*OFFICIAL* Alienware m15 Owner's Lounge

Just curious, how much did that cost, and how much performance did you gain over stock speed RAM?

 

So that cost me around £180 for the kit:

https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B01NAL3TYY/

BTW apologies it's CL15 for the 2666MHz memory, the one I got for my old AW15 was 2400MHz CL14.

Dell demands £310 for an upgrade from 8 to 32GB and presumably you also get that slower CL17/18 memory instead.

Since the out of the box memory was single channel, the difference in performance was significant just on that basis.

 

Ok - I'm going to be the odd one out.

I like the new design, because finally they actually trimmed the bezels down. I think they did it right on the 51m and the XPS 15 and really wondered if they couldn't have done better with the m15 and m17. Now they did and I like it very much.

Copying the rear vents I think gave them more surface area for fins (we'll have to see if I'm right when we get one open!) Adding the LED circle in the rear like the 51m I think adds to the look, but again, this is all my $.02 only.

I'm hopeful that a smaller battery contributes less heat and is more resistant to swelling that kills machines down the road. If it was simply smaller well it's not like I was buying this device for gigantic battery life. I have other devices for 10 hour battery life. I would have liked 99whr but I can live.

Soldered ram seems like it will annoy more people than make happy. I typically don't go aftermarket on ram, the $ saved isn't a ton anymore, and the very small amounts of speed improvements aren't worth worrying about. Machines change out faster these days.

Losing the keypad on the 15 I think just gave them more space underneath to make things less crowded inside and make the thin bezels possible. The thin bezels were worth the loss.

Would like to see Windows Hello and none of that Toby uselessness, imo.

What is great is that now the m15 is more like a thick and GPU enhanced XPS - which means it's very small to carry. The m17 is just half an inch wider than the 15" older AW I have at home. That makes the 17 much nicer, easy to carry and who doesn't love gaming on a larger screen.

Now if only I could get OLED for the 17.

 

Anyone knows what Azor is talking about with this 6-phase CPU and 8-phase GPU voltage regulator? He did nothing to explain the actual benefits of this. Sounds like a marketing gimmick. Haven't noticed any voltage regulation issues in the m15 and all the components have the same TDP so don't require higher voltage.

He is also talking about the side bezels a lot - they are practically the same as in the current m15. Exhausts location is exactly the same, except the grills look more sparse/smaller.
Also total BS about gaming laptops not being expected to have long battery life - AW15 R2 was showing 10-12h of battery life on idle when new.

Not impressed at all.

 

I think we all get that from all your post today. But Why not be happy you got a laptop that you love and can upgrade the memory instead of bashing this one?

 

Well, good salesmen are good a duping people and those guys evidently aren't too bad! The dimensions are almost exactly the same! The difference is 1.25mm on each side - that's nothing.

m15 R2
Base Dimensions
1. Height (Front): 0.704" (17.9mm) | Height (Peak): 0.791" (20.1mm) | Height (Rear): 0.77" (19.5mm) | 2. Width: 14.19" (360.5mm) | 3. Depth: 10.9" (276mm)
Weight: 4.75lb (2.16kg)*

With Tobii Eye Tracking
1. Height (Front): 0.720" (18.3mm) | Height (Peak): 0.807" (20.5mm) | Height (Rear): 0.77" (19.5mm) | 2. Width: 14.19" (360.5mm) | 3. Depth: 10.9" (276mm)
Weight: 4.75lb (2.16kg)*

m15 R1
1. Height: Front 17.9 mm (0.705") - Rear 21 mm (0.83") | 2. Width: 363 mm (14.3") | 3. Depth: 275 mm (10.8") | Weight: 2.16 Kgs (4.78 lbs)*

You've been a cheerleader for the upcoming m15 for a while now, beginning with the overhyped upcoming CPUs with ridiculous clock speeds at the same TDP, so I'm not entirely surprised at your post. I wonder if you will actually buy one.

Large battery was one of the main USPs of the AW15. Now that they are killing that off, they will face more competition in the crowded small battery space, and people will start asking about Gsync hehe.

 

As explained earlier, it's the direction of travel towards Apple-like BS peddling and thus the destruction of my beloved brand and favourite laptop model.

 

But why more love for XPS?

RAM Options
I haven't read enough to understand the differences b/w the RAM offered on the new m15 vs the new XPS 15... but what's the reason the m15 is limited to 16GB and the new XPS 15 gets 64GB???

Yeah, Dell's own main brand seems to get more love from Azor the Co-founder of Alienware!

 

That's what's pushing me to the M15. Depending on price I'm heavily leaning towards getting the OLED panel for the M15. I think it's more the manufacturers fault we don't have one for the M17 since the Area 51m doesn't have this option either.

I'm still waiting for a response back about the soldered ram. I'm trying to find out if it can be upgraded when purchasing so you could opt for 16gb of soldered ram or if we'd be stuck with 8gb.

And no G sync options seems like an odd choice to me. Personally I'd like for there to atleast be the option. Oh well.

 

Not gonna lie, I think the new design isn't very nice looking. It's great that they shrunk the bezels, but I'm not a fan of the new design language. I use my laptop for work more than just gaming and the new design seems a bit more gamer oriented, especially with that smaller battery. It would for sure stick out more in the conference rooms at my office.

I think the cooling will hopefully be better and should get better with every generation, but if I didn't have my current m15, I would look elsewhere.

 

While I'm inclined to believe that dual channel is indeed faster than single, I'd need to see some benchmarks run on an m15 to convince me that the system really does take advantage of lower CAS latency memory if its fitted. Testing is expensive so I would be surprised if they qualified the machine for more than the stock stuff that Dell fits...

As for price - when I bought my machine it was a £90 option to go from the base 16GB to 32GB. I couldn't have matched that anywhere at the time!

Well - he needs to have something to talk about...

My understanding is that more phases gives you smoother DC output and potentially more power (unless you've downsized the components in each phase), but probably more importantly for us makes the PSU more efficient. This matters when cooling is limited - a 90% efficient VRM burns about 16W delivering 150W but a 95% efficient one only burns about 8W.

 

What do you guys think - how close to 180 degrees do you reckon the lid of the M15 R2 will go back?
Interested to know if it will be similar to the 13R3

 

I have to say, I was sceptical when @Vasudev suggested a strong connection, but now Azor really spent too much time comparing the two systems. Same bezels! Almost same height! So similar hehe.

Who cares Frank, you "done f..d it up" by killing the superior AW15 design, and tinkering around the edges with the VRM is not going to cut it. Smaller battery, soldered RAM.

Now now, behave yourself mate.

Not quite, but close. The main benefit comes from splitting the load into a further set of components (channel/phase), so max temp on each falls.

https://www.hardwaresecrets.com/eve...-the-motherboard-voltage-regulator-circuit/4/

In general they say that more channels is good, so I would give Dell a benefit of doubt on this, however, the question is how much will it matter in practice on an undervolted CPU which draws 65W max, and 20-30W in games. Again, he didn't mention any concrete benefits, nor did he state what the R1 design is (I think the CPU at least has a 4 phase regulator judging by the number of padded chokes, but I'm not sure). Would be also good to know how many phases/channels the old AW15 used

The price for this improvement is motherboard real estate.

Out of interest, why do you care? This is possibly the last thing I'd ever consider when evaluating a notebook. Are you planning to take the laptop to the ISS and levitate over it?
My m15 opens to around 175 degrees if that helps, it's almost flat.

 

the

The way I use a laptop is often out flat

 

You can do that legwork if you like, I didn't have to because the rationale is straightforward. With CL15 vs CL17 I gain a maximum of around 12% in memory-bound use cases. To have the option to achieve that I had to pay £180, or I could just have the inferior Dell memory for £310. Please let me know if you have any questions why that was a very simple choice. Going forward there will be no option anymore

The improvement would certainly be use case dependent, with data-intensive applications such as video editing, CPU rendering, data science etc. being the primary beneficiaries. That said, the video game benchmark numbers I get out of my 2070MQ system are within 10% of the 2080 MQ - perhaps 5% better than expected.

Must have been a sale, it's £204.99 now mate - in the region of 250% markup considering they supply cheap memory. Anyway, selecting the 16GB starting RAM option is already a ripoff since it costs £150 extra. Getting a single 16GB stick and adding a second one is a poor option anyway, because you will need to find a stick that matches the Dell one. Makes much more sense to just get the 8GB variant, keep it in a drawer as backup, and buy a superior 32GB kit.

I'm still curious but it might be TMI

 

I've uninstalled it a long time ago when it started acting up and didn't save my feedback, a lengthy one.

 

Have you guys seen the new redesigned M15 that was shown at Computex? I just bought mine and there's already a new version due out in a month...

 

Wait for couple of months and there'll be new ones yet again! Earlier, AW had incentives that lets you buy new one by exchanging old AW if you bought it a month or two before new model was released. But that is absent these days.

 

Of course he bring up this topic. The web is flooded with questions about burning out VRM's in the big brother Area-51m ( power delivery flaws and repetitive problem with burnt down machines). He wants to reassure future buyers that their new products is safe to use.

 

Yep, returning my m15 to get that bad boy. Love the smaller battery, soldered RAM, will def get it in white with 5.2GHz Thermal Velocity Boost technology (which means it's always fast and cool), plus the 51m LED will be pretty ghetto on the public transport or in the office which is the look I'm going for (I know the LED can be disabled but who would do that!).

 

I ordered my current m15 with 32gb of ram and the 99wh battery. Not sure if I want to give that up. I also got a really good discount. I'm sure this new version is going to be much more expensive.

 

Yeah, but it's been the A51m bad boys that have been getting fried with 500W of power and going up in smoke, not the m15 bad boys. More evidence they are quite confused over there.

 

The Area-51m got fried even at idle. See... Below 50w of power

 

Wait...what did I miss? Soldered RAM on the R2???

 

apparently there are people who like soldered RAM, or people who can accept soldered RAM on a 2.6kg not the thinnest, not the lightest, not the smallest gaming laptop. go figure..

 

I'm sure there are, judging by some earlier reactions to the R2, along the lines of "OMG new keyboard and sexy led!".

Time for the big reveal: I was being sarcastic

 

I was gonna review the R2, might have an opportunity to do so.

What a surprise from AW. I don't like this direction they're going in.

Thinner laptops have removable RAM...

Someone said somewhere else that ONE ram slot will be available? Is that true? I have a lot of catching up to do...

 

Yes, to quote Frank: "there is also one SODIMM slot so you can even do some RAM upgrades on this bad boy".

 

Too bad its crippled since even with HyperX 2667-3200MHz the RAM speed will be limited to soldered RAM chip.

 

What do y'all use to raise the laptop while gaming? I'm gonna be receiving mine in a couple of days and was wondering what my best option is. Cooling pad is the obvious solution but I dont wanna add any more bulk to my bag. Anyone use something like this or this. The wedge thing seems to be a better option to me cause it wont cause the fans to pull in the hot air that the rear vents are exhausting, but there's vents on the side too, so dont know if that'll work all that well.

 

Check the 1.6.2 BIOS thread, @CptXabaras posted his neat foldable stand details there. I don't use anything on the go, it's not needed on battery, and not worth it for temporary AC power use cases (check my temp results while gaming a few pages back).

 

I travel for work and do have some extended gaming sessions while travelling. Obviously wont be gaming on battery, are temps acceptable while gaming on ac power for a couple of hours? I'm assuming those temps you posted are on ac power? Every review I've seen on this laptop has said that the temps get a little too hot while gaming, with the CPU going as high as 99C, I usually like to keep my laptop for a long time(the macbook air in my flair lasted me 8yrs, I'm not expecting this one to last as long since its a gaming laptop but at least 3 or 4 yrs would be nice), that sort of heat cant be good for the longevity. I am planning on doing a repaste as soon as I'm out of the return period, will be undervolting as soon as I get it though

 

Actually, games are playable on battery for 2-4h after a bit of tweaking. Yes, those temps are on AC power with UV and repaste. The laptop is def hot out of the box - the price for the uncalled for miniaturisation, undervolting is mandatory. Just with that I stopped hitting 99C even in Cinebench 20. CPU runs much cooler in games. Repaste will help too, but in my case not drastically so.

 

What sort of tweaks have you performed other than UV and repasting. Your temps look good and I'd be extremely satisfied with my purchase if I could get similar results

 

Get ghetto and use two of these:

https://www.amazon.com/Cable-Clips-...ement&qid=1559219224&s=amazon-devices&sr=8-21

The nubs are rubber with adhesive pads. It works great!

 

I was just referring to battery life tweaks (mostly SpeedShift, power plan and Intel/Nvidia driver settings). No other temp related tweaks, quite the opposite - I push SpeedShitft to 16 on AC power. Also either the recent BIOS or, more likely, the latest Windows (which unfortunately got installed at the same time as BIOS for me) raised the temps by a few C - I saw some people in in 51m forums also being affected and claiming a clean install helps resolve this, I'm not going to bother.

 

Without knowing what the real bottlenecks are in the new rev - e.g. thermal throttling it seems a bit early to worry about that IMHO.

I will however laugh loud if it turns out that they've soldered down really expensive ram and so you need to match it with similarly pricey DIMMs - they're always going to be able to buy RAM in bulk cheaper than the average punter can buy a DIMM or four...

 

There is no thermal throttling even on the base m15. I'm sorry to say but you need to work on your pattern recognition if you are actually expecting Dell to all of sudden put in the best possible RAM in their system.

Wake up, they've been always able to do that and yet they've been only offering subpar RAM at 250% markup to retail price.

 

Until someone actually gets an r2 to review this is entirely speculation!

 

You're worried R2 will actually suffer from worse thermals than R1 despite all the improvements they've supposedly made? There is some logic in that, I guess..

 

I am so confused by Dell's website right now. So I guess that the m15 / m17 R1 are getting 9th Gen processors? There is a bios update available for it and a configuration available with the 9750H. Very bizarre given the R2 announcement...

 

You are correct. The current m15 R1 will be getting 9th gen processors. You can actually order them right now on the the Dell.com site.

https://www.dell.com/en-us/shop/gam...re-m15/spd/alienware-m15-laptop/wnorn5chm155h

Note that these new 9th gen processors might not give much of an improvement in performance.

https://www.notebookcheck.net/That-...tperform-a-Core-i7-9750H-laptop.421361.0.html

 

Looks like my keyboard backlight problem has been resolved with a simple uninstall and then clean reinstall of the AWCC, and my other issues seems to have been fixed with the latest BIOS update from DELL. However, I am still running into some thermal issues.... or at least I think I am.. I have undervolted my CPU by 125mV and I placed a maximum boost limit of 3.5 GHZ, and played the entire Tirailleur Campaign of BF5, my CPU Temperature was 95 Degrees Celsius... Current ambient temperature is 29 Degrees Celsius.. sigh.. the thermals... >.> Perhaps I should limit the boost to only 3.4GHZ... and to think my unit was already modified with LM... >.>

 

Don't you use cooling pad or a stand?

 

Glad to hear that BIOS update did the trick.

Your ambient temps are high-ish, but your gaming temps are crazy especially given this is the larger m17? Didn't HIDrevolution repaste it for you? Ah, you said they apply LM. Something is wrong IMHO. If you want to compare with my temps at 25C install free Shadow of the Tomb Raider demo from Steam and run the benchmark on max settings.

What @Vasudev said, but if you want to force the CPU temp down, don't touch frequencies: install XTU and modify just the long and short turbo Boost power limits. I'm assuming you have undervolted as much as possible already.

 

I think TS is super light and yeah 95C on LM means something is wrong.

 

TS power limit controls don't work for me.

 

Copy RWEverything driver to TS and all is good. You can kill the power limits and increase IccMax to Max value to prevent throttling.

 

Yeah hence why my added concern for my unit. I do have throttlestop installed and I would see if I could Undervolt even further... Sigh.. I am constantly plagued with bad luck it seems. I placed my order for the M17 with an RTX2060 back when DELL only shipped it with a 180W Power Brick... a couple of weeks later, DELL announced they would now ship all the M17 models with the 240W one, unfortunately it was too late for me and mine shipped to HIDevolution with the 180W one, oh wells.. spent a bit more to grab the 240W brick. Now, I just received my M17 a week or so ago and then DELL announced a newer version of the laptop with upgraded thermals and better keyboard and whatnot... so yeah.. RIP.. Had to deal with multiple issues with my unit before I finally got it to actually behave properly.. but yeah. the thermal issues are still plaguing me. Going to try to increase my undervolt gradually.. I experienced a BSOD when I undervolted to around 150mV. Guess I am also unlucky with the silicon lottery it seems xD Oh wells.. my very first laptop is starting to become a headache.

 

I'm not surprised at all. I said long time ago that this move will be the next step from Alienware. Read my older posts Exactly as expected!