*OFFICIAL* Alienware X Series Owners Lounge and Discussion

Ordered from best buy

 

and I was just about to buy a BMW.

 

That would have been a mistake.

 

Depends on how you look at it. But yeah, ok support is very needed. Two in a row and people still dont get it. Doesn't matter if it's an Intel chips or Ryzen. All too many think Ryzen will run cool in laptops. But Dell prioritized the x series this time and skimped on the cooling on the cheaper Ryzen model. Maybe a sign on what to come with the much thinner x15 model.

Alienware m15 r5 ryzen edition runs super hot.

 

I did it. Just canceled my M15 R4 order. Hopefully worth it. Earlier today the order page listed the X15's as sold out but that changed a few hours ago.

 

Sounds like poor contact with the heatsink, sadly the techs they hire are contractors that literally get their certifications via open book exams. It was something I was moderately interested in when I first got into IT. However I only like my pillows to filled with fluff, not my resume.

 

Are you sure that's a good idea? The x15 looks like a crippled version of the m15 R4 with those reduced GPU clock speeds.

 

Ive never heard of someone sweet talking a Razer rep into doing the right thing either. Atleast with Dell you can get them to do sooomething in a reasonable amount of time. Usually.

Yeah I’ve tried spreading brother @B0B ‘s warning how he predicted Ryzen wasn’t gonna run cool. And with ASUS running liquid metal by default it was definitely a warning sign they were having trouble with normal paste. So people need to do research before buying and stop listening to all the market speak they hear. But truth be told we were all like that at one point. Many years later and people stop falling for it, while the younger generation thinks we’re crazy. Well. . .I’m definitely crazy.

 

All too many. Maybe Dell pushed out a batch with really bad heatsink? But I doubt it.

First results out with the x17 r1 https://www.3dmark.com/spy/20633332



Gpu temps is awful... Payback due the thin design?


https://www.3dmark.com/spy/20632623


https://www.3dmark.com/spy/20632827


And Dell screwed up once again. See memory clocks. Their QC is awful.

 

And here is a couple of un-named Alienware SKUs with 11th gen Intel Mobile.

https://www.3dmark.com/spy/20618125 (3080 - 11800H)


https://www.3dmark.com/spy/20601252 (3060 - 11800H)

 

Interesting to see that despite the thinness "improvement", the effect on the end-user metric that arguably affects comfort most, i.e. weight, is negative as compared to the fiirst "thin" AW: the m15 R1! The m15 R1 was 2.20kg, while the castrated x15 R1 is listed as 2.36kg, despite having no SODIMMs, no full size keyboard, and gimped ports! What's the point?

 

Sometimes pain is the best teacher.

When I was a kid, Christmas tree lights were screw-in incandescent bulbs that got very hot. Hot enough to catch the trees on fire and burn your house to the ground. My parents were great. One of their philosophies about raising kids was to tell them what the right choice is, but then just back off and let them do stupid stuff. (To a point, of course... nothing crazy like drinking poison or chewing on an extension cord.) Little kids are mesmerized by Christmas tree lights, and little boys are compelled by natural curiosity to touch everything. My parents would say, "no, no... hot" but left it at that. You only needed to touch one of those pretty light bulbs one time and you were cured permanently.

I also learned early on that mom and dad were not trying to deprive me of something special by telling me no. I learned to listen because that was in my best interest. When you can choose to do something stupid because nobody is going to use force to stop you, being rebellious and defiant becomes obsolete. It is liberating to know that nobody is stopping you from making mistakes, they're only telling you what stupid looks like. When you figure out that listening to people that care about you is smart, it is like drawing a picture by connecting the dots and you don't make nearly as many stupid mistakes.

Silly people are going to be mesmerized by cute laptops that are thin and light and have pretty lights. Let them get burned. Unless they are truly stupid, all it will take is one touch. If they are stupid, that is not something we are ever going to fix by telling them the truth. Stupidity will live forever in a vacuum.

 

Yeah, but it's all about thinness though, isn't it? The benchmark is unfair. The manufacturer should demand that 3D Mark starts correcting Time Spy score for thinness... "graphics score per mm of laptop" .

 

Fox, we're almost the same age (you 63 and I 65 model - Not the real age ). What you bring up here gives me good memories from the past. And everything is perfectly explained. Thanks for telling the new generation how it was before. Much is most likely the same today as before, but not all/everything. Old boys like us remember the old days. The young will do the same later in life. The life is a learning curve, none is born perfect. Is'n it true bro @Spartan@HIDevolution ?

 

'63 and '65 were both very good years. Muscle cars and rock and roll were invented in that era and both still thrive. There was no internet and no social media. No computers and no smartphones. My, how things have changed.

There were lots of stupid people back then, too. Stupidity not only lives in a vacuum... it is timeless. The same can be said of evil. But, it wasn't OK to be stupid or evil. It was unacceptable. Today it almost seems like it is an exception to not be. If you identify evil and stupidity, then you are a hateful, fascist, bigot that needs to be silenced and canceled. But, the light bulb trick still works.

 

Both of you stick to that 63 and 65 please, makes me feel so young reading this!

 

The worst part about being born in 1963 is that it takes extra time to select your birth year when selecting from the drop-down menu. Lots of scrolling. I keep expecting to see a verification prompt "Are you sure?"

 

Hey I feel like that too and I was born in 83

 

Not sure what I was expecting but I find these results to be so underwhelming for a 165w 3080.

 

Oh no, why?! The tdp is gimped. And it's worse than the r4 in every way, save for thickness.

 

Jesus those are some god awful temps.

 

By looking at the service manual at least they seem to not have cheaped out on the fans: seems like all 4 are Sunon MagLev, which gives hope for a somewhat quiet operation despite the thin chassis or hopefully al least a bearable noise characteristic.

Unfortunately the MB is still upside down, so a repaste will be a pain in the ass. I don´t believe in the AW marketing regarding the high performance new gallium based thermal grease and think regarding the GPU temps @Papusan postet a repaste with a good traditional thermal grease or liquid metal would still give hope for better thermals.

What I really like about the X17 is the 330W power supply which you get with higher specced versions whereas the GE76 has only 280W. So in theory with a decent shunt mod one should be able to get the most out of the performance. The probability to blow this thing up by doing so would however be very high, but hey, no risk no fun.

What I would like to know is if this 4k 120Hz screen is directly wired to the GPU or is using Optimus. I fear the latter, because I guess the 4k screen is not really targeted at gamers. Also, AFAIK AW never had a MUX switch and the former m17 models which had 4k panels used optimus. So my expectations are low.

The design language is imho now somewhat a mixture between a 51M (which I liked very much) and the typical DELL design, which don´t quite fit together very well.

Regarding the specs, the X seems to be already outdated: Here comes the 3080 Super:

https://www.notebookcheck.com/Ein-g...t-Nvidia-GeForce-RTX-3080-Super.542990.0.html

https://videocardz.com/newz/lenovo-expects-geforce-rtx-3080-super-and-rtx-3070-super-laptop-gpus

 

I already contacted the backend team at Alienware on Monday. The 4k panel version does NOT have Optimus. The display is connected directly to the discrete GPU. It also does NOT have a mux switch. I ended up cancelling my order as a result. If someone hears anything different let me know, but this is what they told me by email on Monday.

 

They did the same thing for the 17 R5 with a 2K screen. It does come with GSYNC though, so that's nice but the fact that they still haven't implemented the hyrbid mux switch, proves they're actively cutting corners by removing stuff and giving it back later on a newer machine. That way they create incentive to buy a new machine.

 

+2 Rep for this info! So as you canceled you really prefer optimus?? This info causes an itching in my finger to press the buy button. The slow normalisation of the pandemic gives me the opportunity to have a life beside my job again. However, our intensive care unit is still pretty full with younger COVID patients which are often fighting for their lives for several month, some make it and leave hospital (most with long term symptoms), but some don´t. Just the outlook to get a new notebook, shunt modding it, then after a while blowing it up because of the mod, would make me feel a little better again.

 

I'm sure the 3080 super will be the full 200w as they got smart with it now or it will be 185w with 15w boost. No change in anything else just power watch

 

The creme of 3070Ti silicon. nvidia have binned chips for the desktop 3070 Ti models the last months and the better silicon will be used in the laptops. The desktop card is 290w and doesn't need to have the best silicon. But this doesn't necessarily mean wee will see 200W cards. Too many gaming-books haven't the needed cooling capacityanymore because of the never ending chassis shrinking.

 

In case anyone missed it, this is AW thermal engineer's "deep dive" into the cooling solution in X series:

https://www.twitch.tv/videos/1042571821?t=00h51m37s

 

Either Optimus or a Mux switch. I just need my laptop to also have good battery life because I carry it around often and use it for school and work. Most of the stuff I use my laptop for won't be affected by Optimus(e.g. machine learning and deep learning type of stuff). I also already have a desktop if I want to max out games.

 

It wasn't much of a deep dive it was just marketing BS. The fan config and the thermal compound sound good to be fair but given a much bigger chassis it would just be a better solution.

They know where the money is and it's unfortunately the thin and light crowd. Where good enough has become the enemy of desktop level performance.

 

What I learned from this... Dell reduced the MB size. And that Dell's engineers is concerned about the internal components longevity due the new x-series chassis is thinner

Edit. 3Dmark Fire-strike results up from x17 R1.


https://www.3dmark.com/fs/25623928

 

Looks like I made the right choice with the M17 R4 w/3080.

 

Yeah....much better then the new thinner models but still a disaster.

So i would say you made the least worst choice of Alienware gaming laptop of this year. Sorry don't wan't to hurt your feellings but i even think My Area51M R2 is also a disaster in Progress. A thicking bomb.

 

You forgot this one... Amazing sound track.

 

delete

 

After 5 order attempts from Dell they finally were able to get this order to go through. Every time they placed the order it would not confirm. After 2 days they finally succeeded in confirming the order this afternoon. At first they would not allow me to use my military discount because they said it wasn’t allowed for new products, but after so many unsuccessful order attempts they threw in the discount which reduced the cost $360.

 

Even with that discount it's still way over priced yet everybody get to pick their poison.

 

Let’s just say that cost isn’t an issue for me and if I’m not satisfied I’ll give it to my teenage son and get something else. My last system I built was in the neighborhood of 15 to 20K. Core i7 6950x and dual Titan Xp in SLI config on an ASUS WS X99/USB 3.1 motherboard. in a Caselabs chassis with 4 rads and 37 Noctua fans in push/pull config. I kept that CPU constantly overclocked by 43% and temps rarely passed 32C. I broke a lot of records on 3dmark. The entire system to include the cables were custom made by myself.

 

I hope they release an AMD CPU edition of this x17 then I'm all in

@Normimb

 

Welcome back brother!
You're the only person (who is considering purchasing an Alienware laptop) to whom i am going to say that:
«Please this time.......don't take the extended warranty » It should last the 6 months.

 

I’ve been building PC’s since the Pentium 2 days. They’re just like anything else. Something new and better always comes out soon after initial release. Remember how angry people were who bought Titan Xp’s right before Nvidia released the RTX 1080 and then the TI version. I never regretted purchasing my pair of Titan Xp’s from Nvidia for $3700 because they were amazing GPU’s. Typically when I build a system I’ll get the latest technology and wait 4-5 years before upgrading. I still have some Coolermaster cases from the 90’s when they were making them with thick steel and aluminum. If not for the supply issues then I wouldn’t even consider a high end laptop. The Alienware I just bought it replacing a Latitude 7480.

 

this result is worse than that of the M17 R4

 

OK, so the cost is not an issue as you are happy to give an arbitrary amount of money to Dell for the latest toy, good for you. There is still a snag though: you get a machine which offers subpar performance and limited I/O (vs comparable options even from the same manufacturer), while offering very little in return. Interesting to see an apparent megaenthusiast such as yourself being either unaware or prepared to put up with that. The longer term downside is that if manufacturers can rely on undiscrimnating customers, they will be free to cut down and compromise even more - not a good outcome for any consumer really, but enthusiasts will continue to suffer the most.

Put another way: we can understand paying what most people would consider a lot of money (and thus voting with your gigantic wallet) for a top product - impressive and helpful, but splashing on a subpar product? Eek, to put it mildly.

 

Wake me up from this thin nightmare when Alienware has a 3080 Super version with a 180-200w variant. Also, a desktop cpu would be nice, but not required

 

Canceled the X17 and went with the Asus strix scar 17 with a 5900HX, 1440p 165hz screen, 3080 16GB with the 155w bios. Got it for only 2100 from 3000 so I couldn't pass the deal at microcenter. Benchmarks it and hit 13k timespy graphics and very happy with it. I'll still be on this forum because I'm interested in the X17 performance.

 

Subpar performance remains to be seen. I’ve been through this before. Spending a lot of money on the fastest and the best but what I purchased is plenty fast for my needs. I’m not buying a system to run 3dmark just to ohh and ahh everybody about my great scores. I’m buying something that is upgradable enough for my needs. And that implies storage. I wanted a system that was comparable to my last desktop which was a core i7 6950x and dual titan Xp’s in SLI. This will either be on that or close to that level. And my desktop had some serious watercooling. I broke a lot of records on 3dmark in that system. The only person who was beating me all the time was some guy in Vietnam who later admitted to using liquid nitro for cooling.
Mine was using 4 EK rads and 37 Noctua fans in push/pull config running at near quit operation. under 40db. It took me a year to build that system from every bent tube to every individual sleeveless cable. I spent between 15-20k building and when I finally broke it down 3 years later sold the individual parts for about hall the original cost. Laptops are different because it won’t be watercooled and I’ll be using it for the next several years until the desktop market recovers. I use Caselabs chassis exclusively even though they went out of business but nobody still comes close to making what they made and I have plenty of spare parts to last for years. My current laptop which is a Latitide 7480 I have replaced the mainboard, storage, and NIC but if I wanna play the occasional game of Civilization 6 or fallout then it’s not practical. This situation reminds me of my Car. I factory ordered a 2019 Corvette before production began in 2018. right before Chevy closed down the factory for a year and completely changed the body from gen 7 to the mid engine gen 8. My $80K Corvette is 2/3 of the way paid off and although I might upgrade to a newer version later on I will never sell my 2019 because I rarely drive it and it is a beautiful machine. I’ll just keep it in my collection. And I upset about not getting the 2020 mid engine Corvette? Not in the slightest. Am I upset about not waiting for the next tech in laptops? No to that also. I have lots of nice things because I live comfortable in retirement. I’m also a single dad raising a teenage son alone. I’m also old school which means I keep a fat bit of coin in the old checking account, and that gets replenished every month by my healthy retirement income. I also have practically no debt. My monthly flexible income is more then this laptop. And lastly, When it comes to overclocking and beating records been their done that.

 

From what i've seen they are using the same design philosophy of the M17 R4 which is to overbuild the gpu vrms so its most likely going to run a 200w+ shunt mod just fine. Heck from the pcb pictures i've gotten of the M17 R4 the vrm is stronger than the one found in the A51M.

Question is how well the cooling system of the X17 will handle a 200w+ gpu.

 

Maybe push for a class-action nr 2? Or will it be the 3rd or the 4th? I know two is pending.

Dell Hit With Fraud Case Over Alienware Area-51m Upgrade Claims tomshardware.com

Yeah the list is alo longer than point 1. Here is the whole document. And enjoy https://www.scribd.com/document/510491072/Felter-v-Dell-Complaint#fullscreen&from_embed


The case is an interesting one in the enthusiast space. At its essence, this boils down to a motherboard with Intel's Z390 chipset as well as the proprietary graphics cards. Motherboards are upgraded at a regular cadence to work with the latest processors, though occasionally new processors will work on older boards. This could potentially set a sort of precedent about how far out a motherboard needs to support a CPU. In desktops, GPUs typically work for years, as long as it's not using an outdated standard. But Dell's graphics were in a proprietary form factor.

They will at least be guilty in the 9th gen Intel case. No i9-9900KS upgrade means guilty in scam. The graphics card upgrade is also close and should be questionable.

https://www.reddit.com/r/Alienware/comments/ns7c7g/dell_hit_with_fraud_case_over_alienware_area51m/

I think Dell is done with the thicker and upgradeable models. Hence we now see the direction with thinner design as the X-series.

Not so sure what you mean with beating records. Or broke records on 3DMark.

 

I cannot find this laptop anywhere

 

That's awesome that money is that easy for you God bless. I'm a peasant so that doesn't work for me but hey more power to ya!