Alright so I got the Alienware 14 Quick thoughts

Just quick thoughts on the new Alienware 14. The build quality is near perfect (with exception the hand rests that look like they may look grease after over use).

The system itself runs smooth and the screen is amazing...I did have a lot of trouble installing a 3rd hard drive in the system (replacing the DVD with an special hard drive holder. It seems like the laptop is either not compatible with that option or isn't pumping enough juice into the hdd because it sometimes shoes it sometimes doesn't) I've tried readjusting it, replacing it and really only the DVD drive works flawlessly*

Either way, a little bit of a pain, but with 256 GB SSD + mSata the system is running perfectly on Windows 8 Enterprise (not activated...because apparently I have to call Windows Monday to activate the damn thing).

The system boots fast, the alienware software feels less clunky then it use to (when I had the R1 m11x and m14x, launching AlienwareFX took forever).

The system does get a little hot on the right side, but nothing uncomfortable. Games ran flawlessly, with 135+ MHz overlock on core (although any memory overclock seems to crash the driver). I did hit a bug or something though, when playing Counter strike Go, the system would drop my frames from 200 fps to 50 consistantly....if I alt tab out of the game then go back in the frames go up then settle back at 50. This is the only game that it happens in. I've checked drivers, I've checked setting and I've also updated to A04 bios (which crashed my windows and I had to restore it).

Any ideas? I've deleted cs off my mSATA and put it on my main SSD to test, but Left 4 dead 2 runs on my mSata and it was running 200+ frames constantly online.

My GPU temps never go above 67.

Thanks

Edit1, hmm installing it on my main ssd seemed to have fixed the cs lag:S

A general score I'd give it 9.2/10.

Positives
Very sleek, absolutely amazing build quality. Deep blacks and contrast + colors, excellent support (both drivers + Dell tech support

Negatives
Thick, LOUD, screen angles are not quite as good as expect but definitely a lot better than my old Lenovo. Battery life.

The system is a absolutely bargain at around 1500$ I'd say, though the power bar could have been smaller lol See sig for Configuration (though some parts custom)

 

Grats. Still foaming at the mouth for mine to ship. I recall a few release review said there were issues sometimes with optimus. If you hit any issues try running the dedicated card only (think it is fn+f5).

Sent from my GT-P7310 using Tapatalk 4

 

Not sure about Optimus Issues, but I do have to whitelist almost EVERY indie game or early release game I hope optimus Evolves into a more organic function. It runs on a list basis, it should be self aware of what the program's using haha (Might be asking too much...and I have a feeling judgement day won't be far away when that happens!)

 

I'm glad you like the new AW you received, I also wish the Optimus was more automatic, unfortunately it is still under development and requires some manual tweaks to work better.

 

Loudness is not a problem to me
Like a sport car, I actually like it loud

 

Honestly the loudness isn't like a saw or anything its very casual, and frankly the heat levels are more than worth the fan noise!

Did a mini comparison vs 660m with a heavy OC here

http://forum.notebookreview.com/ali...mhz-5400-mhz-alienware-14-vs-lenovo-y580.html

 

isn't that 900MHz the default maximum boost clock of the 765m?
since it's the defaulted, I personally don't consider it as "overclock" at all
To me, dragging the offset slider to the max is the way to do it It can sustain stable 1035 MHz with little memory overclocking

 

I only did a 103 mhz overclock, it did boost itself up to as high as 999 Mhz during test. I do not think that I can boost it to 135+ it crashes my drivers, but I'm NOT using dell stock drivers I'm using Nvidia.

To put things into perspective:

 

Good to know. Just got mine last night, and spent the night getting it reloaded and setup how I like it. Spent this morning downloading games and off to my terrible retail job. Got an exam tomorrow (mid term) so no games for me tonight :-/

Love the machine so far. Great build quality, awesome lights, and super-fast with my sammy 830 256gb drive.

Sent from my GT-P7310 using Tapatalk 4

 

Same setup!! The GPU-Z is showing 998MHz, but msi afterburner was showing 1032MHz on OSD
I believe it's the highest clockspeed the vbios allows

 

The same thing happened to me. After the restore, everything worked fine.

 

Looks like it