccmax values for CPU core. The Iccmax value for Cashe doesn’t matter.

 

Exactly, it's just a way to run games at lower res without the unpleasant softness effect due to interpolation. A nicer way to do this would be to have an intelligent upscaler from 1080p to 4K which I heard is what DLSS can do (although it's probavly not as simple, since it can't be enabled for legacy games?)

 

Rumours are that DLSS 3.0 would work on any game with TAA anti-aliasing as an option but i guess we will see if that ever happens.

 

You can absolutely use it anywhere in Windows when you force scaling to be performed on the GPU. Just leave the desktop resolution at 1080p, set the 'Scale and layout' to 100% and move between the different scaling options in Nvidia control panel.

Try it out yourself if you have a 4k display--even on the Windows desktop and task bar, switching between IS makes a significant difference in the softening of icons and text.

Edit: To be clear, for this feature to work system wide, there must be a direct connection from the Turing GPU to the display, as is the case in the 51m.

 

It only gives me the option to adjust up to 8 cores ratio with TS, what about the other two?