*OFFICIAL* Alienware m15 R6 (11th Gen) Owner's Lounge

ALIENWARE (11th Gen Intel) m15 R6:

Review content coming shortly.

The unit that I have is the Intel 11th Gen 11800H with the RTX 3080 and simply put, it's a great system. I have yet to repaste it and have been gathering as much data as I can in its stock form. The nice thing about the R6 is that it can be under-volted, unlike the AMD mobile cousin the R5. This gives the R6 a huge advantage in taming the thermals without further gimping the system by messing with the TCC.

I'm currently running the Ballistix 3200MHz 64GB (32GBx2) kit in my R6 and it is pretty awesome.



The CherryMX keys on the new Alienware systems are the best chiclet laptop keys I've typed on. It's that good IMO and it blows the msi steel-series out of the water. (I own a msi laptop with the steel-series keys and have many hours with it.)

The 360Hz FHD panel is also blazing fast. For those of you who are FPS gamers you may be able to appreciate the difference.

What I like the most about the m15 R6 is the elegant design language. Having the unique Dark Side of the Moon color really makes it stand out from the rest.

 

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Thanks for creating this bro. I've read somewhere that the m15 is now supposed to be the cheap model line aimed at the Chinese market, whereas the x-series is the flagship line, which is ridiculous because the m15 R6 is superior to the x15 R1 in every way that matters.

 

My pleasure. The m15 R6 IMO is the best in its class overall and it really delivers a lot for the money (even with it being Premium.)

The x15 has its place, but most people who shop in the m15 range will never consider the x15, especially when it lacks so much such as i/o, vapor chamber etc... for the money.

There comes a point, no matter how pretty the shell is, paying a high premium when you have missing features found in a more affordable line doesn't make sense.

The R6 is really good with great thermals once tuned... once I get around to repasting my R6, it'll make it shine even more.

 

Is there a MUX or Optimus SKU?
Does this still suffer from the missing second SSD bracket like the R5?

 

Yes it has Advanced Optimus and the newer batches may have the 2nd bracket included. My R6 was one of the early ones so I had to order mine separately. A lot of people have had great success just calling into CS to get the bracket sent to them. Here's more details about the 2nd bracket.

 

Cool. It does have a vapour chamber, right? So I guess the only thing missing compared to the x17 is the second TB4 port and perhaps the MUX (I don't personally care). Would be good to see those AIDA memory benchmarks if you or anyone else has a moment.

 

Hey iunlock, my m15r6 review unit has arrived and starting prep for the review but I am completely greyed out in throttlestop, how are you undervolting?

 

I had an m15 r5 for a while. It had a lot of issues but overall it was not a terrible laptop. I "downgraded" to a m15 r4 and have been extremely happy with it. Having now had both an r5 and r6, how is the build quality of the r6 compared to the r5? I found the chasis to be really creaky and a step down from the r4. Further the cooling of the r5 and r4 leave alot to be desired. I have physically observed the r4, r5 and r3 thermal systems and they are pretty much identical. I never saw a vapor chamber on any of the systems. My r4 has an i9 and i originally bought an r4 with the i7 and the heatsinks are the exact same. Alienware could do alot to enhance the thermals but they really don't seem to care. Lastly, the 1440p screen is great on the r5 and r6, it's terrible that they dont offer it as an option on the 3080 model r6. What is your opinion on some of this? I am considering buying an r6 and comparing it against the r4. Thank you for all you do in this community.

 

Community Manager Dell@Chris M have posted this new info (‎08-30-2021) on Dell's own support forum m15 R5/R6, second SSD, parts needed
http://forum.notebookreview.com/thr...r5-owners-lounge.835745/page-51#post-11116708

 

I just ordered mine with 11800h, 32gb ram, cherry-mx, 360hz fhd, 3080 rtx. I have a second nvme drive from my current 15r3 that I could add if it's possible. It looks like you cannot chose the QHD screen with the 3080 rtx gpu. Delivery in one month because of the chips supply issues.

 

In some reviews they say that the m15r4 vapor chamber has been removed, speakers are downgraded compared to m15R4 and x-series, and that undervolting has been disabled with the latest bios.

 

Man if the r4 has a vapor chamber I would be very surprised. It looks physically identical to the m15r3 heatsink I used to have. I'm curious for you to share your experience. I have an r4 with the cherry mx keyboard a 10980hk and a 3080. I used to have an m15r5 and it had too many issues. It definitely felt like a downgrade once I bought the M15r4. I love this cherry mx keyboard. I miss the qhd screen tho. It was great.

 

Indeed, I am seeing a lot of contradicting information regarding the vapor chamber. I will find out in one month when it will be shipped I am annoyed by the lack of QHD screen with the 3080; I hope that the FHD is good enough and not cpu limited.

 

I am hoping to post my m15r6 review tomorrow but in answer to your questions:

1. speakers are better on r4 (did you also ask me on youtube comments?)
2. no vapour chamber on the r6, only r4 or X series has the vapour chamber, the r5 and r6 are more budget orientated. It runs quite toasty too
3. undervolting has been removed in latest BIOS
4. Dell are having serious supply issues on QHD screen, I have an X15 on order with QHD and being quoted december for delivery and I ordered early august

 

The R6 is exactly the same build quality as the R5 so also a little creaky. apart from the motherboard everything else is shared between them

 

Good to know. That's a shame. Dell has really been stepping in it lately

 

Yeah, I am not really sure of the direction they are going at the moment. Something else you may or may not be aware of is this alienware m15 r5/r6 chassis is also used on the new g15 range with just a plastic shell and inspiron keyboard attached, the ryzen version even share exactly the same motherboard! I think dell should have just released the m15r5/6 as a g series

 

Thanks for the reply. I am not the person who asked on your YouTube regarding the speakers, but I saw on the Dell website that the x15 (and some older Alienware laptops) has 2x4W speakers while the m15r6 only has 2x2W.

Regarding the QHD screen, in my country it's available in combination with 3060s and 3070s by October, but not the 3080. Even if they have supply issues elsewhere, it doesn't make a lot of sense not to make it available with the only GPU that can fully take advantage of the QHD screen since in all reviews they show that a FHD screen is often CPU limited in games with the 3080, even on high-end 11gen intel CPUs.

What is also annoying is that the X15 has a crippled TDP on the GPUs compared to the m15R6, especially on the 3070/3080s. Furthermore, on the x15 I tested at the store the CPU hit 100 degrees during my gaming test (it had a 11900h).

It seems to me that both the X15 and the m15R6 have advantages and disadvantages, which were introduced on purpose by Dell.

 

Agreed, but from my x15 testing the gpu could easily handle the same 130w that the r6 has, I am not sure why they capped it at 110w. The cpu can get hot but fortunately you are able to undervolt on the x15 unlike the m15r6 (and the m15r6 gets to almost 100c gaming too)

 

I hope that Dell will not block undervolting with a bios update on the x15. I just updated the bios of my 15R3 today with the latest version, and I had the nasty surprise to see that throttlestop is now greyed out for the first time since I bought the laptop 4-5 years ago.

It would be very interesting if you could lift the back of the laptop (with a book or a fanless laptop cooler) in your upcoming m15r6 review to see how much it helps with temperatures and performance.

 

The most crippled GPU version is in fact the 3060 in the x15 https://www.dell.com/en-us/lp/hmc-alienware-laptop-graphics-cards

90w vs 130w is more like 44% more castrated.

But this would mean the cheaper G series had more powerful GPU than their gaming flagship.

The 3060 in the G series gaming laptop already come with a more powerful graphics than what you will find in the x15, but with such change it would increase the differences further with your solution (115W>>>130W) https://www.dell.com/en-ca/shop/help-me-choose/cp/hmc-g-series-video-card-laptops

 

TBH considering all the advertisement they made about their new flagship x-series with quad cooling, I was hoping to see a 140-150W 3080 gpu included instead of the 110W on the x15

 

Another move aimed at pushing people towards the more expensive configs. Disgusting!

 

The CherryMX's are awesome and a nice addition to laptop mechanical keyboards. I agree about the R4..I have the same specs as well and it's a very solid system.

I have both the R5 (5900HX/3070) and R6 (11800H/3080) and they are pretty identical in a lot of ways. Not 100% 1:1 under the hood, but very little differences. The m15's do not have the vapor chamber, rather just the traditional heat copper heat pipes.

Dell G Series vs the Alienware m15 series is like "What a Honda (Dell G Series) is to an Acura (AW R5/6), " etc... different skin, shares a lot of the same parts, different SKU's for different price points etc... Many cars across all brands in the auto industry share the same engine and components.

The G Series is actually pretty decent this gen and IMO highly under rated for the money.

There's no doubt that a lot of short cuts were taken on the m15 R5 and R6, but if one can get creative and land a great deal on the R6 for example, it's a decent straight forward laptop that gets the job done.

At the same time there are a lot of great options for gaming laptops from the other brands that have stepped up their game. Interesting times and good for the consumer...

The speakers are very mediocre and it's sad because for me the last decent speakers on the AW were on the 17R4/5, which sounds miles better than the current speakers on the m and x series. Of course nothing can touch Apple MBP speakers to this day, but within the gaming laptop realm, the speaker quality should automatically be put on the bottom of the list for importance lol... sadly.

 

I believe the pallet my m15 r6 is on landed at O'Hare yesterday. If we're lucky, units from this should reach U.S. customers by end of this week/early next week.

My original order date was 8/20, with estimated ship date of Oct. 14th.

I went with the QHD panel, RTX 3070, Cherry MX keys. The stouter keyboard plus iunlock's teardown guide was the defining factor for me choosing this over other brands.

 

Thank you for the great review. Would it be possible to get an update explaining how overclocking works with the 11800h and overclocking testing results? It would also be great to see what improvements you get by lifting the back of the m15r6 either with a laptop cooler or with a book. In the previous m15 generations, lifting the laptop gave impressive improvements both in temperatures and performance.

 

Has anyone found a way to unlock undervolting? I have the latest bios.

 

I was not able to undervolt with the latest bios with throttlestop. It worked on the first version of the bios but I am not sure if you can downgrade to that bios.

 

Thanks Dell. Another kick in the collective stomach of the people who dislike the x15.

 

Yes it's very annoying. I would have ordered the X15 instead if I knew that they would cripple undervolting on the m15r6.

 

Added to the list of shame... BLACK LIST 3

http://forum.notebookreview.com/thr...cted-11th-gen-notebooks.836451/#post-11121064

 

I used the following instructions and was able to revert to 1.4.3 but that version is also locked. Someone else might have better luck depending on what BIOS they upgraded from:
"
Shutdown the computer and disconnect the AC

• Press and hold esc + ctrl
  
  
• reconnect the AC and turn on while holding esc + ctrl
  
  
• wait for .5 sec then release
  This will initiate the Bios Recovery mode and will then prompt you with 3 options, at that point you will chose to ROLLBACK"

 

Remember that the x15 is stripped of many ports, has soldered RAM, and significantly gimped graphics TGP.

 

Is the x17 the same?

 

Not at all. X17 has decent port selection, full TGP graphics and user-replaceable RAM. Still has the inverted MOBO but that's not a huge issue.

Sent from my SM-G970W using Tapatalk

 

X17 looks much better, although it's not perfect either (high latency RAM and low base TGP of 115W would probably count as the main flaws, if keyboard layout suits). Ports are all placed at the back, which is arguably not super-convenient.

 

For everyone wondering about Undervolting,

I followed the guide in this reddit thread: https://www.reddit.com/r/Lenovo/comments/id0457/guide_to_reenable_undervolting_after_latest_bios/
changing the values of both the CFG Lock and Overclocking Lock to 00 from 01.

I don't know if the values are the same across CPU's, but the values I got are here:

CFG Lock, VarStoreInfo (VarOffset/VarName): 0x43
Overclocking Lock, VarStoreInfo (VarOffset/VarName): 0xDF

This worked for my R6 with i7 11800H, and I can undervolt now without issue.

 

Out of curiosity, what score (overall + graphics) did you get on 3dmark Timespy with stock settings and performance mode? I just did a run and got 11.5k+ overall and 12k+ graphics points on mine.

 

Edit - stock I had about 10k score

11123 overall with 11181 GPU score. Do you have 3070 too?

 

I have a 3080. It looks like the results are consistent since I am getting 12k+ gpu score stock without overclocking.

 

This is my alienware m15r4 overclocked.

 

Is that with the GPU also overclocked? By how much did you increase core/memory in msi afterburner?

 

+100 core +300 mem

 

Thank you. I am getting graphics score above 13k points with +100/+300 which is consistent with what you posted. I tried to check if I could overclock the 11800H by up to 4 bins (something which is doable with other gaming laptop brands), but I cannot find the option in Alienware Command Center even though the OC app is installed. Maybe I missed an option in the bios settings to enable it, I'll have to check again.

 

11800h is not unlocked so no oc

 

It's not fully unlocked, but almost all gaming brands allow the 11800H to be overclocked by up to 4 bins (+400mhz). I have seen reports that it has been done on the x15/x17 laptops. I surely hope that the m15r6 is not the only version fully locked both for undervolting and for overclocking.

 

Nope, you haven't missed anything. Just the way Dell rule. Confirmed not allowed by their Community manager.



m15 R6, OC settings, how does it work? dell.com/community

@etern4l @Spartan@HIDevolution

Dell prefer that you pay the premium for the X series.

 

Alienware still has.no viable 15 inch laptop for me to consider buying as a successor to my m15 R1.. Well done.