Alienware 17 Pre-order Configuration Questions and Order Status Discussion - Part 5

Welcome to the Alienware 17 Pre-order Configuration Questions and Order Status Discussion thread.​

This is a place for you to share details and discuss order status of your new Alienware system.

Previous M17x Order Status thread links:

M17x-R2 ETA
M17x Order Status Thread Part 2
http://forum.notebookreview.com/alienware-m17x/487300-m17x-order-status-discussion-part-3-a.html

System Documentation Links:

Alienware M17x - Documentation
Alienware M17x R2 - Documentation
Alienware M17x R3 - Documentation
Alienware M17x R4 - Documentation
Alienware 17 - Quick Start Guide


http://forum.notebookreview.com/ali...ficial-alienware-17-owners-lounge-thread.html
http://forum.notebookreview.com/ali...lienware-m17x-r3-r4-owners-lounge-thread.html
http://forum.notebookreview.com/ali...m17x-r1-r2-owners-lounge-thread-part-1-a.html

General Information (Drivers, Clean Installs, etc.):

http://forum.notebookreview.com/ali...ion-how-search-forum-read-before-posting.html
http://forum.notebookreview.com/ali...rder-guide-alienware-systems.html#post9169473


Enjoy your Aliewnware 17 !

 

Alienware 17 Tech Specs:

Processor Help Me Choose

• 4th Generation Intel® Core™ i7-4700MQ (6MB Cache, up to 3.4GHz w/ Turbo Boost) (Standard)
• 4th Generation Intel® Core™ i7-4800MQ (6MB Cache, up to 3.7GHz w/ Turbo Boost)
• Overclocked 4th Generation Intel® Core™ i7-4900MQ (8MB Cache, up to 4.0GHz w/ Turbo Boost)
• 4th Generation Intel® Core™ i7-4930MX (8MB Cache, up to 3.9 GHz w/ Turbo Boost)

Operating SystemHelp Me Choose

• Windows® 7 Home Premium 64-bit, English
• Windows® 7 Ultimate 64-bit, English
• Windows 8, 64-bit, English
• Windows 8 Pro, 64-bit, English

Memory Help Me Choose

• 8GB Dual Channel DDR3L at 1600MHz
• 16GB Dual Channel DDR3L at 1600MHz
• 32GB Dual Channel DDR3L at 1600MHz

Chipset

• Intel HM87 Express Chipset

Video Card Help Me Choose

• NVIDIA® GeForce® GTX 765M with 2GB GDDR5
• NVIDIA® GeForce® GTX 770M with 3GB GDDR5
• NVIDIA® GeForce® GTX 780M with 4GB GDDR5

Display Help Me Choose

• 17.3" WLED HD+ (1600 x 900) Anti-Glare Display
• 17.3" WLED FHD (1920 x 1080) Anti-Glare Display
• 17.3" 120Hz WLED FHD (1920 x 1080) TrueLife Display w/3D Bundle

Audio and Speakers

• Internal High-Definition 5.1 Performance Audio with Dolby Home Theater v4 Software (Standard)
  2.0 Speaker configuration
  Audio Powered by Klipsch®
  7.1 Digtial Audio out using HDMI out connection or S/PDIF Optical port

Hard Drive Help Me Choose

• Up to 1500GB2 SATA hard drive (7200RPM)
• Up to 1000GB2 SATA hard drive

Optical Drive

• Slot-Loading 8x SuperMulti Drive (DVD±R/RW) (Standard)
  Slot-Loading Dual Layer Blu-ray Reader (BD-ROM, DVD±RW, CD-RW)

Power

• 8-cell Lithium Ion (86 wHr)
  180W A/C Adapter
  240W A/C Adapter

Camera

• FullHD 2MP Camera with dual digital microphones

Wireless

• Killer Networks Gigabit Ethernet NIC (Standard)
  5G WiFi Broadcom 4352 802.11n/ac and Bluetooth 4.0 (Standard)

Ports, Slots & Chassis

• AlienFX Lighting Zones
  10 unique programmable zones with up to 20 distinct colors providing over 10 trillion lighting combinations
  
  Customized Features
  Laser-Engraved Nameplate
  
  Dimensions & Starting weight
  Height: Front: 46.24 mm. (1.820) Rear: 48.46 mm. (1.908)
  Depth: 299.00 mm. (11.772)
  Width: 413.56 mm. (16.282)
  Starting at weight with optional SSD: 4.1501 Kg. (9.1494 Lbs.)
  
  External Chassis Connections
  (1x) Power/DC-in Jack
  (1x) RJ-45 Gigabit Ethernet IPv6 (3x) SuperSpeed USB 3.0 Ports
  (1x) SuperSpeed USB 3.0 Port with PowerShare Technology
  (1x) Mini-Display Port
  (1x) HDMI 1.4 Output / 1.3 Input
  (1x) 9-in-1 Media Card Reader
  (2x) Audio Out 1/8" Ports (One compatible with inline mic headset)
  (1x) Line In Microphone 1/8" Port (retaskable for 5.1 analog audio output)
  (1x) Kensington Security Lock port (cable and lock sold separately)
  
  Exterior Chassis Materials
  Anodized Aluminum
  Magnesium Alloy
  
  Keyboard
  4-Zone, multi-color RGB, keyboard with AlienFX lighting controls and numeric keypad
  4 user-programmable keys providing up to 4 distinct functions per application or game
  
  Memory Slots
  4x 204-Pin DDR3L SO-DIMM SDRAM Slots
  
  Software
  Alienware Command Center
  AlienFX™
  AlienTouch™
  AlienFusion
  AlienAdrenaline w/ Accelerator
  Alienware TactX™
  
  Touchpad
  Backlit button image sensor trackpad with all-points addressable (APA)

 

still not sure if alienware 17 is using ips panel or not, got the same question on 18 as well.

 

Actually the 17 only has TN panels, while the 18 has a PLS panel which is very similar to IPS tech. See the dedicated thread here.

 

What is this IPS I keep hearing about? Also, a tech told me 2 765m's would be better than a single 780 and that they would blow the 780 out of the water if I went that route. (that route being a 780 17, over a dual 765 18)

 

Just order a new Alienware 17 on 6/15. After hours of talking to sales agents and using the chat on the Dell page, I finally seemed to get a deal that actually worked out. Well here are the specs:

Processor: 4th Gen Intel Core i7-4700MQ (6MB Cache, up to 3.4GHz w/ Turbo Boost)
Memory: 16GB Dual Channel DDR3L at 1600MHz
Hard Drive: 750GB 7200RPM SATA 3Gb/s
Display: WLED FHD (1920 x 1080) Anti-Glare Display
Video Card: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 780M with 4GB GDDR5

Ordered on 6/15
Started processing on morning of 6/16
Entered Pre-production on evening of 6/17
Entered Production on morning of 6/20

Estimated Delivery on 7/18/13

Hoping to be in production soon!

 

m17 also take one month

 

Sold my M17X-R4 I ordered about a year ago today and ordered my Alienware 17

4700MQ
16GB RAM
780M

Ordered: 6/27
Pre-Prod: 6/27
In-Production: 6/27
Delivery Estimate: 7/22

Excited!

 

IPS (In-plane switching) is a screen technology used for liquid crystal displays (LCDs). It was designed to solve the main limitations of TN-effect LCDs, such as relatively slow response time, strong viewing angle dependence and low-quality color reproduction.

A single 780 should be able to give a great performance in most upcoming games, 2x765's on the other hand are not only good but give you the alternative of upgrading 2 sockets rather than one later on.

You can find more information about the new laptops here:

http://forum.notebookreview.com/alienware/721403-official-alienware-launch-discussion-thread.html

 

i ordered my new alienware 17 laptop the 13th of june. Im new to alienware and was wondering how much longer do i have to wait to get it. Has anyone got theres yet?

 

I would get the single 780m and wait 'til I get some budget to add a second one

 

Get a single 780 in the 18?

 

Not likely. A 765M's performance is (generously) half as good as a 780M's. You'd need about 100% SLI scaling to even hit the 780M.

 

What about two 770's?

 

Two 770s would definitely outperform a single 780. A 780M is about 30% better than a 770M in benchmarks I've seen, and with reasonable SLI scaling, two 770Ms would be a decent step up.

 

Hello, I am a Macbook Pro owner -due to my work mainly- who recently decided to switch back to Windows and give Alienware a shot ;-) I was wondering, how is the battery on the 17inch? Compare to the 18inch? As funny as it sounds, while I don't care about size/ weight as a portability factor, I care about the touchpad. How is it?

PS: Dell UK does 100-200 pounds off each AW model! And on top of that, you can apply your 10% VIP

 

when will the Cnet review be out of Alienware m17x R4 ?

 

The 17's battery life during light tasks should be four to six hours with Optimus. I haven't used the new 17, but the m17x r4 touchpad is fine. It's not wonderful, but I played fast-twitch games with it without much trouble before I bought a mouse.

 

well, configured a m17 then saw that dell do buy now pay in 12 months, put a couple of coupons in my order to reduce the price and what the hell......ordered it! now i have 12 months to get the cash together! (i was planning on getting one next year anyway)

 

They told me I had to pay the amount the dell perfered account didn't give me right away. Is this what you had to do?

 

No, straightforward buy now......and pay in 12 months interest free. I get the laptop just like any normal purchase, my edd is currently 2nd august.

Im in the UK so mot sure how other countries operate the buy now pay later system but i presume its the same.

 

So I can buy now without paying anything as long as I pay it off in 12 months?

Edit: only reason I ask is because it says you pay back what you purchased with the preferred account which was only 1,000 for me. Then a rep told me I had to pay what the preferred account didn't give me.

 

Thanks for that I will get an AW17. I narrowed down my choices into two configurations:
-4700MQ with a 780M
-4800MQ with a 780M, but also you get mandatory a 64Gb SSD cache and the bluray.

I doubt I will use the bluray more than 10-20 times a year and was planning getting a descent size SSD anyway. In case I get the later, may I use an SSD as my boot drive and leave the 64Gb as cache for the 750Gb?

How does 4700vs4800 compare? Worth the extra 250 pounds? I plan keeping this laptop for at least 3 years.

I currently got 2.2Ghz quad core MBP from the Sandy bridge refresh and in terms of CPU power other than gaming I am fine -working as software developer and usually ending up optimising code for lower-spec machine...

 

There is a £45 deposit for doing it this way (taken off the amount owed) and a 'admin' charge of £25 added to your bill at the end of 12 months. So in effect you pay £25 but get 12 months to pay off your machine without any interest.

Oh, but you must make sure you pay it off before the 12 months are up otherwise it turns into a loan charging a stupid 28.9% apr!

 

Athonline: I'd get the 4700, then spend the cash on a dedicated 250/500GB SSD. A far better option than a 64GB cache drive (and blu-ray isn't all it's cracked up to be either).

 

Hey! For better or the worse I got the 4800... I will get a 128Gb SSD later an add it -instead of a 250Gb. Thanks however for you advice

 

Alright I'm trying to haggle the price of the AW 17 $2199 4700mq, 16gb ram, 780m, the dell chat failed miserably so I will call later, I NEED HELP WITH THIS!!!!


Sent from my HTC6435LVW using Tapatalk 2

 

Hello, everyone. Is it possible to buy the new Alienware 17 in Europe for 1300 euro + shipping.

 

Here: Alienware 17 Gaming Laptop | Dell

 

There are import taxes + vat = 30% bigger price. I'm looking for something in European Union, if possible.

 

Spain has an AW site: Portátiles para juegos: personaliza un potente portátil para juegos Al | Dell España
You should be able to translate VIA Google

EDIT: its still over your budget, but you should be able to get around 100 off and free shipping with good persistent haggling

 

Guys, you all know about the throtteling of the GPU in the AW17 - why do you keep ordering this laptop?!

 

Don't know why people are still ordering. But I would like to order one too but I'm hesitant because of throttling issues. The one I'll be buying is the one with the 780M and the 3D screen. I may have read that throttling is less of an issue because of the absence of Optimus with the 3D screen. Can anyone tell me if this is true?

 

Because it's not an issue for everyone, and for those that it is, it takes all of 5 minutes to fix...

EDIT: I'd also like to say that Dell is indeed aware of the issue and actively trying to fix it for everyone. I (and anyone else who posted about throttling issues) received a message from support here asking for logs and any info we had on use to help solve the problem on Dell's end. It's not a hardware issue, so any fix will be easy to download once it's issued. The throttling wouldn't concern me in the slightest. I did return my 17, but that was because I decided I wanted an MX processor and SLI'd cards.

It throttles at 77C without Optimus. Though once I updated my BIOS to A03, the problem went away for the most part and I got everything stock performance should have been. My overclocks wouldn't work right without SVL7's modded vBIOS though.

 

You mean the modded vBIOS?

 

That's the option for those who want to tweak it more. Raising the temp limit in Precision X is another that doesn't void the GPU warranty, and while you don't get the unlocked OC sliders, you get everything it was supposed to be stock.

 

Hi, please help me decide which CPU should I take with GTX 780M. Is i7-4700MQ sufficient for this GPU or should I go for i7-4800MQ? I have studied benchmark thread but still can't decide, especially that Dell forces me to buy BlueRay and 64GB SSD with the upgrade, which I don't really need. Thanks!

 

The 4700MQ is fine for a single 780M. You'll get a slight bump in frame rates going with the 4800MQ, but nothing significant. Only reason to upgrade to the other processors with the 17 is if you know you'll be able to take advantage of the features they have over the base processor, or if you simply insist on having the best processor.

 

Thanks for your answer. I only insist on having the best GPU, for being able to play latest games as long as possible. If 4700MQ is not a bottleneck for single 780M and won't decrease its performance significantly, I'm fine with it. If it's all about few more FPS I wouldn't even notice the difference.

 

Anyone here know if the AW 17 comes with a triple pipe heat sink if you order the 4930MX?

 

I have the 4900 and it came with the triple-pipe heat sink

 

It did? That's nice to know. So, you've got two triple-pipe heat sinks in there?

I'm going to have to order one and do an upgrade.

 

Looks like my order is going to be delayed again, still listed as in-production with delivery date 8/5. Whats the typical time frame for order fulfillment? It's been 3 weeks now =-/

Theres some funky shenanigans with pricing going on atm with the alienware m17 system. The prices have shot up to the next tier (from what they were), with the addition of the new fourth tier.
What i ordered in july was 4800mq, 16gb ram, 780m gtx and 3d vision 120hz screen upgrade ~2700.oo
That config is no longer available, you can get a similar one with a 770m (you cannot select 780m) for ~2300.00
The one i ordered is now listed as ~3700.00

Something doesn't smell right here.
My prediction: order is mysteriously canceled with no notification and no reason given, ill call, i'll be told 'gosh, we sure are sorry, no idea, we can re-order it for you' followed by bait & switch "gosh, that config is no longer available for that price, it was an introductory price, its now $1000 more. Would you like to place it anyway?"

I will be utterly shocked if the above is not how it plays out.

 

Yes what the heck happened to the Alienware 17s? I am looking at their website and you can no longer even really customize the freaking machine. It like you have to choose a tiered option, and the only one being offered with the 780m is 3700$!!! What the heck? Alienware will price themselves out of business if that is true.

 

yeah I was looking at getting one and running into this issue

 

Is there anyway to get dell to expedite the production of the new system :\ .. I got a one month production time. Anyone had any luck with this?

 

No... Why should it?

 

The 780's are on backorder. It's going to add an additional week to the production time.

 

In my case it added an additional 2 weeks

 

Anybody seen any benchmarks for the 770 GPU?