*OFFICIAL* Alienware m15 R4 / m17 R4 Owner's Lounge

If going thin, light, and portable is really the goal, just spend $600 and get this little pile of trash instead. It runs Windoze 10.

 

People are weird bro Fox. How can other gaming laptops run above Alienware's 100C Cpu temp target? Isn't 100C Tjunction max allowed temp for all newer Intel processors? And the other OEMs don't offer as Dell the TCC Offset to stop the 100C runaway thermals. Maybe not needed. It seems he haven't followed its favorite brand the last decade.

 

Let’s face it. Dell is producing machines that the community wants. It’s just that we are not the community they are targeting anymore. PC gaming has gone mainstream by a lot over the years and the community demands thin and light with decent performance. That’s what dell are producing. Unless people stop buying these products, nothing will change. And let’s face the fact, they won’t stop buying.

lol there’s m15r6 too. This is just funny
https://www.notebookcheck.net/Alien...nd-CherryMX-mechanical-keyboard.537972.0.html

 

I never noticed until now, but the m15 R5 and R6 have the same chassis and GPU (sans the RTX 3080 for the R5).
Yeesh, how many owner's lounges do we need to make?

 

Yes, but to be fair the whole world has turned weird about a whole lot of things. We live in strange times, with lots of strange people... both evil and weird.

 

The fun part. The unlocked Tiger lake HK seems to be too much for this chassis From your link....

The Alienware m15 R6 offers Tiger Lake-H CPU options including the Core i5-11400H, Core i7-11800H, and the Core i9-11900H. There does not seem to be a Core i9-11980HK option this time around.

Intel push TGP to try beat AMD Ryzen mobile. At least Dell saw the paint on the wall for the m15 refresh and removed the option instead for making a better cooling.

Graphics options range from the RTX 3050 Ti to the RTX 3080 Laptop GPUs with all GPUs from the RTX 3060 onwards offering the Dynamic Boost Max-Q feature up to 10 W. The TGP of all GPUs is rated at 115 W with the exception the RTX 3050 Ti, which is rated at 80 W.

Almost all Ampere SKUs crap out at 125W on the m15 6th refresh. A downgrade vs its its predecessor. Lower base TGP as well as lower Dynamic Boost TGP. Yeah, this is what we call a nice improvement!

https://www.dell.com/en-us/shop/help-me-choose/cp/hmc-aw-video-card-laptops


Intel Tiger Lake-H now official, first benchmarks indicate Intel finally closing the multithread performance gap with AMD Ryzen 5000

 

Big, well engineered laptops are a past time. Us older people (I'm 34) like well built, modular, easily serviceable machines with high power components and 0 compromise. The new generation like super thin laptops that are pretty and light; throttling is okay to them because most new gen PC gamers dont notice or benchmark this stuff. They just want to hop on, play some Fartnite or Roblox, and call it day. We must change with the times or just ditch this hobby. The older I get the more I move away from these human-made distractions to life. We are no longer a big target audience for gaming laptops. We will need to resort to the small boutique makers till they eventually die off as well.

 

I think you can use upload it to a post here cause the rom file is under the 2MB limit. Thank you so much!!

 

I think you are exactly right! that is too funny. Intel is creating segmentation and the OEMs are jumping on it!

 

Here some more funny. They also removed the MicroSD-Card reader for the 6th gen refresh
http://forum.notebookreview.com/thr...r5-owners-lounge.835745/page-12#post-11094502

 

That graph is as cherry picked as can be lol.

 

saving the cost of something nobody asked for by jacking up the price for less features nobody asked for lol

jokesters over there!

 

Just saw preliminary benchmark numbers of Tiger Lake H45 on Notebookcheck. The i7 11800H and the i9 11980HK score 5139 and 5238 points in Cinebench R20 respectively. The key here is that, the 11800H boosts upto 4.1 GHz max on all 8 cores, so although it isn't known if the i7 is able to sustain that frequency throughout the benchmark, we can safely say that the i9 certainly isn't. Because even if we assume 4.1 GHz on the i7 scoring 5139, then clearly the i9 (which can go up to 4.5 GHz all core) should be like 5600 something in a perfect scenario, provided that the laptop has beefy cooling. The i9 must be having support for undervolting through XTU (since it is unlocked), and hopefully that is good news for Intel, at least it won't burst into flames and would be a lot more manageable in practical, standard form factors with the undervolt dialled in. Also, the i9 CPU runs on an MSI sample, and if in case that sample happens to be one of the GE66/GE76 raider, those laptops aren't really known for good performance in CPU only workloads like Cinebench (tripod screw design, hardly any shared heatpipes etc), so this makes up for an average case scenario for sure. We may see better performance in laptops like the new Zephyrus S17, which features liquid metal thermal compound and a 17 inch chassis with that keyboard lifting up to increase airflow (at least thats way more acceptable on paper than the ridiculous Alienware X series lol).

 

I didn't personally buy it it was gifted to me as they had a military discount and a coupon and got it for 2k and gave me one as a birthday gift (early) he did give me access to his account just incase I wanna mod the order but he paid not me I'm too broke.

 

Strangely though, Dell has included the 11980HK for the XPS 17, but decided against throwing it inside the Alienware. Probably in combined loads with the 3070 and 3080 GPUs, the HK CPU would have become toast lol thanks to the shared heatsink in use. Especially given how the recent m17 r4 on notebookcheck was seen struggling with the i9 running at 1.7 GHz

 

The XPS 17 have Vapor Chamber. Dell traded the Vapor chamber cooling for two ram slots in the R6 and the Ryzen model. No Vapor chamber = No HK chips. Probably the reason why they reduced TGP for the 3000 series graphics as well. This is what we call innovation in tech nowadays

http://forum.notebookreview.com/thr...r5-owners-lounge.835745/page-12#post-11094573

 

I created a thread, but I might have more luck here. I just received my M17 R4 4k (10870h/3080/32gb) and I am having issues with performance after some time. When I first got it a couple of days ago, I ran some Time Spy tests which went around 11.5k average (12+ GPU, 8.5k+ CPU). Pretty great.

But some time after, on the next day or so and without installing anything other than the bare minimum (not even Afterburner), the results dropped to 9.5/10k average. Both GPU/CPU dropped accordingly. Nothing running in the background, right after restarts, no Windows update, etc... Nothing special that I could readily see.
I went on and did a fresh install. The scores went back to the normal 11.5k averages. Soon after though, it tanked again to 9.5/10k. I am 99% sure that if I do a fresh install again, I am going to shoot back up.

I also made sure that Nvidia Control Panel was not limiting my scores by capping the FPS to 60. That being said, I am 90% sure that they are when the lower tests come around.

Here are the only things that I installed: Chrome, Steam (3Dmark & Cyberpunk), Nvidia Control & Experience (on the new fresh install). That's it.

Somehow, I suspect that the Alienware bloatware might be in the mix, but that is only speculation. What I do see in Task Manager is my memory being used up to 25%.

Anybody had those issues?

 

All those paste maybe good but as far non conductive nothing in my eye beats phobya nanogrease extreme

 

You should copyright "AlienPaste"

 

The M15 R5 was seen severely thermal throttling on the GPU side, in Mobiletechreview's video. Not only did it hit 86C, it dropped to below 100W, which is far cry from its advertised 115W. They obviously deserve all the criticism that's about to come their way now, especially when at least 115W has almost normalized across most brands, to the point that anything less is ignored even by the above average consumer. At least this year's Asus Strix Scar series deserves some applause with 2 dedicated pipes for each chip and just one shared pipe, with LM on CPU. In Mobiletechreview's video, despite cpu hitting 56W and gpu at 115W, the cpu didnt budge at all, as it maxed out at 89c still.

Also, about the new X series, well. Why don't they use the same chassis of the R4 at least, and throw the same Quad Fan Tech they say? By all means their idea was pretty neat, as by using 2 more fans, they were able to use wider heatsink fin stacks to increase the surface area for heat dissipation. It would work a lot better for the current form factors, but pretty sure its not even close to being sufficient for the X's form factor.

 

I'd get it to test if i could. But nobody ships it to my country.

 

Here you go guys. Some interesting details on how power scales with performance on the i7 11800H has been compared with Ryzen 7 5800H here.



Take a look at how the Ryzen platform shows a linear gain, whereas the Intel steeply rises post the 60W mark in Cinebench scores. Both seem to level off to almost the same score at 80W. This indicates that the 5800H is better binned at lower power limits. Intel platform on the other hand, has unimpressive performance at lower wattages, and seems to be better binned to run at higher power limits.

Also here's how performance per clock is gauged while running Cinebench R20 on the 11800H.



As it can be inferred, for every 10W gain in power, the CPU clocks rise by about 400 MHz, with the exception of the 45W area. The overall improvements from 14nm node from a performance per clock perspective are notable, as at just 3.4 GHz, the Tiger is able to crack 4350 points in Cinebench, whereas the older i7 10870H 14nm running at 4GHz can only manage about 4100ish points in Cinebench R20. So that points to a very good IPC uplift over 14nm.

 

So, I bought an Asus ROG Strix SCAR 17 (5900HX/3080) yesterday.

seems comparable and for $1500 less.
.
I thought I'd hate the plastic build but I think it helps the laptop stay cooler.

 

Any news as to when it will be available to purchase in the usa? i have a m17 r4 on order with a 10870h/3080 and am under heavy advisement to cancel. I havent yet because this was a gift to me i was given 3k to spend at alienware on a laptop.

 

Im surprised that after reading 78 pages of this no one has taken the time to repaste and repad then install windows ltsc with only @Papusan suggested windows updates and put before and after pictures.

 

Because they wanted a thinner chassis. Dell Alienware can't compete with Razer if they used todays design. The new X series from Dell is thinner than ever. And as the Intel guy say in the youtube video. We will see thinner and thinner gaming laptops.


http://forum.notebookreview.com/thr...-whopping-margin.833406/page-37#post-11095439

 

Why does Alienware feel the need to compete with Razer in the first place? Razer continues to use lower wattage GPUs inside their laptops, and is known to power throttle their CPUs heavily too, despite thermal headroom available. Alienware on the other hand, aims to (even if they fail to get it right) let the horses run free and give flexibility to the user to choose Thermal Full Speed modes and so on. Thermal limit is the only limit with Alienware, and if one can mod the cooling, he'll be able to extract that much more performance on the Alienware, whereas mods on Razer wouldn't do much to improve performance, as their EC severely cripples their laptops.

Razer has a different market altogether, and Alienware following Razer's footsteps is like contradicting your own ideology, and your 'vision' and 'mission' which makes your company unique.

 

Hello i open the m17r4 for repading and repaste: liquid metal on cpu and paste on gpu, on the gpu memory are some coper and under them are some sort of tape..i removed..now i wait for the pads: on ram, and gpu memory 1.5mm, in rest all are 1mm.
All the best.

 

@Papusan @Mr. Fox guys I canceled the order! Lol.

 

Now yall got me wondering if i should return my m17 r4 3070, I've got until June 1st to decide. Thermals are great and firestrike is 22,630 out the box but if it'll be outdated when I can still return it, should I? :/

 

Return it!!! June 1st the x series will be out with 11th gen. I don't know if I'm gonna look that way but I canceled because I trust @Mr. Fox and @Papusan only real reason I had one on order was because someone gifted me 3k (in a dell preferred account not actual 3k in cash lol)to purchase one because they value my input and wanted me to give them my opinion on it. They even let me keep it (my homeboy is mega rich). I told my friend I was gonna cancel and wait for the new one June first. Dell is no longer taking orders for m17 r4 with 3080 installed.

 

If anyone needs a brand new panel, I have a 1080p 360hz gsync panel from dell for the m17 I can sell. Pictures attached

 

LTSC has problems as it ages. I remember having a perfect build with it where i had no screen lagging and 1080ti sli and it was my best build. Upgrade to 2080 tI and it did not work. Upgraded to LTSC 2019 and it was trash in comparrison.

 

To all you members that were not around in the begging listen to Mr Fox. He knows the Alienware brand from the beginning. I must say after a few months with mine, i am not that impressed. It can't keep the cpu cool enough to push frames and i did a repaste once on an alienware laptop and it was bad. They used crap screws and ended up stripping a few trying to get them off the heatsink. I have a massive undervolt at 4.2 core and cache -210 and still get to the 100 mark on a cooling pad and with my GPU running 1800 at the .800mv max setting. GPU rarely at 95 percent unless i use resolution scale.

 

I stay 82° with LM , uv 0.070, and gpu 57° 1845mhz stock no UV.

 

I had no issues with my 2080ti msi trio gaming x with ltsc 1809. I only used @Papusan recommended updates and worked 100% fine.

 

Hey fellas. Could someone with an m15 r4 with the 3070 upload a copy of their vbios? I'd really appreciate it

 

What is your plan? Increase the TGP limit a little bit on the R5?

 

Yeah. I managed to find one and the average wattage is between 135 and 140 now. brought the performance up quite a bit. Runs great too.

 

Thanks I ended up getting the M15 R4 with the 3080, 32gb and the 144mhx advanced optimus.

 

Hey happy to see you here!
I'm the guy who shunted my G7 2080 Max Q and kept asking you questions haha. Getting my M17 R4 tomorrow, probably won't be doing the same thing lol.

 

82c with lm is too hot for me...I need it at least like 75c have you tried a higher uv like 90 or 95? Or changing out the pads in the system with higher quality ones? 16w/mk are nice or a cooling pad usually helps 2-5c

 

Hello, I just got an Alienware m17 r4 with an I7 10870H and the RTX 3070. This thing is really fast, but I'm having one doubt.

I can't make this go 4.2ghz on all cores, no matter what I do, it's not power limited or temperature limited, I already have this undervolted by about 100mv, is there anything else I can check?

The best that I can do in benchs is 4.1ghz on 8 cores, thanks for any help!!

 

I finally got a good deal on an M15 R4 with core i9 CPU and RTX 3080. Ordered directly from Dell with about $900+ in discounts. Patience is a virtue because last month I ordered a similar configuration for over $3000 but canceled before it shipped. This one won’t be. I’ll be upgrading the storage with a pair of 1 gig sticks in RAID 0 later. Would have liked to have OLED but they dropped the option for some reason. I thought about waiting for tiger lake but this configuration will be plenty fast for my needs and this deal was to good to pass.

 

10870h maxes out at 4ghz all cores, not 4.2. Only 10875H goes upto 4.3. You can verify the same through online resources.

Edit: I was wrong. It runs at 4GHz due to TVB throttling. You may try and disable TVB throttling via Throttlestop, that should help for sure if no performance limits are being hit.

 

Intel Core i7-10870H Processor - Benchmarks and Specs

https://www.reddit.com/r/XMG_gg/comments/itbdmj/psa_xmg_neo_15_and_neo_17_back_in_stock_and_some/
A similar switch might happen in laptops in the near future with the new Intel Core i7-10870H which clocks 0.1GHz lower than i7-10875H but is otherwise the same.

 

Oh, my bad. I saw many videos online which showed 4GHz on that 10870H. Must be that infamous TVB throttling, cutting down clocks by 200 MHz, and hence 4GHz. It's a bit strange though, seeing how no Youtuber has even talked about the TVB throttling.

 

Anyone try the New BIOS May 31st Version 1.4.0, 1.4.0

Fixes & Enhancements
Fixes:
- Fixed the issue where the system shows adapter plug-in icon even when the Type-C adapter is disconnected from Dell DA310 USB-C Mobile Adapter.

Enhancements:
- Enhanced the system frame per second (FPS) stability while playing heavy loading games.

https://www.dell.com/support/home/e...ode=wt64a&productcode=alienware-m15-r4-laptop

 

Just got it. Ran 3d mark all default. Got about the same result as always. Otherwise everything seems equal/fine.
I been getting some weird hardware error bugs in the MS reliability monitor. Digging more I found that they were related with the USB c firmware (in this case the 3080 USB c port).
The bios updated the pd firmware which is also related with USB c, so I hope the bugs will stop now. But it is too early to say.