*OFFICIAL* Alienware X Series Owners Lounge and Discussion

You are more likely to get an agreement on Dell running the once industry-leading and innovative AW brand to the ground.

 

The weight difference is roughly the equivalent of a 4-week old kitten. Not enough for anyone to strain their milk trying to handle it. People that would take issue with such a small increase is weight deserve whatever tragedy comes their way. They have other more serious issues that need to be dealt with at a professional level.

 

The problem is that those would be the same people who might take issue with a laptop being a few mm thicker, i.e. the target market for the new AW X-series to be honest. Hopefully it's a small population.

 

Well, maybe the rest of us will get lucky and they will pop a vein stressing over it.

I hadn't bothered to notice before because their products are about as exciting to me as a bad case of jock itch, but looking at the YouTube cover image the ugliness is consistent with their other products. They maintain that same goofy-looking oval HVAC duct look. Maybe the same people that make Windows 10/11 so fugly had a hand in designing it. The round edges help keep the kiddos from accidentally hurting themselves.

 

There's a consistent pattern that can be observed here - first we saw how the 3080 variant of the X17 was underperforming in the 3Dmark benchmarks which were popping up earlier. And now, Mash IT's 3070 is underperforming as well. Pretty sure there's some shady, intermittent throttling going on to keep thermals in check throughout the lineup irrespective of the GPU option, though not sure which form of throttling is kicking in, like BD PROCHOT or something. If this doesn't go well, and Alienware gets some flak for the x17, then there's hope that Alienware's seemingly endless pursuit for weight loss might come to an end.

 

They had problems with their products throttling abnormally due to firmware cancer before anorexia in laptops became popular. It is disturbing that they seem to lack the ability to learn from their mistakes, as this is a pattern that we have seen span about 8 or 9 hardware generations. Equally disturbing is the fact that Alienkid fan club keeps coming back for more. As long as the kids keep drinking the Kool-Aid, there is no incentive for them to correct their engineering defects and design flaws. They can use the money for marketing campaigns instead.

 

Here's new results of today from two happy Aw boys/girls probably enjoying their independence day benching their new and skinny X17 (i9-11980Hk and 3080). Happy 4th of July to all of my U.S friends


https://www.3dmark.com/spy/21307684 - https://www.3dmark.com/spy/21304148



Edit. Here is new results from the even thinner x15 (i9-11900H and 3080@110W)
https://www.3dmark.com/spy/21295888 - https://www.3dmark.com/spy/21278459


It has to feel weird for the buyers to see worse performance than its predecessor from last year.


Edit. x15 with 3070@110W
x15 Benchmark Testing (Time Spy Demo)

2nd run and got a lower score (9218) https://www.3dmark.com/3dm/63456221?

It appears the CPU score tanked, "am I doing something wrong"?

 

The CPU score of that 8-core piece of Alien crap running 4.8GHz is lower than the 6-core 4.0GHz 9750H CPU score in my Tongfang turdbook.
Why? Because newer is better newer. https://www.3dmark.com/spy/9018153 - Nice job Alienware.

 

Buying turdbooks based on YouTube reviews by shills and OEM marketing lies is like going a blind date. You get blindsided by regrets.

 

So are we just going to ignore this result?

https://www.3dmark.com/spy/20937954

 

Probably should since it puts Alienware in 47th place on the Time Spy leaderboard for that CPU and GPU in a notebook.

https://www.3dmark.com/classic-sear...NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3080 (notebook)&gpuCount=0

 

***28th place but I get your point

 

Only god know what firmware this one used. The bench is from juni 18 2021

It will be worse if you remove the Cpu from the search

 

I am not sure why we are seeing a different ranking. If you remove the qualifier for "only valid" results, which includes an "unapproved GPU driver" so that it counts unofficial driver it drops to 71st place based on a overall score of 12487. The driver validation is kind of bogus because UL/Futuremark excludes submissions using OEM driver versions and hotfixes. HWBOT allows any driver.

 

Yeah not sure maybe I’m doing something wrong. Just clicked on your link and scrolled down to match the ranking



But yeah unchecking only valid results lowers it more

 

People should stop using the new flawed search from Futuremark. You won’t get info about what machines is used in the benchmarks. Neither will you see scores from drivers that isn’t approved by UL although many users prefer OEM drivers. You get very “important” info as etc each user in a ranked list with the new and shiny useless search. Use the Classic search. New/newest doesn’t always mean better.

 

I’m gonna settle this issue and post a complete set of details once my X17 arrives. That’s running 3DMark, HWinfo and Aida64. My intent is to take the stock system sent to me with core i9 11980HK, 3080, 16gb DDR4-3200, and stock 512 gb SSD and tweak as much as possible for optimal settings. Run Timespy, Fire strike, Fire strike extreme, and possibly superposition. My system is coming with 4k so I’ll test in both 4k and 1080p. After I’m satisfied with the outcomes I’ll upgrade the memory with 32gb DDR4-3466 and SSD to a 1 tb Samsung 980 pro and repeat all the tests. Just for grins I’ll then add a second 1 tb 980 pro, reconfig to RAID 0 and repeat.

No offense but I don’t trust these kids and their PC abilities enough for accuracy. I’ll take plenty of pictures of the system, opening it up and posting what I find so we can all form our own opinions about quality control.

 

Oh right good to know, never used any of it tbh just clicked on the link @Mr. Fox posted and scrolled down

 

Make sure you change the ram, people are reporting the 16gb ram comes in the slower X16 spec

 

$700 difference between the RTX3070 with the i7 and the RTX3080 with the 11980HK CPU, all for a mild bump (2200pt) in Time Spy? Is anyone else not seeing this as a good deal?

 

Yes, this is good advice. I only use the Classic Search. The new search is garbage in so many ways. Although, this is what we should all expect from technology and media in 2021... half-truths, misrepresentation and fabrication... as needed to support the agenda and the narrative. If you want to see what is real, you have to hunt for it. Nobody is going to show it to you if it doesn't support what they want you to believe.

 

This use to be the only way Futuremark would except results. So why the change?

 

Well just thought as the 10k -11k scores were being posted then why wasn’t this one posted on here to discuss

 

Posted a lot results. One of many
http://forum.notebookreview.com/thr...e-and-discussion.835993/page-34#post-11101319

Newest results is often benched from machines with newest firmware.

 

Yeah fair enough, was more due to the fact it has better temps this time as well

 

Did you mean HWBOT? With HWBOT you need the validation URL, a screen shot of the benchmark window showing the score, with an array of CPU-Z windows and GPU-Z. Futuremark doesn't require any visual proof. You just upload the score and if the SystemInfo scan doesn't detect any cheats and a valid GPU driver, it accepts the submission as valid.

 

Will depends on if the bench is from the first middle or last run Same user if I remember correct.

 

deleted in shame

 

You made it a bit wrong. Re-read my posts. I fixed it for you. It was from the thinner x15. This model have fully castrated 3080@110W@8GB vram to be able tou run in the thin and slim chassis

 

Ah, that makes sense, thanks. Still we don't know much about how these results were achieved, including ambient temps, presence of a cooler, stock or overclocked.

 

where does $700 come from? the difference is $294 - https://www.dell.com/en-us/member/s...rationid=5b0cbb76-79d7-48ee-96c5-6e245fe2cb3f

 

You are looking at GPU only. Have to change CPU to 11980hk to see the 700.00

 

FYI. Dell released a new system bios for the AW X17 R1 on July the 1th with fixes for the "Intel Dynamic Platform and Thermal Framework policy".

The better benchmarks scores is from around middle June (is this a coincidence?). Here is a new low from X17 (i9-11980Hk and 3080) from today July 5th https://www.3dmark.com/spy/21338535


We all know the AW boys and girls is fast to jump on new firmware / software from Dell support page or their flawed Support Agent software in hope for better performance/compatibility with HW bought outside Dell Store. Good help from Microsoft's servers for pushing new firmware is also widely known.

 

Notice the RAM modules are
16,384 MB A-Data Technology DDR4 @ 1,598 MHz
Module 2
16,384 MB A-Data Technology DDR4 @ 1,598 MHz

So no overclocking to begin with, but also not sure A-Data screams "fast enthusiast RAM". They probably ran out of Kingston Value RAM.

 

Dell use a lot A-Data ram. Forgot that they screwed the Are-51m owners with custom Dell approved sticks?

x17 "Founders" edition arrived early today! Some quick thoughts and TimeSpy

With internal screen: https://www.3dmark.com/spy/21343859

Total 11401, Graphics 12049, CPU 8739

With external monitor: https://www.3dmark.com/spy/21344090

Total 12464, Graphics 12706, CPU 11252

Edit. https://www.reddit.com/r/Alienware/..._verified_timespy_score_11980hk_3080/h45li42/

 

Yep, I updated to the latest Game Ready drivers, I didn't even try to run it with whatever was installed. I couldn't believe the difference bypassing the iGPU makes. I'm going to guess a lot of people are going to use an external monitor, so it's going to hurt them and hurt the average scores on benchmarks like this.

I'm going to run a couple of game benchmarks later tonight and let everyone know how it goes. But I'll let the pros do the total rundown, they always do it better. Just wanted to let everyone know the x17 can stand up.

 

Something is obviously wrong. The difference shouldn't be that large, in fact it should be barely noticeable. Does this have Advanced or standard Optimus? Where is the MUX switch we heard about in the MashIT unboxing video lol?

 

Just ran it again off the internal screen. A little better, but still way behind:

https://www.3dmark.com/spy/21347514

I'll let Jarrod or Linus or one of those guys figure it out

 

Which display option have you got? 165Hz FHD Optimus, 360 FHD gsync (does it have advanced optimus?), or 120Hz UHD (presumably with Optimus?)?

 

120Hz UHD. I assume Optimus (Nvidia system info says "Advanced Optimus: No"), and there is no MUX switch option I can find in the BIOS or Command Center.

 

OK, what's the external display? I guess the 4k panel could be unfairly impacting TS scores with Optimus. TS renders at QHD, but when run on a FHD panel, it only has to render FHD, whereas on your panel it will render QHD.

Can you set Scaled Resolution in 3D Mark settings to FHD and try again on your internal display?

@Spartan@HIDevolution

 

This is the monitor:
https://store.asus.com/us/item/2020...ROG-Tripod,-Carrying-Bag,-3-Hour-Battery-Life

No, 3DMark renders at 1440p even if it only outputs at 1080p. If you start playing with scaling, you'll get "custom" (i.e. invalid for comparison) scores. It's Optimus that's killing it, though, for sure.

 

https://support.benchmarks.ul.com/e...my-desktop-resolution-affect-my-3dmark-score-

Can you check what bios version you are on? Use Hwinfo64, Cpu-z or in bios.

 

OK, so it's FHD. Probably the fastest option for this benchmark, although it should make next to no difference with an external monitor.

That's what I mean: you can just change the scaling resolution to FHD to simulate having a FHD panel, it will still render at QHD. Doesn't matter if it says Custom, we are not here to compare our d*cks on 3dmark website, we just want to check the impact of the 4K panel. Do it for science man

Edit: Just for the avoidance of doubt, as per bro @Papusan's link, the change doesn't impact the validity of your benchmark run for comparison purposes, and FHD resolution is fine. You just need to go to Options->General->Scaling resolution and set that to 1920*1080.

 

Ah, it's 1.0.0. I assumed it had been updated already from the factory. I'll update and try again.

 

Ok, I updated to 1.1.2 (via 1.1.1) and re-ran. Slight improvement, nothing major

Through internal display:
https://www.3dmark.com/spy/21349895

And, you all were right, switching the output scaling to 1080p instead of leaving it at 4K helped a bit:
https://www.3dmark.com/3dm/63511305

Not super significant, but every drop helps I suppose.

 

Still a big gap vs external display. Something's not right.

 

Just re-ran the external display on BIOS 1.1.2, virtually identical to 1.0.0:

https://www.3dmark.com/spy/21350104

EDIT: And for fun, at default Overclocking profile 1 in command center:

https://www.3dmark.com/spy/21350229

A smidge of a bump, but the temps were 1C cooler

 

Optimus has always affected performance (5-20% AFAIK) and stability of the system since its implementation. Don't you guys remember diagonal screen tearing, dGPU that refused to wake up when playing old stuff, small freezes when right-clicking on desktop or doing some basic desktop stuff? And all of this just to save the user from restarting.

Gaming laptops without mux or at least Advanced Optimus shouldnt exist, and I should know since all OLED laptops are forced to always Optimus with the only way out is to use an external display.

 

I think I'll buy the x17 with 3070 and GSync display (360hz). But I believe 360hz display is a waste, 165 would be enough.
But I can't live without GSync.